What is the French New Wave? Background and Revolutionary Techniques

The French New Wave permanently changed the way films are made and influenced some of the greatest directors of our time. But what is the French New Wave? How did it begin, and why? This article will give you a definition, a brief historical background, and highlight some key features of the movement’s earliest pioneering works. As we’ll see, the influence of the French New Wave continues to be felt in the work of modern filmmakers such as Tarantino and Scorsese, to name just two.

Background and style

For one of the most influential movements in film history, it’s not easy to define! Before we move on to some of the movement’s stylistic contributions to filmmaking, let’s first look at some background.

What is the French New Wave?

The French New Wave was a film movement of the 1950s and 1960s, and one of the most influential movements in the history of cinema. Also known simply as the “New Wave,” it ushered in a new kind of film that was highly self‑conscious and radically subversive of mainstream moviemaking. A group of French critics writing for the magazine Cahiers du Cinéma believed that cinema had lost its original charm. They felt that films had become detached from people’s real lives.

Many well‑known French film directors took part in this movement, including François Truffaut, Jean‑Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Éric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette, Louis Malle, Alain Resnais, Agnès Varda, and Jacques Demy. Their films were characterized by a rejection of cinematic tradition—but how did they do this?

Features of the French New Wave:

• Little emphasis on plot and dialogue, which were often improvised

• Jump cuts instead of continuity editing

• Location shooting

• Handheld cameras

• Long takes

• Direct sound and available light (on‑site recording, often without adjusted lighting)

A brief history of the French New Wave

The French New Wave was born in postwar, hungry France. French critics and film lovers, starved for culture and left with only mainstream media that felt stale and contrived, began experimenting with different filmmaking techniques. Their influences included Italian Neorealism and American film noir of the 1940s and 1950s.

During World War II, foreign films stopped being imported into France. After the war, these embargoes were lifted and these cinephiles and critics were flooded with a deluge of “new” films. The work of Hollywood giants such as Welles, Hitchcock, and Ford energized French critics, and the rest is history.

Revolutionary techniques

For decades, mainstream filmmaking—especially in Hollywood—had set the standards and “rules” for how films should be made. French filmmakers understood these rules… and then threw them out the window. Smaller, lighter cameras were often “liberated” from tripods and shot handheld, bringing new life and energy to films.

Non‑linear and fragmented editing became another major and exciting contribution. For decades, every shot A led logically to shot B, leaving no gaps in the information for fear of confusing the audience. Now, in these French films, logic became secondary.

The video essay “The Abandoned Image” highlights some of the radical choices made by French director Jean‑Luc Godard. His film Breathless became one of the most outstanding works of the movement and launched one of the most thrilling and artistically significant careers of any film director.

Representative works of the New Wave

Band of Outsiders (Bande à part) (1964)

This film tells the story of three young people who plan a robbery together. Naturally, things do not go according to plan and chaos ensues. For modern audiences, there are few French New Wave films better than Band of Outsiders. This isn’t to say it’s superior to its contemporaries, only that it is more restrained and perfectly balanced in its commercial appeal.

In a nutshell, Band of Outsiders is a fun heist film, but comparatively conservative and clearly less daring than most of Godard’s work.

Pierrot le Fou (1965)

One of Jean‑Luc Godard’s boldest films, this surreal road‑movie‑cum‑escape story stars French New Wave icons Anna Karina and Jean‑Paul Belmondo. The film may not fully match Godard’s very best work, but thanks to its superb cinematography it is unquestionably stunning. It also showcases the unabashed fantasies about sex and romance that were just beginning to blossom in early French New Wave films.

Shoot the Piano Player (Tirez sur le pianiste) (1960)

Shoot the Piano Player is perhaps most notable for its use of widescreen cinematography, but it is also a great and daring story. Following his debut feature, The 400 Blows, François Truffaut faced an almost impossible task—but he achieved tremendous success with the technically innovative Shoot the Piano Player. It is one of the French New Wave films that helped popularize many Hollywood genre traditions, such as the cold, ruthless American gangster film.

The Cousins (Les cousins) (1959)

The Cousins is a gripping psychological drama about two people with opposing personalities who come into conflict with each other. Charles is naïve and hardworking, while Paul is an outgoing performer with natural talent. The only thing these characters share is that they are cousins. But when Charles falls in love with a woman with a promiscuous past, he threatens to destroy his fragile relationship with his cousin. It is one of the finest French New Wave films by the renowned director Claude Chabrol.

Lola (1961)

Jacques Demy’s directorial debut, Lola, tells a twist‑filled love story set on the French coast. The film stars Anouk Aimée as a cabaret performer who longs to find the man who abandoned her seventeen years earlier.

To a large extent, Lola has been overshadowed by Demy’s later works, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort, which is a shame, because it is one of the absolutely essential French New Wave films.

Adieu Philippine (1962)

Adieu Philippine perhaps better than any other film of the movement conveys the willful youthful spirit that has become synonymous with the French New Wave. The film revolves around the impact of the Algerian conflict on family life in France, a theme common to many New Wave films.

Adieu Philippine is director Jacques Rozier’s masterpiece about the trials and pains of growing up, and one of the finest French New Wave films.

Jules and Jim (Jules et Jim) (1962)

François Truffaut’s thrilling wartime love story Jules and Jim is a key film of the French New Wave. Jules and Jim follows a love triangle between two young men (Jules and Jim) and their obsession with a beautiful young woman named Catherine. Jules and Jim is a film about everything and nothing—war, sex, and romance in such abundance that they overshadow the simplicity at the heart of the story.

Last Year at Marienbad (L’année dernière à Marienbad) (1961)

Alain Resnais’s surreal film Last Year at Marienbad is one of the most visually unforgettable works of the period. It tells the story of three nameless people (two men and one woman) striving to be recognized by one another at a fashionable party.

But nothing in Last Year at Marienbad is what it seems; time and space warp in an instant, objectivity is forgotten, and relationships change from moment to moment. Writer and critic Mark Polizzotti explores this idea in his essay “Last Year at Marienbad: Which Year? Where?” The film is a foundational work that inspired stylistic decisions in The Shining and Memento.

Hiroshima mon amour (1959)

Although Hiroshima mon amour was made by Alain Resnais, a member of the Left Bank group, in many ways it launched the French New Wave. It marked a huge leap forward in visual storytelling and film editing. It also showed that French cinema was heading in a new direction both technically and narratively. Hiroshima mon amour cast off the shackles of a stagnant French film industry with its explicit sexuality, unapologetic creativity, and novel filmmaking techniques.

Paris Belongs to Us (Paris nous appartient) (1961)

Paris Belongs to Us is a shocking nightmare about a world at a moral and existential crossroads. The film follows a young woman named Anne who finds herself caught up in a series of absurd situations, all of which are connected to death. After nearly sixty years of debate, the meaning of Paris Belongs to Us is still open to interpretation. Some see the film as an allegory of Cold War tensions, while others compare it to a visual representation of a Kantian thought experiment.

Cléo from 5 to 7 (Cléo de 5 à 7) (1962)

Agnès Varda is one of the most important figures in French cinema, and Cléo from 5 to 7 is her signature work. The film portrays two hours in the life of a beautiful and successful singer named Cléo. Though the world is at her fingertips, Cléo is more miserable than ever, fearful that she will receive bad news from a cancer test. Cléo from 5 to 7 employs many typical French New Wave techniques, such as jump cuts, montage structures, and long takes. It is a movingly optimistic portrait of life, love, and empowerment.

Vivre sa vie: Film in Twelve Tableaux (1962)

It would be hard to find a film more depressing than Vivre sa vie. Jean‑Luc Godard’s depiction of a young woman who becomes a prostitute is as bleak as narrative cinema gets, but that does not mean it isn’t a great film. On the contrary, Vivre sa vie is one of the director’s greatest works and a bold step forward for the French New Wave. Anna Karina also steals the show here, playing a well‑meaning woman trapped in the cruelty and dangers of an ever‑changing society.

Contempt (Le mépris) (1963)

French New Wave filmmakers were deeply inspired by earlier film movements, including German Expressionism, Italian Neorealism, and Hollywood’s Golden Age. Le Mépris combines the best aspects of these three movements: it features Fritz Lang, the famous heir to German Expressionism; it was shot at Cinecittà, Italy’s renowned studio; and it uses Hollywood archetypes in its story. It is one of Jean‑Luc Godard’s most personal works and an emblem of cinematic freedom and sensuality.

Breathless (À bout de souffle) (1960)

Breathless is widely regarded as the most iconic French New Wave film. Ironically, many of the directors of this era, such as Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles, were not broadly acclaimed in the United States until the 1970s, with the arrival of the film‑school generation—the Hollywood New Wave. Breathless brings together the jump cuts, long takes, and “roughened” style that were so popular in the French New Wave.

The 400 Blows (Les quatre cents coups) (1959)

What is there left to say about The 400 Blows? It is astonishing, beautiful, heartbreaking, despairing, hopeful, and liberating. The 400 Blows is the film that completely transformed the landscape of French cinema, and its popularity helped ignite the New Wave. François Truffaut tells the story of a rebellious boy at odds with a changing society, a story as relevant today as it was in 1959. The 400 Blows is not only the best film of the French New Wave; it is quite possibly the greatest French‑language film ever made. It is the first of four features about the fictional character Antoine Doinel, a semi‑autobiographical stand‑in for Truffaut himself.