What Is the French New Wave? Background and Revolutionary Techniques

The French New Wave permanently changed how films are made and influenced some of the greatest directors of our time. But what exactly is the French New Wave? How did it start, 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 impact of the French New Wave continues through modern filmmakers such as Tarantino and Scorsese, to name just a couple.

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 stylistic contributions the movement made to filmmaking, let’s first look at a bit of 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 in cinema history. Also known simply as “the New Wave,” it gave rise to a new kind of cinema that was highly self‑aware and radically subversive of mainstream film production. A group of French critics writing for the magazine Cahiers du cinéma believed that cinema had lost its original charm. They felt these films were disconnected from people’s real lives.

Many celebrated French directors were involved in the 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?

Characteristics of the French New Wave:

• Little emphasis on plot and dialogue, often heavily improvised
• Jump cuts instead of continuity editing
• Location shooting
• Handheld cameras
• Long takes
• Direct sound and available light (on‑location recording, usually with no lighting adjustments)

A brief history of the French New Wave

The French New Wave was born in postwar, hungry France. French critics and film lovers were craving culture but were left only with mainstream media that felt stale and contrived, so they 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 wave of “new” films. All the works by Hollywood giants such as Welles, Hitchcock, and Ford energized the French critics—and the rest is history.

Revolutionary techniques

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

Non‑linear and fragmented editing became another important and exciting contribution. For decades, every shot A would logically lead to shot B, leaving no gaps in the information that might confuse the audience. Now, in these French films, logic became secondary.

The video The Image Book highlights 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 exciting and artistic directing careers in cinema.

Landmark New Wave works

Bande à part (Band of Outsiders) (1964)

This film tells the story of three young people who plan a robbery together. Of course, things don’t go as planned and chaos ensues. For modern audiences, there are few French New Wave films better suited than Bande à part. That’s not to say it’s better than its contemporaries, but it is more conventional, with a perfectly judged commercial balance.

In a nutshell, Bande à part is a fun heist movie, but relatively conservative, and clearly not as daring as most of Godard’s films.

Pierrot le fou (1965)

One of Jean‑Luc Godard’s boldest works, this surrealist on‑the‑run film stars French New Wave icons Anna Karina and Jean‑Paul Belmondo. The film may not quite match Godard’s very best work, but thanks to its superb cinematography, it is undeniably stunning. It also showcases the unapologetic imagination about sex and romance that had only just begun to emerge in early French New Wave films.

Tirez sur le pianiste (Shoot the Piano Player) (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, yet he achieved great success with the technically innovative Shoot the Piano Player. The film is one of the French New Wave works that popularized many Hollywood genre conventions—such as the cold, ruthless American gangster film.

Les cousins (The Cousins) (1959)

The Cousins is a gripping psychological drama about two opposing personalities clashing with one another. Charles is naive and hardworking, while Paul is an outgoing performer with natural talent. The only thing they have in common is that they’re cousins. But when Charles falls in love with a woman with a promiscuous past, he threatens to destroy his already fragile relationship with his cousin. It is one of famed director Claude Chabrol’s finest films of the French New Wave.

Lola (1961)

Jacques Demy’s directorial debut Lola tells a twisting love story set on the French coast. The film stars Anouk Aimée as a cabaret performer longing for the man who abandoned her seventeen years earlier.

To a great 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 capricious sense of youth that has become synonymous with the French New Wave. The film centers on the impact of the Algerian conflict on French family life, 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 best French New Wave films.

Jules et Jim (1962)

François Truffaut’s thrilling wartime love story Jules et Jim is a key film of the French New Wave. It tells of a love triangle between two young men, Jules and Jim, and their infatuation with a beautiful young woman named Catherine. Jules et Jim is a film about everything and nothing at once—war, sex, and romance swirl in such abundance that they almost obscure the simplicity at the heart of the story.

L’année dernière à Marienbad (Last Year at 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 unnamed people (two men and one woman) struggling to assert themselves at a fashionable party.

But nothing in Last Year at Marienbad is what it seems: time and space are instantly warped, objectivity is forgotten, and relationships shift from moment to moment. Writer and critic Mark Polizzotti makes this case in his essay “Last Year at Marienbad: Which Year, Where?” The film is a foundational work that inspired stylistic choices 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 in visual storytelling and film editing. It also showed that French cinema was moving in new technical and narrative directions. With its explicit sexuality, unapologetic creativity, and novel filmmaking techniques, Hiroshima mon amour broke free from the stagnation of the French film industry.

Paris nous appartient (Paris Belongs to Us) (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 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 it as an allegory of Cold War tensions, while others compare it to a visual version of a Kantian thought experiment.

Cléo de 5 à 7 (Cléo from 5 to 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 follows two hours in the life of a beautiful and successful singer, Cléo. Although the world is at her feet, she is more miserable than ever, fearing 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 profoundly moving yet optimistic portrait of life, love, and empowerment.

Vivre sa vie: Film en douze tableaux (My Life to Live) (1962)

It’s hard to find a film more depressing than Vivre sa vie. Jean‑Luc Godard’s portrayal of a young woman who becomes a prostitute is as bleak as narrative cinema gets—but that doesn’t 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 perils of a cruel, ever‑changing society.

Le mépris (Contempt) (1963)

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

À bout de souffle (Breathless) (1960)

Breathless is widely considered the most iconic French New Wave film. Ironically, many of the era’s directors, such as Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles, did not enjoy broad recognition in the United States until the 1970s, with the rise of the film‑school generation—the Hollywood New Wave. Breathless is the work that synthesizes the New Wave’s popular jump cuts, long takes, and “roughened” style.

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

What is left to say about The 400 Blows? It is astonishing, beautiful, heartbreaking, despairing, hopeful, and liberating. The film utterly transformed the landscape of French cinema, and its popularity helped trigger the New Wave. François Truffaut tells the story of a rebellious boy who cannot fit into a rapidly 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, but quite possibly the greatest French‑language film ever made. It is the first of four features about the fictional character Antoine Doinel, serving as a semi‑autobiographical portrait of Truffaut himself.