The French New Wave

The late-1950s and 1960s French films made by young critics who wanted cinema to feel personal, quick and alive.

They shot in the street, broke continuity rules and let directors speak in their own voice.

It opens with the first films of the movement, Chabrol and Truffaut, and Godard's jump cuts, then widens to the Left Bank filmmakers.

It ends in the mid-1960s, when the movement turns more political and experimental.