The Criterion Collection

Jean-Luc Godard’s film debut wasn’t his only breathless feature. Five years later, in 1964, he directed another jazzy, fast-paced, black-and-white tale of crime, Band of Outsiders. Starring the director’s muse Anna Karina, Sami Frey, and Claude Brasseur as a flirtatious trio who hatch a somewhat misguided robbery, Godard’s film is as much a tribute to older Hollywood gangster films as it is a forward-looking example of the French New Wave. From its unforgettable Louvre-in-less-than-ten-minutes scene to the three stars’ classically cool performance of the dance the Madison, Band of Outsiders is a blast.

It’s playing this week, in a double feature with Breathless, at Los Angeles’s Aero Theatre. Check out the jaunty theatrical trailer: