The Criterion Collection
Essays
Apr 8, 2014 — In telling the story of the young outcast Antoine Doinel, François Truffaut was moving both backward and forward in time—recalling his own experience while forging a filmic language that would grow more sophisticated throughout the 1960s.
Apr 26, 2009 — The British film magazine Sight & Sound dedicates its May issue to the fiftieth anniversary of the French New Wave, which it dates to the first screening of François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (on May 4, 1959, at the Cannes...
Short Takes
Oct 3, 2012 — Every ten years since 1952, the world-renowned film magazine Sight & Sound has polled a wide international selection of film critics and directors on what they consider to be the ten greatest works of cinema ever made, and then compiled...
Sneak Peeks
Apr 8, 2014 — Jean-Pierre Léaud defines the word precocious in this charming 16 mm footage of the confident teenager’s audition for François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows. As we know, the rest is history. You can see more from Léaud’s audition (including some improvised...
Apr 21, 2009 — Fifty years ago today . . . Godard wrote this New Wave battle cry for the April 22, 1959, issue of the French journal Arts, on the news of François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows being selected to represent France at...
Mar 27, 2009 — Thanks to IFC Daily’s David Hudson for tipping us off to a couple of top-notch articles this week marking the fiftieth anniversary of the French New Wave. That’s right, it was fifty years ago, in May to be precise, that...
Sep 13, 2011 — Hollywood has been importing talented European filmmakers at least since the early twenties, when Victor Sjöström and Ernst Lubitsch heeded the siren wail of Tinseltown resources, and their work there has tended to quickly obscure the cultural memory of the...
The comedian, actor, and director talks about loving the relatable weirdness of Grey Gardens and the compulsive passion of Crumb; praises Miranda July’s singular, offbeat voice; and shares how The 400 Blows (a Natasha Lyonne recommendation) evokes empathy for the...
The writer, director, and actor talks about a parallel between The 400 Blows and his popular show It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the inspiration he has taken from Being There, and his excitement about exploring the work of Agnès Varda.
On the Channel
Jun 17, 2025 — This July, find love under the sun with our Summer Romances collection and flirt with the seductive dangers of Miami’s most thrilling neonoirs.