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BY: Claire Connors

French New Wave or La Nouvelle Vague is probably one of the most talked about and admired cinematic movements in the history of filmmaking. Back in the 50s and 60s, a group of young critics writing for a French film magazine called Cahier du Cinéma revolted against the more traditional movies coming out of their country, calling for, well, a new wave. One of those writers, François Truffaut, was an early adapter to this new style of movie making, which was typically shot documentary style with hand-held cameras, in rich black & white vs the popular technicolor of that era, and dealt with current social issues like sex and politics.

Truffaut credits the American film, Little Fugitive, as helping to start this new era. He said of the film, “Our French New Wave would never have come into being, if it hadn’t been for the young American Morris Engel who showed us the way to independent production with (this) fine movie.” Engel made the film with his wife, photographer Ruth Orkin and writer Ray Ashley.

We’ve gathered the best of French New Wave trailers here. All are available on Amazon Prime, and you can see Little Fugitive for free on youtube.com tonight. Enjoy.

The Little Fugitive (on Youtube)

Seven-year-old Joey (Richard Andrusco) is fooled into thinking he’s committed a terrible crime, the killing of his older brother, Lennie (Richard Brewster). Fearing he’ll be imprisoned, he runs away from his lower-middle class Brooklyn home, hopping a subway to the grimy but exciting world of Coney Island. Shot in black and white, with handheld cameras, and using mostly unprofessional actors, this 1953 breakthrough film won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award for best story.

Breathless (on Amazon)

The 1960 film, Breathless, jumpstarted a lot of careers, including those of first-time director Jean-Luc Goddard, French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo, and American actor Jean Seberg. Belmondo stars as Michel, a small-time crook with a Humphrey Bogart obsession, hence the fedora and constant cigarette hanging between his seductive lips. After heartlessly killing a cop, he hides out with Patricia (Seberg), his sexy, smart girlfriend, who eventually comes to a life-changing decision about her hoodlum boyfriend.

Hiroshima Mon Amour (on Amazon)

The exquisite Emmanuelle Riva stars in this romantic drama directed by Alain Resnais. Set in post-WWII Japan, Riva plays Elle, a French actor making an anti-war movie in Hiroshima after its destruction from the atomic bomb, while carrying on an affair a married architect (Eiji Okada). Beautifully shot, this 1959 film is considered one of the French New Wave’s best.

Jules et Jim (on Amazon)

The love triangle to end all love triangles. Jules (Oskar Werner) and Jim (Henri Serre) are best friends, both in love with the same woman, Catherine (Jeanne Moreau) in pre-WWII Paris. As they frolic and romance each other, Catherine eventually chooses and marries Jules. Years later when they meet up in post-war Germany, she begins to fall in love Jim. And a throuple is born.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (on Amazon)

Director Jacques Demy (who was married to another French New Wave director, Agnes Varda) wrote and directed this luscious musical starring Catherine Deneuve, who, in 1964, was at her absolute most dewy and gorgeous. Told in four acts, we first meet 15-year-old Genevieve, a clerk in an umbrella shop, who is madly in love with a local gas-jockey, 20-year-old Gus (Nino Castelnuovo). Too young to marry, they become lovers, leaving her pregnant when he is drafted into the army. Their lives go in dramatically different directions, until they meet again in act four. It’s a bittersweet reunion, leaving viewers clutching their handkerchiefs during the poignant not-so-happy ending.