Breathless (A Bout de Souffle) and Citizen Kane are generally accepted to be the most influential films ever made: Jean-Luc Godard and Orson Welles, their directors. Breathless was on television recently: it is now part of film history.
by Alexa Dalby
Nouvelle Vague
4.0 out of 5.0 stars
CAUTION: Here be spoilers
Breathless (1960) (and its director) was one of the quintessential events of the French Nouvelle Vague, made like a documentary (influences show in 1995 on the Danish Dogme movement). Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague, which premiered at Cannes in 2025, shows his idea of how it was made. It is filmed in black and white and in the Academy ratio like the original, with jump cuts, innovative handheld camera work and modern jazz soundtrack, it stars a number of lookalikes for Nouuvelle Vague directors (ex-Cahiers du Cinema critic colleagues) among others – Godard (Guillaume Marbeck), François Truffaut (Adrien Rouyard) who in this instance wrote the screenplay, Claude Chabrol (Antoine Besson), Jean-Pierre Melville (Tom Novembre), producer Georges (Bo Bo) de Beauregard (Bruno Dreyfürst).: Jean Cocteau, Eric Rohmer and Juliette Greco make brief appearances Actors Aubry Dullin and Jean Seberg recreate the roles of Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seburg, as the petty criminal who models himself on Bogart’s film persona and the American student who hides him from the police.
Linklater duplicates some of the iconic scenes from Breathless, such as the opening open-top car ride, rides through the Paris streets, the final scenes (with Michel and Patricia) and notably the long central scene in Patricia’s cramped hotel room, in Nouvelle Vague almost crowded out even by the stripped-down film crew (former news cameraman Raoul Coutard, played by Matthieu Pechinat) and the director. It is made almost entirely in French even down to Seberg’s American accent.
It’s fascinating and historically accurate as far as anyone can tell: you feel you can see film history in the making. It’s Linklater’s labour of love. A must-see for all those interested in the cinema.
Breathless premiered at the Cannes Film Festival 2025 and screened at the BFI London Film Festival. It has won 8 awards and is nominated for an Oscar. It is released on 30 January 2026 in the UK and is on Netflix.
