Nouvelle Vague

Nouvelle Vague (2025) is a comedy drama movie directed by Richard Linklater and it follows the shooting of Breathless, one of the first feature movies of the Nouvelle Vague era of French cinema, in 1959. I just got done watching this movie on Netflix and it was fantastic.

Positives for Nouvelle Vague (2025): It was awesome to watch a movie about the making of a French movie from 1959. The black-and-white cinematography gives this movie that old school filmmaking style that I love about old cinema. The acting from the cast is fantastic and their dialogue is equally great. The pacing of the movie is great and I was able to mostly keep up with the story. The movie has amazing production value with the sets and costumes. And finally, this is one of those movies that was made for fans of older movies from the early 1900s.

Negatives for Nouvelle Vague (2025): My only issue is the language barrier as I don't speak French and it made it hard for me to keep up with the movie at times.

Overall, Nouvelle Vague (2025) is a fantastic movie from Richard Linklater who still has one of the most consistent filmography of any filmmaker and that makes me happy.

This monochromatic 2025 period piece is a cinephile's wet dream of a film from an obvious cineaste, but there's enough energy and craftsmanship here to attract the more casual viewer. A true renaissance man, director Richard Linklater just released "Blue Moon", his evocative WWII-era valentine to the creative titans of Broadway. With this film, he showcases his in-depth knowledge of the mid-century French New Wave movement, in particular, the making of Jean-Luc Godard's seminal debut, 1960's "Breathless" ("A Bout de Soufflé"). The film features relatively unknown actors portraying legendary cinema figures such as Roberto Rossellini, Francois Truffaut, and Jean-Pierre Melville. At the center of the screenplay by Holly Gent and Vince Palmo is Godard, a film critic determined to become a filmmaker. As effectively portrayed by Guillaume Marbeck, Godard is an arrogant disruptor who recruits two young actors, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg, to star as a boastful petty criminal and the American student who is smitten with him. Aubry Dillon is a dead ringer for the charismatic Belmondo, while Zoey Deutch in an accurate pixie cut captures Seberg's fierce reticence during the production. If you've not seen "Breathless", you might have trouble tracking the story being told, but that confusion was part of the appeal of the original movie. Linklater knows that and runs with it in this stylish homage.

As "Nouvelle Vague" (2025 release from France; 106 min.) opens, Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut and Claude Chabrol are watching a movie in a theater. Afterwards they meet up with friends somewhere. It turns out that Godard is the only one of the three still to direct his first movie, but he claims that he is ready to do so. At this point we are 10 minutes into the movie...

Couple of comments: this is the latest from director Richard Linklater ("Boyhood", "Everybody Wants Some!!"). Here he goes to France to recreate how Godard filmed his 1960 debut film "Breathless", and Linklater does so by using the New Wave style of filming that came in vogue 65 years ago. The idea is as simple as it is brilliant. The devil is of course in the details, and that is where the production team really shines. I couldn't stop marveling at how authentic Paris circa 1959-1960 looks. Check out the countless vintage cars! Oh, and did I mention that the film is in glorious B&W, and with a screen ratio of 4:3? Just like "Breathless" itself. The acting performances are stellar throughout, including Guillaume Marbeck as Godard and Aubry Dullin as Belmondo. But the highest praise belongs to Zoey Deutch, playing Jean Seberg, the American actress based in Paris. Deutch captures it perfectly. They act out a number of pivotal scenes of "Breathless" but always showing it as someone observing it, not in it. If it sounds like I'm gushing about "Nouvelle Vague", well it's because I am!

"Nouvelle Vague" premiered at this year's Cannes Film Festival to immediate and wide critical acclaim. The Cannes screening caused a bidding war for the movie's distribution rights (ultimately won by Netflix). The movie is currently rated 90% Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, and it's easy to see why. "Nouvelle Vage" started streaming on Netflix this weekend, and I couldn't wait to see it. If you are a fan of Richard Linklater's or Zoey Deutch's earlier work, or simply a fan of French movies from the early 1960's, I'd readily suggest you check this out and draw your own conclusion. You won't regret it!

First off, I'm one of the Godard detractors who consider him the most overrated film maker of all time. This is by no means a solitary view and the weaknesses of "Breathless" were pointed out by many ever since it came out - the absence of story, gimmicks over substance, JLG not giving his actors anything to do, JLG celebrating his own genius while copying the works of others etc., etc.

But even for those who don't like the man and his work, "Nouvelle Vague" could be an interesting experiment - an American film maker presenting his own interpretation of the birth of a movement he obviously views as imperative for his own work. However, Linklater is much too reverent, recreating dialogues which enforce the image a rebellious artists, without explaining where the rebellion is supposed to be. We see Melville and Bresson at work, but instead of working with the fact of "Pickpocket" being filmed at the same time as "Breathless", there is just a little existentialist dialogue, and no discussion of challenges to the studio system.

Within the parade of creators, there is one conspicuous absence - Louis Malle, who (re)invented the techniques of the Nouvelle Vague (like shooting with natural light), but had nothing to do with "Cahiers du Cinema". "Breathless", to put it politely, borrows quite heavily from "Elevator to the Gallows" (1958), and it is a bit strange of Linklater to omit this. He also presents Agnès Varda as a butch Lesbian, which she was not - she had a son with Jacques Demy. Varda is also more and more considered the real founding mother of the Nouvelle Vague (since "La Pointe Courte" came out in 1955), so it feels a little dated to brush her off this way.

What must strike a cineast off most is the treatment of Jean Seberg, who comes across as intelligent, but whose life is only mentioned in passing. Her marriage was at that point falling apart, and right after filming of "Breathless" she met Romain Gary. Not part of this story, but her career and how it was ended by J. The FBI for her support of the Panthers, would make for a far more interesting film than this homage.

"Nouvelle Vague" is a decent interpretation, an American's dream of Paris in the late 1950s, but it's too polite and too reserved, especially for Linklater.

This movie is a joyride to experience the not-so-joyful process of filmmaking as well as a good homage to the legend and one of the greatest times in cinema history. I think it's done so perfectly that I almost give it 5 stars.

Linklater's signature mise-en-scène is here, but this film feels less personal and more intimately observational. I went in expecting a Midnight in Paris vibe, and I couldn't have been more wrong. I'm struck by Linklater's choice of a new approach, especially from a director known for an almost obsessive realism-like shooting Boyhood over 12 years or Merrily We Roll Along for two decades. Zoey Deutch, who plays Jean Seberg, told us that Linklater encouraged the actors to interpret rather than impersonate. The result is a film that feels remarkably authentic and free, because it all comes from the genuine experiences of the crew. As Linklater himself said, "It's about a bunch of young people making a film." This is a movie that any filmmaker or cinephile will absolutely adore.

(There is a line from the movie that I really LOVE and it goes like this - "when you direct a film, you are actually making 5 films: one when you write it, one when you cast it, one when you shoot it, one when you release it." The closest thing I found is from Robert Bresson: "A film is born three times. First in the writing of the script, then in the shooting, and finally in the editing". I need to print it out and put it above my desk.)