Nouvelle Vague (2026)

There are certain films in a cinephile’s life that, viewed for the very first time, leave you open mouthed at what you’ve just witnessed. Sometimes it can be a film that you immediately declare a ‘masterpiece’. Sometimes it might be a film that you just love everything about. But there are perhaps fewer moments, depending on how often you watch films (and I watch a lot), in which all of these things come together to produce something truly extraordinary.

These instances should be treasured, because they don’t come along very often, despite the number of films we have available to us. We, as cinematic consumers and film lovers, simply don’t have enough time to watch them all, as much as we might want to. I could probably count on my fingers the number of times I’ve walked out of a cinema and been completely and utterly blown away by something. And even then, there’s likely a few niggles in there somewhere that prevent me from awarding the film a mark out of ten that stretches toward that rarefied stratosphere of a 9 or above. It does happen though, usually on average once or twice a year. Alex Garland’s Warfare managed it last year (9.0/10). Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers (9.1/10) was 2024’s golden child. And I want to stress that there’s a very big difference between a 9.0 and a 9.1. Before The Holdovers, you quite possibly have to go back to 2014’s Whiplash (9.2/10). So, in terms of new releases, that’s only three films in over a decade that have managed that sort of fabled score.

I give you all this background to try and emphasise just how good I perceive a film to be to award such a rating. And now I will get on with the business of attempting to review Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague; an ambitious depiction of the making of Jean-Luc Godard‘s French New Wave classic À bout de Souffle (1960). Nouvelle Vague is the second release from Linklater in the space of just a few months following last year’s Blue Moon, a film that was wrongly snubbed by the Academy for a best Picture nomination. Not the only Linklater film to receive such poor treatment, it turns out.

Linklater’s homage of sorts has credits in French and is sumptuously shot in monochrome black and white, which apart from giving an astonishing authentic quality to what we’re watching, also places you right in the Parisian locations where Godard’s film was shot. Of course, this is a film about the making of one, and much of Nouvelle Vague is precisely that; us as the audience experiencing a mixture of truth and legend as to how the whole production unfolded, shot in just twenty-three days much to the initial horror of producer Jean-Paul Beauregard (here played by Bruno Dreyfurst).

It probably helps to have some sort of previous knowledge of the New Wave scene, or indeed who the players in the feature are, but Linklater does such a fine job of storytelling that it’s not imperative. In fact, what’s perhaps even more impressive is that even if you simply can’t abide Godard himself or his arguably pretentious artistic attitude to art or life itself, Nouvelle Vague still works. Linklater is astute enough to ensure the script is sharp and frequently amusing; if you aren’t a fan, you’ll find yourself chuckling at the infuriating way he comes across; if you are, you’ll be laughing for exactly the same reason. Godard here is played by Guillaume Marbeck and it is a sensational performance. The mannerisms, his laid-back attitude, his complete contempt for postmodernist thinking, and his never-ending goal of finding the ultimate originality within art are things that Marbeck captures and sells you entirely.

Linklater shoots Nouvelle Vague in the very style of the film whose origins he’s recreating. But it’s not just Godard’s he’s paying tribute to; Francois Truffaut wrote the basic story for Godard’s film, based on a true-crime story about a tough guy who shoots a cop and gets an American girlfriend on the run. Truffaut was monumental within the New Wave scene, and many would argue he invented it with 1959’s The 400 Blows. He’s portrayed here by Adrien Rouyard, and Linklater introduces numerous characters from the time all intertwined within New Wave cinema. All the big hitters are present and correct; Roberto Rossellini (Laurent Mothe), Agnes Varda (Roxane Riviere), Claude Chabrol (Antoine Besson), Jean Cocteau (Jean-Jacques Le Vessier) to name but a few- each presented to us initially in static portrait shots, looking at the camera with their names flashed up on screen. There’s a lovely touch in which Godard also runs into Robert Bresson as he’s filming Pickpocket (1959).

À bout de Souffle made a star of Jean-Paul Belmondo for his role as Michel Poiccard, and despite Jean Seberg’s already impressive status at the time, it’s frequently Godard’s debut film she’s most remembered for, playing Patricia, an American student and aspiring journalist. In Linklater’s film Aubry Dullin and Zoey Deutch take on those two roles respectively, and not for a second do you feel like you’re watching two actors take on the roles. Deutch’s frustration throughout the shoot at Godard’s bizarre style of directing feels entirely real but Linklater also somehow captures the whimsical nature of the whole production, feeding you events and dialogue that might not be remotely approaching true to life, and yet the world he has created here is so pure in terms of cinematic escapism, it’s almost painful. Paris looks as if it’s quite literally been shot in the late 1950’s; in fact, it just feels like we’re looking at Godard’s film unfurling before us, and I couldn’t look away. It felt like I was there, and it was pure and utter joy.

Godard worked as a critic for the infamous Cahiers du Cinema, yearning to graduate to filmmaking like some of his peers. He was very specific about the way he wanted to do things and keep the art form utterly authentic- with almost everyone involved in the production despairing at his methods. À bout de Souffle, it seemed, would be a complete disaster.

The rest, as they say, is history. What’s amusing is that although I’m a big fan of À bout de Souffle, I believe Nouvelle Vague is a far superior piece of work. But it wouldn't exist without Godard’s film, so does that make his work perhaps even better? I’m no superfan; I actively dislike Godard’s Le Mepris (1963), for example. But I love Truffaut, especially the aforementioned 400 Blows and The Last Metro (1980), and it’s New Wave that Linklater is inhabiting here.

Nouvelle Vague is a film within a film; it’s not a concept that’s new. But the way Linklater captures the period, style, and everything else in between is beyond astonishing. Ultimately your opinion of Linklater’s film will come down to your own engagements and feelings towards what’s unfurling in front of you, perhaps helped by your foreknowledge of the historical context, or simply your opinion on Linklater’s film making itself. Or, you might think the whole thing is simply ridiculous. For me, Nouvelle Vague is an homage to a time and place in cinema that well and truly hammers every single possible question that could have been asked of such a project. It is staggering, striking, breathtaking cinema, captured by a man who is, simply put, a cinematic genius. 9.6/10