Original title (French): À bout de souffle
Director Jean-Luc Godard
Stars Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg, Daniel Boulanger
A small-time thief steals a car and impulsively murders a motorcycle policeman. Wanted by the authorities, he reunites with a hip American journalism student and attempts to persuade her to run away with him to Italy. The film was Godard's first feature-length work and represented Belmondo's breakthrough as an actor.
Breathless is one of the earliest and more influential examples of French New Wave (nouvelle vague) cinema. Along with François Truffaut's The 400 Blows and Alain Resnais's Hiroshima mon amour, both released a year earlier, it brought international attention to new styles of French filmmaking. At the time, Breathless attracted much attention for its bold visual style, which included unconventional use of jump cuts.
Upon its initial release in France, the film attracted over two million viewers. It has since become considered one of the best films ever made, appearing in Sight & Sound magazine's decennial polls of filmmakers and critics on the subject on multiple occasions.
Refreshing.