François Truffaut’s short film Les Mistons (1957) is often treated as his first major step from criticism into directing. Its location shooting and lively camera movement preview techniques that became associated with the French New Wave. The film also introduced actress Bernadette Lafont on screen, linking Truffaut to an emerging new generation of performers.
In July 1957, Truffaut created the production company Les Films du Carrosse. Having his own company gave him more control over budgets, schedules, and creative decisions—important for a young director trying new methods outside the established French studio system. The company went on to produce most of his films, making it a practical foundation for his New Wave period.
Truffaut started filming Les Quatre Cents Coups (The 400 Blows) in late 1958. The movie’s semi-autobiographical story and street-level Paris locations helped it feel immediate and personal, contrasting with more conventional French filmmaking. This production would become the launch point for Truffaut’s international reputation.
The 400 Blows first screened publicly at the Cannes Film Festival on May 4, 1959. Cannes gave Truffaut a high-profile stage at exactly the moment a new generation of directors was gaining attention. The film’s success signaled that a fresh, more personal kind of French cinema had arrived.
At the 1959 Cannes Film Festival, Truffaut won the award for Best Director for The 400 Blows. The prize legitimized him as more than a critic-turned-filmmaker and helped open doors for New Wave directors in France and abroad. It also strengthened the film’s position as a defining work of the movement.
After Cannes, The 400 Blows received a French theatrical release in June 1959. Its audience success showed that a film built from everyday locations and youthful experience could compete with established industry styles. This commercial footing gave Truffaut room to experiment further in his next projects.
Truffaut’s second feature, Tirez sur le pianiste (Shoot the Piano Player), was released in Paris on August 22, 1960. Mixing crime, comedy, and romance, it showed his willingness to blend genres rather than stay in one “serious” style. The film helped define the New Wave as playful and unpredictable, not just realistic.
In 1962, Truffaut made the short film Antoine and Colette, bringing back Jean-Pierre Léaud as Antoine Doinel. By revisiting the character after The 400 Blows, Truffaut turned a single film into an ongoing life story, making time and personal growth part of his style. The short was created as part of the anthology feature Love at Twenty.
Truffaut’s Jules et Jim (Jules and Jim) was released in 1962 and became one of his most influential New Wave films. Its fast-moving narration, shifting time periods, and focus on friendship and love gave the film a distinctive rhythm. The movie’s success also showed that New Wave techniques could support an ambitious literary adaptation.
The Soft Skin was released in France on April 20, 1964. The film moved away from youthful rebellion and romantic freedom toward a tense portrait of middle-class adultery and emotional fallout. As an endpoint to this 1958–1964 arc, it shows Truffaut carrying New Wave intimacy and realism into more mature themes.
In 1964, Truffaut’s La peau douce (The Soft Skin) was nominated for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. The selection signaled that Truffaut remained central to the era’s most visible film platform. It also marked a shift toward a more adult story of marriage, jealousy, and consequences.
By the mid-1960s, Truffaut’s run from The 400 Blows through Jules and Jim had become a reference point for what “French New Wave” meant to many viewers: personal stories, location shooting, and a director’s visible hand in the film. Cannes later described The 400 Blows as a film that helped pave the way for the movement, reflecting how quickly his early work became part of the New Wave’s shared history. This legacy formed the platform Truffaut built on after 1964, even as his subjects and scale changed.
François Truffaut's New Wave period, 1958–1964