The 400 blows

15 yrs 99 minutes • 1959 • 8.1

The autobiographical, realistic and gripping The 400 blows depict Truffaut's alter ego Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud), a boy on the run from a mentally and physically stressful home environment. We follow him through his adventure, lined with petty crime, on the streets of Paris in stylistically innovative shoots that were awarded with the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival and nominated for one Oscar. In the famous last scene, the camera freezes the image of Antoine looking out over the sea. Together with Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (1960), this became the starting point for the film-historically influential French new wave, a movement that emphasized the director's personal characteristics and artistic freedoms.