Directed by Jean-Luc Godard: Twenty Personal Favorites

I had a great time recently putting together my Woody Allen list so I thought this "Twenty Personal Favorites" tally might be a fun weekly thing to do here. With my month-long Francois Truffaut tribute coming up, I thought a list dedicated to an artist he was so deeply connected to would be more than fitting.



The career of Jean-Luc Godard has been as chaotic as his friendship with Truffaut was and he has never lost his ability to fascinate and repel (often at the same time). To say cinema would have been a much less interesting place without the films of Godard is a massive understatement. Perhaps a more fitting epitaph would be that the last fifty years of cinema would have been a totally different place without him. Godard didn't just change film, at times he turned it against itself and created something entirely new, totally alien and completely unique. These are my twenty personal favorites (listed mostly with their English language titles).

1. Contempt (1963)

2. Slow Motion (1979)

3. Number Two (1975)

4. Week End (1967)

5. Band of Outsiders (1964)

6. Masculin Feminine (1966)

7. First Name: Carmen (1983)

8. 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1966)

9. Tout va bien (1972)

10. Pierrot le fou (1965)

11. A Woman is a Woman (1961)

12. Alphaville (1965)



13. Detective (1985)

14. How's it Going? (1976)

15. My Life to Live (1962)

16. Made in U.S.A. (1966)



17. Breathless (1959)

18. A Married Woman (1964)

19. One Plus One (1968)

20. New Wave (1990)

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