(Les quatre cents coups)
Directed by François Truffaut
99 minutes
In French with English subtitles

This is the legendary first work by director François Truffaut, who burst onto the film scene with this explosive movie confronting the entire glamorous big-budget French film industry with a small intimate autobiographical approach to filmmaking. Starring the 13-year-old Jean-Pierre Léaud as Antoine, a kid neglected by his parents, who grows up on the streets of Paris. The film is both nostalgic and unsentimental at the same time, and the result is searing.

This is a movie which deals with juvenile delinquency, about skipping school, sleeping in abandoned factories and turning into a petty thief. But although Antoine rejects the stuffy boredom of classrooms, he does show a deep interest in literature—something that has nothing to do with the schools or his parents—something that is born simply out of curiosity and a desire to search and understand.

Of course Truffaut would go on to become one of the world's leading filmmakers.... but it was this film that would change the face of cinema in the 20th century.