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Breathless

Play trailer Poster for Breathless 1961 1h 30m Crime Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
95% Tomatometer 82 Reviews 89% Popcornmeter 25,000+ Ratings
Petty thug Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo) considers himself a suave bad guy in the manner of Humphrey Bogart, but panics and impulsively kills a policeman while driving a stolen car. On the lam, he turns to his aspiring journalist girlfriend, Patricia (Jean Seberg), hiding out in her Paris apartment while he tries to pull together enough money to get the pair to Italy. But when Patricia learns that her boyfriend is being investigated for murder, she begins to question her loyalties.

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Breathless

Breathless

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Critics Consensus

Breathless rewrote the rules of cinema -- and more than 50 years after its arrival, Jean-Luc Godard's paradigm-shifting classic remains every bit as vital.

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Critics Reviews

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Oliver Stone Village Voice 05/02/2024
Nine years ago, I fell in love with Breathless. Time has aged her since, but poems of chaos, having little structure, are gloriously free from decay. Go to Full Review
Roger Angell The New Yorker 01/22/2024
The camera in Breathless, which was wielded by Raoul Coutard, is jumpy, fluid, irritable, and comic -- alive with glimpses, sudden turns, rude stares, and angry changes of mood. Go to Full Review
Archer Winsten New York Post 08/11/2022
It is a thin story, filled to the brim with extraordinary character of the modem, wild, criminal youth, as exemplified by Belmondo. Go to Full Review
Emiliano Basile EscribiendoCine Jan 13
10/10
The film stands as a testament to a time when art sought to transform the means of survival into a new way of thinking about the world. [Full review in Spanish] Go to Full Review
JD Duran InSession Film 08/19/2024
B-
The cold demeanor of Breathless isn’t very effective and as a result, it feels conceited and in a word; fake. Go to Full Review
David Harris Spectrum Culture 02/27/2024
In an era before social media, Breathless presages the hyper-narcissistic age we embody where everyone with a phone and an Instagram account can create and curate whatever type of existence they choose. Go to Full Review
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Audience Reviews

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Tom B Apr 8 Even taking into account that this film was done 65 or so years ago, I found it boring and trite. Hated it. See more Joe E @jescanuelas 6d I found the movie very boring. See more Emeka R @RT69448386 6d Breathless felt really different from most movies I’ve seen, but in a way that ended up being pretty interesting and refreshing. At first, the editing style threw me off because it doesn’t follow traditional continuity and feels kind of jumpy, but after adjusting to it, I started to understand how intentional and creative it actually is. The film has this effortless, almost improvised vibe that makes it feel more real in some moments, even though it’s clearly very stylized. I also liked how it doesn’t rely on a heavy plot and instead focuses more on mood, attitude, and character interactions. By the end, I could see why it’s considered such a groundbreaking film, since it clearly influenced a lot of modern cinema and changed how storytelling can be done. Overall, a really good movie. See more sira D @RT50933966 6d I just couldn't for the life of me get into the film. I was so bored watching the it, but it could just not be my cup of tea type of film. See more Malka M @tealbri40 6d This movie felt extremely different from most films I usually watch, which made the experience more interesting to me. The dialogue and editing felt messy and chaotic at times, but I honestly think that made the movie more beautiful and real. The entire film had this cool and unpredictable energy that stayed consistent the whole time. See more Hayle F @RT73632069 6d Depicts the classic ideal of France and the evasion of capture brings a suspenseful aspect to the man who fell for a girl he couldn't have. Great movie See more Read all reviews
Breathless

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Movie Info

Synopsis Petty thug Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo) considers himself a suave bad guy in the manner of Humphrey Bogart, but panics and impulsively kills a policeman while driving a stolen car. On the lam, he turns to his aspiring journalist girlfriend, Patricia (Jean Seberg), hiding out in her Paris apartment while he tries to pull together enough money to get the pair to Italy. But when Patricia learns that her boyfriend is being investigated for murder, she begins to question her loyalties.
Director
Jean-Luc Godard
Producer
Georges de Beauregard
Screenwriter
Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut
Production Co
Imperia, Les Films Georges de Beauregard
Genre
Crime, Drama
Original Language
French (France)
Release Date (Theaters)
Feb 7, 1961, Wide
Release Date (Streaming)
Nov 29, 2011
Box Office (Gross USA)
$47.1K
Runtime
1h 30m