Antoine Doinel is a misunderstood 12-year-old who skips school, sneaks into movies, steals things and then tries (disastrously) to return them. Seeking freedom, he runs away from home, heading for the sea he’s never seen.

Brilliantly capturing a child eye view of seedy Parisian street life, Truffaut’s seminal debut traces a boy’s slide from petty deceptions to institutional “observation,” capturing the ache of being misunderstood and the exhilaration of running anyway. The final freeze-frame—defiance, fear, fledgling freedom—became a new grammar for coming-of-age on film.

Screening as part of our French New Wave side bar to accompany Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague.

“A coming-of-age masterwork” — The Guardian

A cornerstone of the French New Wave, and one of the greatest movies about childhood, from anywhere, ever” – Independent

“Vibrant, visually exciting and emotionally resonant” – Empire