Jean-Luc Godard

Jean-Luc Godard was born in Paris to a Franco-Swiss family. While studying ethnology at the Sorbonne, he frequented the Cinémathèque Française and began writing revolutionary film criticism for Cahiers du Cinéma alongside François Truffaut, Éric Rohmer, and Jacques Rivette, formulating the auteur theory.

In 1960, Godard unleashed his feature debut, Breathless (À bout de souffle), starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg. Its use of jump cuts, handheld tracking shots, direct address to the camera, and jazz improvisation shattered Hollywood continuity conventions overnight. Across the 1960s, Godard directed a torrent of groundbreaking cinema: Vivre sa vie, Contempt (with Brigitte Bardot), Band of Outsiders, Alphaville, and Pierrot le Fou. In 1968, he co-founded the Dziga Vertov Group, dedicating himself to Marxist-Leninist agitprop cinema, before creating his monumental eight-part video essay Histoire(s) du cinéma (1988–1998). In 2010, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded him an honorary Oscar.