A key film of the late Fifties/early Sixties French New Wave, <i>À bout de souffle</i> (Breathless) opens with suave lowlife Michel Poiccard (Jean-Paul Belmondo) stealing a car. When he's caught speeding on the way to Paris and pursued by the police, Michel kills the officer. Desperate to collect some money owed and make his escape to Italy, he hides out with Patricia (Jean Seberg), an American girl he had slept…

Jean-Paul Belmondo spends much of this film in just his boxers after his "Poiccard/Kovacs" character pinches a car, kills the pursuing police officer and the ends up taking refuge with his new journalism student friend "Patricia" (Jean Seberg). She's not quite aware of the extent of the trouble her new beau is in when he sets about trying to convince her that he has some cash coming and that they should go and live…

Summary: 10/10: a landmark film that invented the grammar contemporary cinema still speaks, and a sharper cultural critique than it's often given credit for. Taken out of its historical moment, Jean-Luc Godard's first feature isn't necessarily thrilling. But for 1960, it was groundbreaking, a film that shattered conventions so thoroughly that its innovations are now invisible, absorbed completely into the…