The 400 Blows (Les Quatre cents coups)

Director: François Truffaut | Cast: Jean-Pierre Léaud, Claire Maurier, Albert Rémy, Guy Decomble | Cert: PG

Fifty years on from its unveiling at the Cannes Film Festival, Truffaut's superb feature debut remains an influential landmark in the history of the cinema.

Deeply moving yet devoid of maudlin sentimentality, the film centres on Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud), a 13-year-old constantly in trouble - justifiably or otherwise - with his parents and teachers. Drifting into truancy and petty theft, he soon finds himself at odds with still less sympathetic figures of adult authority... Shot on the streets of Paris, the film exudes an authenticity - emotional, psychological, sociological - surely born of the semi-autobiographical story, and displays real compassion as it charts a seemingly inexorable progress towards delinquency. Great credit goes to Léaud, whose engaging but entirely uningratiating performance is a miracle of naturalism, but Truffaut was also wise in availing himself of many talents, on both sides of the camera, who would prove crucial to the development of the nouvelle vague.

- Geoff Andrew