Richard Linklater has genius on the brain. In 2025, he’s releasing two films about artists whose works stand the test of time: Blue Moon, about songwriter Lorenz Hart, and Nouvelle Vague, about filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard. While Blue Moon captures the melancholy of an artist past his prime and at the end of his life, Nouvelle Vague follows an artist at the beginning of his legend on the cusp of greatness. The latter released its trailer on Tuesday, invoking the making of Breathless with the black-and-white Parisian charm of the French New Wave film.
Described as a “love letter to the revolutionary magic of the French New Wave,” Nouvelle Vague introduces “critic-turned-director Godard” as he “makes and breaks the rules, a mix of fresh faces and daring talents bring his spontaneous, electric film to life,” per the synopsis. “Capturing the youthful dynamism and creative chaos at the heart of one of the world’s most beloved and influential movies, Nouvelle Vague transports us to the streets of 1959 Paris for an ode to the transformative power of cinema.”
Reviewing the film for The A.V. Club, Rory Doherty describedNouvelle Vague as a “modest but compromised delight as a film-about-film dramedy.”Guillaume Marbeck stars as the legendary auteur, while Aubry Dullin and Zoey Deutch play Breathless stars Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg respectively. But Nouvelle Vague extends beyond the set of the 1960 classic. Just as Blue Moon does for luminaries of the theater, the movie is chock-full of what Doherty calls “film school Easter [eggs]”: Adrien Rouyard plays François Truffaut; Jodie Ruth-Forest plays Suzanne Schiffman; Benjamin Clery plays Pierre Rissient; Jonas Marmy plays Jacques Rivette, etc. As Doherty writes, “The filmmaker’s adoration for the people on-screen is never in doubt, but as consistently pleasant as his Godardian homage may be, it has limited use as an evocation or understanding of the late master’s work.” Nouvelle Vague opens in theaters October 31 before streaming November 14 on Netflix.
