New Wave, directed by Richard Linklater, airs on Canal+ on Tuesday, May 5, 2026 at 9:10 PM. Shown in competition at the Cannes Film Festival 2025 before its theatrical release on October 8, 2025, the film revisits the shoot of Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless, featuring Guillaume Marbeck, Zoey Deutch and Aubry Dullin.
New Wave
Film | 2025
In cinemas: October 8, 2025
Airing on Canal+ : Tuesday, May 5, 2026 at 9:10 PM
Dramedy | Runtime: 1h45
Directed by Richard Linklater | Starring Guillaume Marbeck, Zoey Deutch, Aubry Dullin
Country: France
"If they want the new wave, let's give them a tidal wave". If Godard once envisaged submerging cinema with his first film, it was indeed a tidal wave that overturned the Cannes 2025 Festival competition with the screening of Richard Linklater's new film, soberly christened Nouvelle Vague.
A great storyteller, the American independent filmmaker has turned his attention to the creation of this major cinematic movement in the history of the 7th art, with this visually charming French-language feature (shimmering black & white and academic format). Highly anticipated by festival-goers (a film about the Nouvelle Vague at Cannes is sure to get hearts racing), Linklater's film looks back at the 20-day shoot for Jean-Luc Godard's A Bout de Souffle, the totemic work of the movement.
1959. Paris is buzzing. Les Cahiers du Cinéma has, for almost ten years, defended a certain idea of cinema. A new generation of filmmakers is emerging; they are Truffaut, Chabrol, Rivette, Rohmer, Rozier, Resnais, Varda, and Demy, inspired by Rossellini’s fearless freedom of tone and image.
Far from the meta-didactic film we might have expected, Nouvelle Vague is a veritable bonbon that focuses more on transcribing the mad energy and intellectual and cultural effervescence of the period than on explaining in detail the making of a film, however anarchic it may have been. A running gag that runs through the film is Godard's propensity for shooting on the fly (script of the day written in the morning, artistic direction by voice, disregard for falsetto and seamless editing, the ultimate quest for the natural, the instantaneous and the unexpected in a single take).
"Do you want to do it again? Do you want to see the shot?" asks his cinematographer. "No" comes the mocking reply from the most punk of filmmakers, already busy with a thousand other new ideas. It's enough to unsettle the American Jean Seberg (genial Zoey Deutch), unaccustomed to the fact that the appearance of one character rather than another in the camera's field of view is decided... by a coin toss!
Magnified by a cast composed mainly of unknowns chosen for their (insane) physical resemblance to those they play - an excellent Godard (Guillaume Marbeck), but also a Belmondo all in mimicry, disturbingly similar - Nouvelle Vague doesn't museologize Godard but has fun, good-naturedly, with his character - well tempered, Linklater thus signing a joyful and excessive homage, without bowing but with vivacity.
The trailer for Nouvelle Vague frames this tribute to Jean-Luc Godard and to the birth of the film movement that left its mark on the history of French cinema, with a meticulously crafted black-and-white look and a recreation of the shooting of À bout de souffle.
To go further, discover also our selection of films, series and shows to watch on TV this week, our guide to releases across all platforms, and today’s pick What to watch today on streaming.
