The directors of the French New Wave were the original film geeks - a collection of celluloid-crazed cinéphiles with a background in film criticism and a love for American auteurs. Having spent countless hours slumped in Parisian cinémathèques, they armed themselves with handheld cameras, rejected conventions, and successfully moved movies out of the studios and on to the streets at the end of the 1950s. By the mid-1960s, the likes of Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut and Claude Chabrol had changed the rules of film-making forever, but the movement as such was over.

During these key years, the New Wave directors employed experimental techniques to achieve a fresh and invigorating new style of cinema. Borrowing liberally from the varied traditions of film noir, musicals and science fiction, they released a string of innovative and influential pictures, including the classics Le Beau Serge, Jules et Jim and A Bout de Souffle.

This Guide reviews and analyses all of the major films in the movement and offers profiles of its principal stars, such as Jean-Paul Belmondo, Anna Karina and Brigitte Bardot. There is also an introductory essay, Making Waves, which examines the social context of the movement in France as well as the directors' considerable influence on later generations of film-makers across the globe. A handy multi-media reference guide at the end of the book points the way towards further New Wave resources.