L'Atalante

Newlyweds begin their life together on a working barge in this luminous romance, the only full-length feature film by director Jean Vigo.

The tale of a young bride joining her husband on the barge where he works with the coarse, ursine Père Jules (Michel Simon), L'Atalante is rooted in a pungent, earthy naturalism that, in Vigo's hands, becomes the springboard for flights of film poetry. Vigo's open-air spontaneity and low-budget lyricism were a key influence on the French New Wave of the late 1950s and 60s.

Ranked 34th in the 2022 Sight and Sound Great Films of All Time poll