2. The 400 Blows
Like Sergei Eisenstein, Francois Truffaut started out as a film critic under the tutelage of Andre Bazin, to whom this film is dedicated to. This is the hallmark film for the French New Wave movement. If Jean-Luc Godard was said to have contempt for his audiences by making films that were deliberately hard for people to watch, then Truffaut was the antithesis of that. His film is perhaps the greatest representation of childhood angst, as he uses his camera with tight medium shots to create a sense of restraint when the main character Antoine Doinel is being repressed by authoritative adults to the wide overhead sots of the ever open outdoors representing freedom. The first of a series of movies featuring the character of Antoine Doinel, who serves as an alter ego for Truffaut. This film's enigmatic last shot still resonates today. And for me personally, this film also served as my introduction to world cinema as I have never viewed a particular film like this that could be so minimalist in its approach yet combine French pop aesthetic. Truffaut had such an impact that Spielberg would eventually cast him as a character in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and Kurosawa has cited this as the most beautiful film ever made.