Truffaut's landmark autobiographical film marked the director's transition from film critic to filmmaker, and with it his membership of a 'new wave' of French cinema. Starring Jean-Pierre Léaud, The 400 Blows (a direct translation of the French idiom meaning 'raising hell') traces 13 year-old Antoine Doinel's bleak odyssey through a life of aloof parents, oppressive teachers and petty crime. A loner on the brink of rebellion, Antoine is buoyed along the way by a touching friendship, a love of cinema, and the hope of escape. This is a hauntingly lyrical but wholly unsentimental portrait of childhood captured with grittiness and immediacy.

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