The 400 Blows
Les Quatre Cents Coups
“ Angel faces hell-bent for violence. ”
CINEMA1959-06-03
DIGITAL2001-10-05
RegionFR
Runtime99 MIN
Media TypeMovie
Storyline
For young Parisian boy Antoine Doinel, life is one difficult situation after another. Surrounded by inconsiderate adults, including his neglectful parents, Antoine spends his days with his best friend, Rene, trying to plan for a better life. When one of their schemes goes awry, Antoine ends up in trouble with the law, leading to even more conflicts...
DIRECTOR / Director
François Truffaut
KEYWORDS
adolescenceparisfrancebalzacdelinquentcoming of ageblack and whitefingerprintsemi autobiographicalskipping schoolmugshotstrict teachermontmartrecalmbittercomplicatedgentle
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Collection: The Adventures of Antoine Doinel Collection
The release of François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows in 1959 shook world cinema to its foundations. The now-classic portrait of troubled adolescence introduced a major new director in the cinematic landscape and was an inaugural gesture of the revolutionary French New Wave. But The 400 Blows did not only introduce the world to its precocious director—it also unveiled his indelible creation: Antoine Doinel. Initially patterned closely after Truffaut himself, the Doinel character (played by the irrepressible and iconic Jean-Pierre Léaud) reappeared in four subsequent films that knowingly portrayed his myriad frustrations and romantic entanglements from his stormy teens through marriage, children, divorce, and adulthood.
