The most-referenced of cinematic love triangles, and an instantly definitive New Wave text, Truffaut’s classic remains bracing in its intellectual energy and poignant in its evocation of love and friendship weathered over time.

In pre-WWI France, best friends Jules (Oskar Werner) and Jim (Henri Serre) fall jointly in love with Moreau’s captivating Catherine, because her resemblance to a statue that they once glimpsed captures their idea of the eternal feminine. The two men’s shared tendency to objectify Catherine chimes with her own feckless nature: she becomes the woman each man wants, but she cannot fully return their love. With a lyrical, literary verbal style that contrasts sharply with its experimental visual style – which incorporates newsreel footage, still images and jump cuts – this is a complex, idiosyncratic, and still influential elegy on youth and love.