Watch Elle

A murderer with a perfect nose in 18th-century France distils the scent of girls.

Alain Delon as a hitman in a trench coat and fedora; Melville's cool influenced every hitman film since.

Simone Signoret as an ageing ex-prostitute raising the children of others in Belleville.

An elderly Parisian couple, a stroke, and a husband who keeps his promise.

Three hours of the Paris theatre world of the 1830s, made in secret under the Occupation.

Truffaut's own childhood as Antoine Doinel, ending with the freeze frame on the beach.

Bresson's thief in Paris, filmed as hands and gestures, and the ending in the prison.

Belmondo, Seberg and the jump cut; the New Wave arrives in one film.