The 400 Blows

François Truffaut's semi-autobiographical debut follows Antoine Doinel, a young Parisian boy neglected by his parents and misunderstood by his teachers, who turns to delinquency as an escape from his suffocating world. Blending raw realism with poetic sensitivity, the film captures adolescent alienation with remarkable authenticity and tenderness. Its legendary final freeze-frame, with Antoine staring directly into the camera at the ocean's edge, remains one of the most powerful and ambiguous endings in film history.

• François Truffaut based the film on his own troubled childhood.
• The film launched the French New Wave cinema movement.
• Jean-Pierre Léaud was just 14 years old during filming.
• Truffaut had never directed a feature film before this.
• The final freeze-frame shot became one of cinema's most iconic.

• "What do you want to do with your life?" "I don't know, just get by."
• "A child can't do as he likes, and that's that."
• "He told me she was dead. Then I saw her in the street."
• "I kept running and I didn't stop. I ran all the way to the sea."
• "At school they say I lie, at home they punish me. I don't know where to turn."