The director’s second feature, made the year after his groundbreaking debut but released only in 1963 after being censored by the French government, is one of Godard’s greatest achievements.

It marks the first time that he worked with Anna Karina, who is filmed with as much rapture as Jean Seberg was in Breathless, but it foreshadows the controversial political battles–the Algerian War — that the director would wage throughout his career.

It includes a torture scene that was the main reason it was banned — while also honing in on one of Godard’s favorite themes: the impossibility of love story surviving in a cruel world. (Available on Criterion)

(Available on HBO Max, Criterion, Kanopy)’Contempt’ (1963)

Adapted from Alberto Moravia’s novel, Contempt is one of Godard’s most celebrated movies and perhaps the closest he ever came to making a Hollywood feature. But it also critiques the very notion of Hollywood filmmaking, showing how a studio boss (unleashed and incredibly tan Jack Palance) exploits not only the director working for him (the legendary Fritz Lang) but also the screenwriter’s stunning wife, played by Bridget Bardot in one of her most iconic roles.

The Odyssey that Lang is adapting onscreen only serves as backdrop to the battles, both personal and professional, that happen behind the camera.

(Available on Criterion, Kanopy, Amazon Prime Video)

This collage-like fiction was made with two other movies, La Chinoise and Weekend, in a year that saw Godard transform from New Wave director experimenting with genre and form to overtly political filmmaker who would engage in the uprisings of May 1968 the year after.

Starring Marina Vlady as prostitute and single mom living in one of the recently built banlieues outside Paris, this fragmented feature is filled with startling compositions — courtesy of cinematographer Raoul Coutard, whose eye guided many of Godard’s best works.

The movie is a reflection on consumer culture, the Vietnam War and the banal beauty of contemporary life. (Available on HBO Max, Criterion, Kanopy)

This ruminative documentary is Godard’s most personal work, starring the director, in his early 60s, as himself with his home in Rolle, Switzerland.

With a mix of melancholic humor and dialectical genius, Godard reflects on his career and the cinema in general, finding poetry in the simple things that surround him: a favorite movie playing on television, a painting on the wall or a brisk walk around Lake Geneva.

He ends this short powerful treatise with quote that paraphrases Jean-Paul Sartre’s autobiography The Words: “A man, nothing but a man, and who is worth none, and whom none are worth.”