
The 400 Blows
Synopsis
Seemingly in constant trouble at school, 14-year-old Antoine Doinel returns at the end of every day to a drab, unhappy home life. His parents have little money and he sleeps on a couch that's been pushed into the kitchen. His parents bicker constantly and he knows his mother is having an affair. He decides to skip school and begins a downward spiral of lies and theft. His parents are at their wits' end, and after he's stopped by the police, they decide the best thing would be to let Antoine face the consequences. He's sent to a juvenile detention facility where he doesn't do much better. He does manage to escape however.
Production Budget Analysis
The production budget for The 400 Blows (1959) has not been publicly disclosed.
CAST: Jean-Pierre Léaud, Claire Maurier, Albert Rémy, Georges Flamant, Patrick Auffay, Robert Beauvais DIRECTOR: François Truffaut CINEMATOGRAPHY: Henri Decaë MUSIC: Jean Constantin PRODUCTION: Les Films du Carrosse, Sédif Productions
Box Office Performance
Theatrical box office data is not publicly available for The 400 Blows (1959). This may indicate a limited release, direct-to-streaming, or a release predating modern box office tracking.
Profitability Assessment
Insufficient publicly available data to assess profitability.
INDUSTRY IMPACT
Franchise: The 400 Blows is part of the The Adventures of Antoine Doinel Collection.
Truffaut made four other films with Léaud depicting Antoine at later stages of his life: Antoine and Colette (which was Truffaut's contribution to the 1962 anthology Love at Twenty), Stolen Kisses, Bed and Board, and Love on the Run.
Filmmakers Akira Kurosawa, Luis Buñuel, Satyajit Ray, Steven Spielberg, Jean Cocteau, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Richard Linklater, Tsai Ming Liang, Woody Allen, Richard Lester, P C Sreeram, Norman Jewison, Wes Anderson and Nicolas Cage have cited The 400 Blows as one of their favorite movies. With Kurosawa calling it "one of the most beautiful films that I have ever seen".
Martin Scorsese included it on a list of "39 Essential Foreign Films for a Young Filmmaker."
The film was ranked #29 in Empire magazine's list of "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema" in 2010. In 2018, the film was voted the eighth greatest foreign-language film of all time in BBC's poll of 209 critics in 43 countries.
The festival poster for the 71st Venice International Film Festival paid tribute to the film as it featured the character of Antoine Doinel portrayed by Jean-Pierre Léaud.
PRODUCTION NOTES
▸ Filming & Locations
Most of The 400 Blows was filmed in Paris: * Avenue Frochot, Paris 9th * Eiffel Tower, Champ de Mars, Paris 7th * Montmartre, Paris 18th * Palais de Chaillot, Trocadéro, Paris 16th * Pigalle, Paris 9th * Rue Fontaine * Sacré Cœur, Paris 18th The exception was for scenes filmed at the reform school, which were filmed in Honfleur, a small coastal town in the northern French province of Normandy. The final beach scene was filmed in Villers-sur-Mer, a few miles to the southwest.
[Filming locations] Most of The 400 Blows was filmed in Paris: * Avenue Frochot, Paris 9th * Eiffel Tower, Champ de Mars, Paris 7th * Montmartre, Paris 18th * Palais de Chaillot, Trocadéro, Paris 16th * Pigalle, Paris 9th * Rue Fontaine * Sacré Cœur, Paris 18th The exception was for scenes filmed at the reform school, which were filmed in Honfleur, a small coastal town in the northern French province of Normandy. The final beach scene was filmed in Villers-sur-Mer, a few miles to the southwest.
AWARDS & RECOGNITION
Summary: Nominated for 1 Oscar. 8 wins & 5 nominations total
Nominations: ○ Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Screenplay (32nd Academy Awards)









































































































































































































































































































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