Since the start of film, the genre has been treated with pompous skepticism. In the early days of cinema, the “Big Five” studios, RKO, Paramount, Fox, MGM, and Warner Bros., prized genre films as cash in, cash out enterprises for a quick buck, but otherwise thought them bereft of real value. Surely, artists made human stories, dramas, the sort of work that won awards on Broadway. These ideas permeated into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and, to this day, genre films have a serious fight come Oscar time. This line of thinking is nonsense, and Le Samouraï seems to purely exist to prove why. A film late in the going of the French New Wave, the ‘60s movement of film critics and theorists who ended up practicing what they preached with groundbreaking innovation in film style and content, Le Samouraï continues the trend of dissecting the genre film. Cowriter/director Jean-Pierre Melville made a career out of subversive films, and although Trouffaut often gets credit for starting the New Wave with The 400 Blows, Melville’s earlier film Bob The Gambler is (arguably) the match that lit the fire.

The French New Wave was always eagerly concerned with genre, especially the crime films of the 1940s, represented especially by Godard’s dazzling debut, Breathless. Breathless followed an outlaw on the run, but there’s a comic forgetfulness with how Godard moves in, out, and between the genre trappings. Large stretches of Breathless seem to ignore that it’s a genre film at all, like a roughly twenty-five minute dialogue scene where our lustful hero tries to convince a beautiful woman to go to bed with him. For Godard, genre is a play set, and there’s an open disinterest to play the film any straighter than the crooked lead character. This reveals a key aspect of the New Wave: a film’s style, format, and tone frequently reflect the essence of the main character.

It’s important to reflect on Breathless as a counterpoint to Le Samouraï, because, unlike that film, Melville treats the crime genre with ceremony and reverence. It’s a celebration, an ode, a tribute to men wearing trench coats and razor-sharp fedoras who carry deadly weapons just out of view. It’s a film of cops and criminals, fate and free will, and the sultry romance of being a career killer. Here, that means both sides of the law, and neither is without blemish. It’s also one of the most stylish films ever made, and the film that defined movie-cool.

The film begins in the sparse space of an empty studio apartment with a man, a lone wolf, smoking a leisurely cigarette. Class. His name is Jef Costello (Alain Delon), and he is a hit man. He’s given a job, a hit, and Melville fetishizes his routine. It starts with putting on a trench coat over his impeccably tailored black suit (complete with a skinny tie, a reminder today of how much ‘60s fashion dominates), and continues with putting on a fedora. He stares at his reflection as he puts on the hat and strikes the top rim, as if the film self-consciously declares to the audience, “You will never be this cool.” The film is right. Costello has a complex sequence of tasks before a kill, from how he gets transport to securing an alibi, and the opening minutes are a tantalizing seduction into his world. Costello does it with the sweatless skill of a pro. He’s smooth, he’s dangerous, and the film magnificently sets up our protagonist through carefully choreographed visual storytelling. In refreshing contrast to most films released today, Le Samouraï talks through your senses. It’s shocking, then, when Costello’s latest hit goes bad. After killing his target, he’s seen, and the police investigate. This is the plot.