Breathless is one of the earliest and more influential examples of French New Wave cinema. Along with François Truffaut's The 400 Blows and Alain Resnais's Hiroshima mon amour, both released a year earlier, it brought international attention to new styles of French filmmaking. At the time, Breathless attracted much attention for its bold visual style, which included unconventional use of jump cuts. Jean-Paul Charles Belmondo ; 9 April 1933 – 6 September 2021) was a French actor, initially associated with the New Wave of the 1960s and a major French film star for several decades from the 1960s. His best known credits include Breathless (1960), That Man from Rio (1964), Pierrot le Fou (1965), Borsalino (1970), and The Professional (1981).