Vertigo, USA, 1958, 128 min. Starring James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Police detective on hiatus for a nervous condition takes a private job to follow a beautiful troubled young woman. But as events get stranger and more mysterious, he finds himself being led to a very dark, disturbing place – in his own mind. One of the Master's most eminently influential films.

Hiroshima Mon Amour, France-Japan, 1959, 91 min. Starring Emmanuele Riva, Eiji Okada. Directed by Alain Resnais. A French actress, after sleeping with a Japanese man she meets in the title city, finds herself unable to suppress memories of a previous affair that ended badly. And as it turns out, he has some secrets as well. Resnais gives us meticulously crafted images conveying the difficulty of letting go of the past.

Breathless, France, 1959, 89 min. Starring Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg. Directed by Jean-Luc Godard. Godard broke all sorts of rules of conventional cinema with his simple tale (authored by Francois Truffaut) of a Bogart-obsessed thug on the run from the cops – when, that is, he's not hanging out with his politically-minded American girlfriend. The film that, along with Truffaut's 400 Blows, began the French New Wave.

The 400 Blows, France, 1959, 99 min. Starring Jean-Pierre Léaud, Patrick Auffay. Directed by Francois Truffaut. The other inaugural film of the French New Wave is also the first of the series of films Truffaut and Léaud made centered around the character of Antoine Doinel. In this first film Antoine is a school kid finding it easier to get into trouble than to stay out of it. Fascinating and moving.