The Cinematheque

“French cinema’s reigning mad romantic.”

Stephen Holden, The New York Times

An audacious, ecstatic, and altogether pyrotechnic filmmaker whose work is noted for its flamboyant cinephilia and extravagant explorations of amour fou—not to mention its irregularity—Leos Carax (b. 1960) rose to prominence in the mid-1980s as a Cahiers du cinéma critic-turned-cineaste, a torchbearer of the nouvelle vague masters he so admired. Just 23 when his debut Boy Meets Girl premiered at Cannes, Carax was hailed a prodigy, an enfant terrible, a new cinematic Rimbaud—maybe even the next Godard.

Both Boy Meets Girl and its follow-up Mauvais sang (the first of two Carax films with a young Juliette Binoche) had the director identified with a slick, visually bombastic ​“New New Wave”—the so-called cinéma du look—that included Jean-Jacques Beineix (Diva, Betty Blue) and Luc Besson (Subway, La femme Nikita). For many, Carax was always the most talented and significant of that cohort, even as he proved the least commercially successful. His utterly spectacular third feature, The Lovers on the Bridge (1991), was a film maudit (literally ​“accursed film”) of legendary proportions. Its budget spiralled wildly out of control, it was beset by numerous production delays and funding problems, and it tanked at the box office. The film has been called the Heaven’s Gate of French cinema. It was certainly a folie de grandeur that effectively derailed Carax’s career; eight years would elapse until his next film, Pola X, then another 13 before Holy Motors. Today it can be regarded as perhaps the director’s chef d’oeuvre.

Just in time for Valentine’s, The Cinematheque presents Leos Carax’s first three features, a cycle of love-drunk works dubbed the ​“Alex Trilogy” after the misfit romantic played by the director’s alter ego Denis Lavant. (“Alex,” notably, is also the director’s first name, ​“Leos Carax” being a nom-de-cinéma and anagram of Alex and Oscar, i.e. Academy Award.) Each film has been recently restored, with The Lovers on the Bridge boasting a brand-new 2025 restoration.

“A master of doomed romanticism.”

Scott Tobias, The A.V. Club

“Carax’s films are refreshingly outré, defiantly bombastic, and deliberately upsetting.”

Beatrice Loayza, The New York Times