Le Samouraï [1967] by Jean-Pierre Melville

Le Samouraï (French pronunciation: [lə sa.mu.ʁa.i]; lit.'The Samurai') is a 1967 neo-noir crime thriller film written and directed by Jean-Pierre Melville and starring Alain Delon, François Périer, Nathalie Delon, and Cathy Rosier. A Franco-Italian production, it depicts the intersecting paths of a professional hitman (Delon) trying to find out who hired him for a job and then tried to have him killed, and the Parisian commissaire (Périer) trying to catch him. The film was released on 25 October 1967, and it sold over 1.9 million tickets in France. It received positive reviews, with particular praise given to Melville's screenwriting and atmospheric direction, and Delon's performance. An English-dubbed version of the film was released in the U.S. in 1972 as The Godson. The film has come to be regarded as widely influential, particularly among the crime thriller genre, with many New Hollywood films containing explicit references to Le Samourai as well as the protagonist played by Delon. In a career-defining performance, Alain Delon plays Jef Costello, a contract killer with samurai instincts. After carrying out a flawlessly planned hit, Jef finds himself caught between a persistent police investigator and a ruthless employer, and not even his armor of fedora and trench coat can protect him. An elegantly stylized masterpiece of cool by maverick director Jean‑Pierre Melville, Le samouraï is a razor-sharp cocktail of 1940s American gangster cinema and 1960s French pop culture —with a liberal dose of Japanese lone-warrior mythology.