nouvelle vague

[ noo-vel vag ]

noun

, French.

, plural nou·velles vagues [noo-vel , vag].

1. a new wave, trend, movement, phase, etc., especially in an art form.
2. the films of a group of young French and Italian filmmakers, beginning in the late 1950s, who emphasized conscious manipulation of film techniques and psychological probing instead of plot.

Nouvelle Vague

/ nuvɛl vaɡ /

noun

1. films another term for New Wave 1

Word History and Origins

Origin of nouvelle vague¹

Literally, “new wave”

Example Sentences

With his focus on comedy and mass entertainment, Yamada has diverged from the path of the highly acclaimed “Nouvelle Vague,” or Japanese New Wave, which includes directors such as Nagisa Oshima of “In the Realm of the Senses” and Masahiro Shinoda, who directed “Ballad of Orin” — works that focused on the darker themes of sexuality and social brutality.

From Seattle Times

Starring Jean-Paul Belmondo as a brash French hooligan and Jean Seberg as the American in Paris he loves against his better judgment, “Breathless” caused a sensation when it took its place as one of the first examples of what came to be known as la Nouvelle Vague, a.k.a. the French New Wave.

From Los Angeles Times

The film was based on an idea by François Truffaut, another icon of the nouvelle vague, and began shooting in Paris without a script.

From Seattle Times

Simultaneously, he’d been writing, shooting and producing his own projects — most of them not in the action genre, but dramas, comedies and even a silent film inspired by Jean-Luc Godard’s nouvelle vague classic “Band of Outsiders” — aiming to build a reel and take his career into his own hands.

From Los Angeles Times

It’s extremely poetic and introspective, almost like a Japanese nouvelle vague from the ’80s.

From New York Times