# What is the best François Truffaut film?

> Every feature he directed alone is here: the Doinel cycle, the Hitchcock-style thrillers, the literary adaptations and the late films. A career of 21 solo features, cut short in 1984.

*By YPB Team · Published November 5, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-best-francois-truffaut-film*

---

## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **The 400 Blows**
   Truffaut's 1959 debut feature, the first of five films following Antoine Doinel, played by Jean-Pierre Léaud.
2. **Shoot the Piano Player**
   A 1960 crime film starring Charles Aznavour as a bar pianist drawn into his brothers' trouble with gangsters.
3. **Jules and Jim**
   A 1962 drama about two friends and the woman they both love, played by Jeanne Moreau.
4. **The Soft Skin**
   A 1964 drama about a married literary lecturer who begins an affair with a flight attendant.
5. **Fahrenheit 451**
   Truffaut's only English-language film, a 1966 adaptation of Ray Bradbury's novel starring Oskar Werner and Julie Christie.
6. **The Bride Wore Black**
   A 1968 thriller starring Jeanne Moreau as a widow who tracks down the five men behind her husband's death on their wedding day.
7. **Stolen Kisses**
   The 1968 third instalment of the Antoine Doinel cycle, with Doinel drifting between jobs after leaving the army.
8. **Mississippi Mermaid**
   A 1969 thriller starring Jean-Paul Belmondo as a tobacco planter and cigarette manufacturer on Réunion and Catherine Deneuve as his mail-order bride.
9. **The Wild Child**
   A 1970 drama based on the true case of Victor of Aveyron, with Truffaut himself playing the doctor who teaches him.
10. **Bed and Board**
   The 1970 fourth Antoine Doinel film, following his early married life with Christine.
11. **Two English Girls**
   A 1971 romantic drama adapted, like Jules and Jim, from a novel by Henri-Pierre Roché.
12. **Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me**
   A 1972 black comedy starring Bernadette Lafont as a woman held in prison on a murder charge, interviewed by a sociologist.
13. **Day for Night**
   A 1973 comedy-drama about the making of a film, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
14. **The Story of Adele H.**
   A 1975 drama starring Isabelle Adjani as Victor Hugo's daughter, who follows a British officer across the Atlantic.
15. **Small Change**
   A 1976 ensemble film about the children of the town of Thiers, in central France.
16. **The Man Who Loved Women**
   A 1977 comedy-drama starring Charles Denner as an engineer who writes a memoir of his love affairs.
17. **The Green Room**
   A 1978 drama in which Truffaut plays a widower devoted to the memory of the dead, based on stories by Henry James.
18. **Love on the Run**
   The 1979 final Antoine Doinel film, built partly from clips of the four earlier ones.
19. **The Last Metro**
   A 1980 drama set in a Paris theatre during the German occupation, starring Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu, winner of ten César Awards.
20. **The Woman Next Door**
   A 1981 drama starring Gérard Depardieu and Fanny Ardant as former lovers who become neighbours.
21. **Confidentially Yours**
   Truffaut's last film, a 1983 black-and-white mystery starring Fanny Ardant and Jean-Louis Trintignant.

Tags: movies, directors, tv shows, france, classics