Netflix Sets ‘Nouvelle Vague' Awards Season Release Dates — Theatrical and Streaming — and Categories (Exclusive)

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3 days ago

Nouvelle Vague, Richard Linklater's loving homage to Jean Luc-Godard's 1960 film Breathless and the French New Wave, which received a 10-minute standing ovation and rave reviews following its world premiere at May's Cannes Film Festival, will be released in American theaters on Oct. 31 and play on big screens for two weeks before dropping on Netflix on Nov. 14, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
When Netflix acquired Nouvelle Vague's U.S. rights shortly after Cannes, some reacted with surprise and dismay that a movie shot on film and about cinema would end up with a streamer. But the company is planning a robust theatrical release that will include not only screens in New York (where, appropriately enough, it owns the historic Paris Theater) and LA, but in all of the top 10 U.S. markets.
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Additionally, THR can report that the largely French-language film will be pushed across all categories. In my humble opinion, it could well end up a finalist for best picture, a category in which non-English-language films have landed many noms in recent years (including France's Netflix-distributed Emilia Pérez earlier this year); best director (Linklater is a beloved auteur, but his only nom in the category came for 2014's Boyhood); and screenplay (it has yet to be determined if Holly Gent, Laetitia Masson and Vincent Palmo Jr.'s script will be classified as adapted or original).
Meanwhile, Zoey Deutch, who is luminous as Breathless star Jean Seberg, will be campaigned in the supporting actress race, while French actors Guillaume Marbeck and Aubry Dullin, who eerily resemble the characters they play — Godard and Breathless breakout Jean-Paul Belmondo — will be pushed for lead actor and supporting actor, respectively.
The big question moving forward is whether or not France will select Nouvelle Vague as its entry for the best international feature Oscar competition. Each country's submission is determined by a selection committee comprised mostly of people associated with that country's film industry, who must attest that 'creative control of the film was largely in the hands of citizens, residents, or individuals with refugee or asylum status in the submitting country.'
The key word is 'largely.' In the case of Nouvelle Vague, Linklater and Deutch are American, but almost everyone else who worked in front of or behind the camera is French, including the film's two producers, Laurent Pétin and Michèle Pétin, so the film is certainly eligible. Plus, its financing came from France; it was shot in France; it premiered in France; and it is an out-and-out celebration of French cinema.
Some selection committees are hesitant to submit a film directed by someone born outside of their country's borders, feeling that doing so would be a missed opportunity to highlight homegrown talent. But other countries enter whichever film they think offers them the best shot at actually landing an Oscar nom. For instance, Japan put forward — and landed a nom in 2024 for — German filmmaker Wim Wenders' Perfect Days. Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland has had films entered by Poland, West Germany and the Czech Republic. And twice in the last decade, France itself submitted films by non-French filmmakers: Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven's Elle in 2016 and Italian filmmaker Filippo Neneghetti's Two of Us in 2020.
France, however, has had bruising experiences with its last two submissions. In 2024, it entered The Taste of Things instead of Anatomy of a Fall; ultimately, the former was not nominated, while the latter went on to five other noms (best picture, director, original screenplay, actress and film editing), suggesting that it almost certainly would have been nominated for — and might have even won — best international feature had it been entered. And in 2025, its submission Emilia Pérez looked certain to bring the country its first win in the category since Indochine prevailed in 1993, but its prospects imploded shortly before the final round of voting, thanks to the exposure of problematic social media posts from its principal star, and it ultimately lost.
Again, Emilia Pérez was handled by Netflix, so you can be sure that the company is hungry for another chance to get a French film across the finish line in the best international feature Oscar race. (In just the last six years, it backed two films from other countries that went on to win that prize, Mexico's Roma in 2019 and Germany's All Quiet on the Western Front in 2023.) But the decision about whether or not it will have that opportunity is ultimately France's, or at least the French selection committee's.
Given that no other French film has emerged this year, so far, that would appear to offer the nation a better shot than Nouvelle Vague at landing a best international feature Oscar nom, and possibly even a win, it will be very interesting to see how France's selection committee plays it cards.
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