Part of Weekend Classics
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 ‘40s American gangster cinema and ‘60s French pop culture — with a liberal dose of Japanese lone-warrior mythology.
Restored in 4K by Pathé and The Criterion Collection at L’Immagine Ritrovata, from the original 35mm negative.
“The real deal… From its silent opening moments to its breathtaking double-cross conclusion, LE SAMOURAÏ is the work of one of the film world's great directors working at his expressive peak.” —Marjorie Baumgarten, Austin Chronicle “Combines stylish direction, an intelligent script, first-rate performances, and overpowering atmosphere into one of the most tense and absorbing thrillers ever to reach the screen. In trying to identify a film with a similar impact, I'm left grasping at thin air — nothing quite like it exists in the annals of motion picture history.” —James Berardinelli, Reel Views “The samurai is Jef Costello (Alain Delon), an assassin-for-hire with a Buster Keaton stone-face and the coolest hat in French cinema… At once a riveting thriller and a nightmare of chic urban alienation, this 1967 production is the most ruthlessly effective of Melville's reinterpretations of the dark world of Hollywood's gangster noirs of the ‘30s and ‘40s.” —Kim Newman, Empire Magazine
