Richard Roud, film writer and co-founder and director of the New York Film Festival, was one of the most influential film critics of the twentieth century. Renowned for his close relationships with French New Wave directors such as Godard and Truffaut, he played a key role in bringing European art cinema to the attention of American and British audiences.

This anthology brings together selected writings from his published works with previously unpublished archival material - from an unfinished study of Truffaut, to extracts from his books on film-makers such as Straub-Huillet and Ophuls,...