Cléo from 5 to 7 · reception & legacy

How Cléo from 5 to 7 has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

Admired on release as a highlight of the New Wave but long filed behind the films of Godard and Truffaut, it has climbed steadily as Varda's reputation soared — by the 2022 Sight & Sound poll it sat in the critics' top 20, now routinely called one of the movement's defining films.

What's debated

The perennial cinephile grievance it fuels: Varda was patronised as the 'grandmother of the New Wave' while her male peers took the glory, and fans love to argue that Cléo, not Breathless, is the movement's true masterpiece.

Its footprint

The mirror-filled hat-shop browse and Corinne Marchand singing 'Sans toi' straight into the camera are endlessly screencapped touchstones, and the real-time-in-Paris structure is name-checked whenever a film unfolds 'in real time.'

Where it stands

A canon staple and a Letterboxd darling — the standard gateway into Varda and a 'you must have seen this' of the French New Wave.