La leçon de cinéma: François Truffaut (1983)

The documentary examines Truffaut's life and career in astonishing totality, highlighting selected clips from many of his best and most-loved films, including under-appreciated gems like his crackerjack movie-within-a-movie, "Day for Night," and his tender and insightful portrait of married ennui, "Bed and Board." The layer of Truffaut's generally affable public persona is also peeled back a bit, revealing the complicated, often moody artist who existed beneath the veneer. Many seasoned Truffaut buffs may very well be familiar with a lot of this stuff - particularly the bits about the director's famously tumultuous childhood, which served as an inspiration of sorts for "The 400 Blows" - but it's still an engaging and genuinely probing look at one of the most significant cinematic storytellers in the history of the medium.