A Man and a Woman

Studio: The Criterion Collection

Apr 08, 2026 Web Exclusive By Cortlyn Kelly Photography by The Criterion Collection

60 years later, Claude Lelouch’s A Man and a Woman still steals our hearts. Although it was made long before my existence, its screenplay and themes reverberate through time, and it certainly must break and mend our hearts just the same.

The new 2K restoration from the Criterion Collection keeps the film’s texture intact — it dances from black and white to sepia to colorized celluloid, and it begs the viewer to search for some semblance of a pattern between these decisions. Early into the film’s runtime, I accept the randomness and all of the beauty that follows. Soft, dreamy landscape shots transport us to a sweeter time; it’s as if we can smell the sea through the screen. A sign of the times it was made, during the French New Wave, Lelouch’s experimentation with formats and styles is now something of cinema’s past. While the fusion of black-and-white and color in films has resurfaced recently, it typically holds more symbolic weight and purpose rather than from a place of necessity.

Long before the pinnacle of romcoms, A Man and a Woman is a true romance. Lelouch was recognized for his exceptional original screenplay that tells the story of two single, widowed parents who find a new sense of home in one another. Jean-Louis (Jean-Louis Trintignant), a race car driver, and Anne (Anouk Aimée), a script supervisor, have palpable chemistry, yet hold an innocence that centers the festering of butterflies at the start of something new. Like the listening booth scene in Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise, A Man and a Woman illustrates the early stages of a crush. However, Lelouch, through Trintignant and Aimee, inserts a surety of maturity, with the complexity of each lead’s background and current circumstances.

Like all Criterion Collection releases, an essay booklet accompanies the new special features. Penned by the author Carrie Rickey, A Man and a Woman is contextualized through its ripple effects on the cinematic canon and tidbits of Lelouch’s process enlighten viewers. In addition to the booklet and other features like a “making-of documentary” and interview with Lelouch, the DVD includes one of Lelouch’s later short films: C’etait un rendez-vous 1976). This, alongside the main feature, refresh our memory on why Paris is nicknamed the city of love.

A Man and a Woman is a must have for anyone who lends themselves to living life with rose-colored glasses. After the final cut, when we’re tossed back to the home screen whose color palette is alluring to complement the story’s passion, I found myself stuck listening to the film’s theme in a loop. The score alone, composed by Francis Lai, shakes out deep seeded memories of a love that maybe we don’t know yet. Sonically, our past lives resurface and we, like Jean-Louis and Anne, want to try again.

(www.criterion.com/films/34966-a-man-and-a-woman)

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