---
title: "Alphaville"
year: 1965
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/alphaville"
fi1m_id: "alphaville"
imdb_id: "tt0058898"
tmdb_id: 8072
wikidata_id: "Q542688"
fi1m_score: 78
critics_score: 74
critics_reviews: 8
published: "2026-09-26T15:50:32.540349+00:00"
updated: "2026-09-26T15:50:41.647375+00:00"
region: "UA"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Alphaville (1965)

Directed by Jean-Luc Godard · 1h 39m · Drama, Science Fiction, Mystery

## Identity

Alphaville

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/alphaville
- **Type:** Film
- **Fi1m ID:** alphaville
- **IMDb ID:** tt0058898
- **TMDB ID:** 8072
- **Wikidata ID:** Q542688
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058898/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/8072, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q542688

**Fi1m score: 78** · Critics 74 from 8 reviews

*In a sentence:* Paris by night, run by a computer that sounds like it smokes eighty a day

> Godard’s science-fiction noir was shot in real Paris at night with no sets, and it still looks like nowhere else. It is funny, strange and beautifully lit, and it sags whenever the computer starts lecturing, which is more often than we would like.

## Synopsis

Secret agent Lemmy Caution (Eddie Constantine) drives into Alphaville from the Outlands, posing as Ivan Johnson, a reporter for Figaro-Pravda. The city is run by Alpha 60, a computer that speaks in a croak, bans words like “love” and “why”, and issues a new dictionary every day listing what residents may no longer say. Caution checks into a hotel that supplies a Seductress Third Class with the key, photographs everything with a flash camera, and sets out to find two men: Henri Dickson (Akim Tamiroff), a fellow agent gone to seed in the Red Star Hotel, and Professor Léonard von Braun (Howard Vernon), who built the machine. Keeping an eye on him is von Braun’s daughter, Natacha (Anna Karina), who has never heard the word “conscience”.

## Review

Jean-Luc Godard made a film about the future without building a single set. Alphaville is Paris in 1965 after dark: glass office blocks, hotel corridors, motorway underpasses, a swimming pool. Into it walks Lemmy Caution, a pulp secret agent Eddie Constantine had already played in a run of cheap French thrillers, in a trench coat, with a camera and a gun. The joke is that a hard-boiled hero has wandered into a philosophy seminar, and for long stretches the joke works.

It is a good film and a lopsided one. When Godard trusts the pictures, it is as sharp and odd as anything he made in that decade. When he hands the microphone to Alpha 60, the computer that runs the city, it becomes a lecture, and a lecture delivered in a croak that is hard on the ear. We recommend it, and we recommend a certain patience.

The pictures belong to Raoul Coutard. He shot at night with available light, and the result is a city of white neon, black glass and faces lit from below by desk lamps. A corridor scene has Caution and Natacha walking through light that pulses on and off, so the two of them appear and vanish in step. Coutard films a modern building at night and it looks like a machine breathing. Pierre Guffroy’s production design is credited, and his job here seems to have been choosing which real rooms to point the camera at; the choices are right every time, especially the hotel corridors, which are long, bare and lit like an interrogation.

Constantine is the film’s anchor and its best gag. He has a face like a boxer who has lost more than he has won, and he plays Caution completely straight, hitting people, drinking, photographing everything with a flash that goes off like a gunshot. We laughed out loud at the first punch, and then at the second, because Godard cuts them so abruptly, with Agnès Guillemot slicing away before the man has finished falling. Paul Misraki’s score does the same trick: brass stabs from a spy film, arriving late and too loud, then a small melancholy theme for Natacha that keeps coming back.

Anna Karina is the reason the film has a heart. Natacha has grown up in a city where the words for feeling have been deleted, and Karina plays her as someone reaching for a shelf that is not there. She recites the phrases the state gives her, “I’m very well, thank you, not at all”, with a brightness that curdles the more you hear it. When Caution hands her a book of Paul Éluard’s poems, she reads it the way a child reads a menu in a foreign language. It moved us more than we expected, because Karina never asks for sympathy; she just looks puzzled, and slowly less so.

Akim Tamiroff, as the ruined agent Dickson, gets one long scene in a fleapit hotel and makes a full character out of a cough and a bottle. Howard Vernon’s von Braun is barely in it, which is a pity. Jean-Pierre Léaud turns up for a few seconds as a breakfast waiter, and anyone who knows Godard’s other films will smile. The scene that unsettled us is the public execution at the swimming pool, staged as sport, with an audience in evening dress applauding and synchronised swimmers finishing the job. It is done in flat daylight, without music for once, and the ordinariness is what got under our skin. We will not say who is on the diving board.

The trouble is the talk. Alpha 60 speaks in a voice that sounds like gravel being poured through a drain, and it speaks a great deal, about time, about logic, about the death of the poetic. Some of this is meant to be absurd and some of it Godard plainly believes, and the film does not always know which. The middle half hour is where most viewers will check the clock. It is 99 minutes long and feels longer there.

The English-dubbed version made a poor first impression on some critics in 1965, and we can see why: Constantine’s rasp and Karina’s uncertainty are half the point. See it in French with subtitles, late, with the lights off. The city outside your window will look different afterwards.

*Fi1m score 78, published 26 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

Most critics like Alphaville, and the positive reviews cluster around the same things: the marriage of film noir and science fiction, and the look of the thing. The praise goes to Godard’s decision to build a future out of present-day Paris, using night streets, modern office blocks and harsh contrast rather than sets, and several reviews single out the nighttime photography as the reason the film still holds up. A few also warm to the romance underneath the ideas, and to Godard folding his own philosophical preoccupations into pulp.

The spread is wide. The reservations come largely from the film’s first release: Variety finds it piquant but sketchy, more an adventurous attitude than a worked-out story, and The New York Times dismisses it almost entirely on account of its dubbing. Later reviews, from Empire onwards, treat those complaints as period noise and judge the film by its images, which is where the consensus has settled.

## Straight answers

**Is Alphaville worth watching?**

*Alphaville* is worth watching for anyone with a taste for Godard or for science fiction that trusts pictures over effects, and we scored it 78. Raoul Coutard's night-time Paris and Anna Karina's puzzled, reaching performance carry it. Be warned that the computer talks a great deal, and the middle half hour drags.

**How long is Alphaville, and what is it rated?**

*Alphaville* runs 1h 39m. It is a drama and science fiction film.

**Where can I watch Alphaville in Ukraine?**

*Alphaville* is not on any streaming or rental service in Ukraine at the moment. It is available in 6 other countries; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily.

**How does Alphaville compare to Kiss Me Deadly?**

*Alphaville* takes the pulp detective of [*Kiss Me Deadly*](https://film.one/film/kiss-me-deadly) and drops him into a philosophy seminar, played straight and lit like an interrogation. Aldrich's film is the harsher and more direct thriller, better for anyone who wants violence and momentum; Godard's is funnier and stranger, better for anyone who can sit through a computer lecturing about logic.

**What should I watch after Alphaville?**

After *Alphaville*, try [*Kiss Me Deadly*](https://film.one/film/kiss-me-deadly) (1955, Fi1m 87): The pulp detective film Godard was quoting, with its own glowing box of doom. Then [*Brazil*](https://film.one/film/brazil) (1985, Fi1m 83): Gilliam’s bureaucratic nightmare shares the joke: the future is the present, badly wired.

### Reviews we read (8)

- **The New Yorker**, Richard Brody (90/100, inferred): Brody presents the film as a major work of romanticism and science fiction. He praises its fusion of genre conventions and cinematic references with Godard’s philosophical and personal concerns. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/dvd-of-the-week-alphaville)
- **Vulture**, Bilge Ebiri (90/100, inferred): Ebiri presents the film as an influential, poetic vision of the future that remains singular. He praises its eerie beauty, especially the stark nighttime imagery and the tenderness of its romantic ending. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/article/movie-review-jean-luc-godards-alphaville-restored-in-4k.html)
- **Empire**, David Parkinson (80/100, inferred): Parkinson praises Godard’s inventive blend of pulp and political allegory, finding the film enduringly effective. He especially singles out its groundbreaking visuals, which remain stunning. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/alphaville-review/)
- **Los Angeles Times**, Los Angeles Times Film Critic (80/100, inferred): The critic finds that “Alphaville” remains fresh and makes a strong connection despite its age. They praise how Godard uses language and attitude to create a distinctive science-fiction future. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-alphaville-movie-review-story.html)
- **Slant Magazine**, Jake Cole (4/5): The review calls the film a fascinating outlier in Godard’s New Wave period and praises Kino Lorber’s Blu-ray presentation. It especially singles out the 4K transfer for revealing the beauty and detail of the film’s shadowy cinematography. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/alphaville-blu-ray-review-jean-luc-godard/)
- **Time Out**, TM (80/100, inferred): The critic presents the film as one of Godard’s most enjoyable works. They praise its dazzling blend of film noir and science fiction. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/alphaville-1)
- **Variety**, Variety Staff (60/100, inferred): The review finds the film piquant but sketchy, praising Godard’s adventurous, philosophical approach while noting its intellectual, unorthodox style. It singles out the grubby Paris locations and modern buildings for creating an effective, bleak futuristic atmosphere. [Read](https://variety.com/1964/film/reviews/alphaville-une-etrange-aventure-de-lemmy-caution-1200420897/)
- **The New York Times**, Bosley Crowther (30/100, inferred): The review is negative, arguing that the film is spoiled by its dubbing. The headline singles out the dubbing as the chief complaint. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1965/10/26/archives/screen-alphaville-festival-picture-at-the-parisgodards-film-spoiled.html)

## Details

- **Director:** Jean-Luc Godard
- **Director:** Jean-Luc Godard
- **Writer:** Jean-Luc Godard
- **Cinematography:** Raoul Coutard
- **Editor:** Agnès Guillemot
- **Music:** Paul Misraki
- **Production design:** Pierre Guffroy
- **Producer:** René Allamelle, Giorgio Moser, Jo Siritzky
- **Cast:** Eddie Constantine as Lemmy Caution; Anna Karina as Natacha von Braun; Akim Tamiroff as Henri Dickson; Valérie Boisgel as 2nd Seductress Third Class (uncredited); Jean-Louis Comolli as Prof. Jeckell (uncredited); Michel Delahaye as von Braun's Assistant (uncredited); Christa Lang as 1st Seductress Third Class (uncredited); Jean-Pierre Léaud as Breakfast Waiter (uncredited)
- **Runtime:** 1h 39m
- **First release (France):** 5 May 1965
- **Genres:** Drama, Science Fiction, Mystery
- **Also in:** [Golden Bear winners](https://film.one/collections/golden-bear.md) (Winner, 1965)
- **Budget:** $220,000
- **Box office:** $46,585
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzaATgGHmy0

## Where to watch in Ukraine

Not streaming, renting or buying in Ukraine at the last check.

Also available in: AT, CA, FR, GB, IT, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## Awards

- Berlin International Film Festival 1965: Golden Bear (won)

## If you liked this

- *La Jetée* (1962): Marker’s half-hour of still photographs and one moving image; the future as memory.
- *Kiss Me Deadly* (1955), Fi1m 87: The pulp detective film Godard was quoting, with its own glowing box of doom. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/kiss-me-deadly.md)
- *Ikarie XB-1* (1963): Czech space voyage, sober and eerie, made the same year Godard was planning his.
- *Fahrenheit 451* (1966): Truffaut’s book-burning future, shot in colour by Roeg, gentler and sadder than this.
- *Brazil* (1985), Fi1m 83: Gilliam’s bureaucratic nightmare shares the joke: the future is the present, badly wired. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/brazil.md)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/alphaville