There are few filmmakers who are as influential and acclaimed as Richard Linklater. He is known for pushing the boundaries of his own work and producing truly original movies, whether they are irresistibly naturalistic, such as the “Before trilogy” (1995–2013), or distinctively animated like “A Scanner Darkly” (2006) and “Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood” (2022). He is the director of loveable comedies like “School of Rock” (2003) or “Fast Food Nation” (2006) as well as coming-of-age epics like “Boyhood” (2014), which was uniquely shot over twelve years with the same cast. His iconic early movies “Slacker” (1990) and “Dazed and Confused” (1993) marked him out as a filmmaker unafraid to push the boundaries of the medium, and he has carried that sensibility with him throughout his career. Despite all of his experimentation, Linklater also knows how to tell a story well, turning a seemingly simple premise into a fascinating drama in a movie such as “Blue Moon” (2025) or adapting fascinating source material such as “Where’d You Go, Bernadette” (2019) or “Hit Man” (2023). He is known to pay homage to cinema itself in his movies, but particularly in his appraisal of French New Wave in the movie “Nouvelle Vague” (2025).