Eustache’s first film follows two young “skirt chasers” as they go cruising for fun and trouble one Sunday in the Paris suburb of Robinson. When they pick up a girl who wants to go dancing and she ditches them for another boy, they decide to take revenge. Riding the crest of the French New Wave, Bad Company was admired by Godard, Rohmer, Douchet and others. Eustache’s rigor and detachment here, combined with an exacting naturalism, established the tone of much of his subsequent cinema.

Eustache made his second film with 35mm black-and-white stock left over from Godard’s Masculin Feminin and also used that film’s star, Jean-Pierre Léaud. Set in the provinces of Eustache’s youth, the film focuses on the character Daniel, an unemployed young man who spends most of his time unsuccessfully trying to meet girls and dream up money-making scams. One day, needing a new coat, he takes a job as a street-corner Santa Claus and in this role suddenly finds himself able to cope with the opposite sex. This fresh, introspective study of French youth won the International Critics’ Week Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.