With Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette is considered to be the most experimental of the French New Wave directors. Like Godard, he had a background in film criticism, but he also loved popular American cinema, especially genre directors such as Robert Aldrich and Frank Tashlin.

Rivette's stories progress in unconventional ways - often following multiple plot lines that can be romantic, mysterious, and comic all at once and employing extensive improvisation. As a result, his films are often extremely long ( the infamous Out 1 clocked in at 13 hrs, although a 4 1/2 hour cut was later produced.) and many of them are rarely seen.