After professional hitman Jef Costello is seen by witnesses his efforts to provide himself an alibi drive him further into a corner.
In a career-defining performance, Alain Delon plays Jef Costello, a contract killer with samurai instincts. After carrying out a flawlessly planned hit, Jef finds himself caught between a persistent police investigator and a ruthless employer, and not even his armor of fedora and trench coat can protect him. An elegantly stylized masterpiece of cool by maverick director Jean‑Pierre Melville, Le samouraï is a razor-sharp cocktail of 1940s American gangster cinema and 1960s French pop culture—with a liberal dose of Japanese lone-warrior mythology.
"An elegantly stylized masterpiece of cool by maverick director Jean-Pierre Melville, 'Le samouraï' is a razor-sharp cocktail of 1940s American gangster cinema and 1960s French pop culture-with a liberal dose of Japanese lone-warrior mythology." -Indiewire
"Melville's austere yet sensuous reinvention of the genre's macho honor and trenchcoated, fedora-wearing iconography, coolly projected by Delon's expressionless face, makes "Le Samourai" a pungent and pleasurable experience still." -BostonGlobe