Detective (Détective) (translated)

Directed by Jean-Luc Godard and released in 1985, this French crime drama unfolds inside a grand Paris hotel, where several storylines gradually overlap: a couple on the verge of splitting up, two unpaid debts, a boxing match being arranged, and two detectives reopening a murder case from two years earlier. The cast features Nathalie Baye, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Laurent Terzieff, singer Johnny Hallyday, Claude Brasseur, and Alain Cuny.

Within its crime framework, Godard weaves a dense web of references, borrowing characters from Shakespeare's The Tempest and alluding to Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim, Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast, and the music of Schubert, Wagner, Chopin, and Liszt. Although the film deliberately refuses to resolve its own plot, it is often regarded as Godard's last "conventional" feature. It competed at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival, won the Georges Delerue Award for its soundtrack at Film Fest Gent, and received an innovation prize at the Rotterdam festival.