Beauty is composed of an eternal, invariable element whose quantity is extremely difficult to determine, and a relative element which might be, either by turns or all at once, period, fashion, moral, passion.

[citation needed] He is often considered the most radical French filmmaker of the 1960s and 1970s. Several of his films express his political views. Many of Godard's films challenge the conventions of traditional Hollywood in addition to French cinema.

He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement La Nouvelle Vague or "New Wave". In a 2002 Sight & Sound poll Godard ranked third in the critics' top ten directors of all time (which was put together by assembling the directors of the individual films for which the critics voted). He has created "one of the largest bodies of critical analysis of any filmmaker since the mid-twentieth century.