The filmmaker Agnès Varda, often called the “godmother of the French New Wave,” died on Friday morning at 90. Over a six-decade-plus career she made dramas and documentaries, exploring feminism, memory and mortality through fury and whimsy alike.
Here’s where to stream some of her most notable work.
Cléo From 5 to 7 (1962)
Watch on iTunes or Kanopy
One of Varda’s most acclaimed early works is this existential drama, which follows a singer (Corinne Marchand) in real time as she anxiously wanders Paris awaiting the results of a cancer examination. Jon-Luc Godard makes a cameo as a silent clown. “It seems as innovative and influential as any New Wave film,” Roger Ebert wrote in 2012.
Le Bonheur (1965)
Watch on Amazon Prime
Varda’s follow up to Cleo From 5 to 7 was this romantic drama that focuses on a young carpenter torn between his wife and the postal clerk he begins an affair with. The film draws from Impressionist imagery and challenges modern norms of fidelity and happiness; it won the Grand Jury Prize in 1965 at the Berlin International Film Festival. TIME called it a “exquisite essay on young love, spelled out with considerable cynicism and eye-filling art.”
Vagabond (1985)
Watch on Amazon Prime
This bleak 1985 film is a prime example of the way in which Varda mixed drama and documentary styles. She captures the plight of a fictional young woman (Sandrine Bonnaire) drifting through French wine country during bone-chilling winter, interspersing straight-to-camera interviews from other characters who encounter her along the way. The film currently holds a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes; TIME named it one of the best films of the 1986.
The Beaches of Agnès (2008)
Watch on iTunes or Kanopy
Even if you don’t know what Kanopy is, there’s a good chance you have access to it: the streaming service operates in tandem with more than 200 public library systems across the United States. You can use your library card to sign up for an account that will give you free access to a catalog of more than 30,000 movies.
Several of Varda’s films are on Kanopy, including The Beaches of Agnès, her poignant and humor-filled film memoir made during her 80th year. She lingers on beaches, rummages through flea markets and reminisces about her wartime childhood and her friendships with Harrison Ford and Jim Morrison. She also explores her relationship with her late husband, the director Jacques Demy, and her sorrow after he died from complications from AIDS in 1990. TIME called it a “sly, sweet experiment.”
Faces Places (2017)
Watch on Netflix
In 2018, Varda became the oldest person ever nominated for a competitive Oscar for her documentary Faces Places. The film, a collaboration with the much younger artist JR, follows the odd couple as they zip through the French countryside, putting up giant photographs of the people they meet and engaging in warm, witty conversation. “The affection between them is the film’s heart and its motor, a story of two people looking at the world, facing forward together,” TIME’s film critic Stephanie Zacharek wrote in her review; she named it one of the best films of 2017.
