This highly acclaimed first feature by wunderkind filmmaker Leos Carax (he was only 22 at the time) is an unconventional, moody tone poem that centers on a young man cruising the dark side of Paris. Having just split with his lover, the young man, Alex (Denis Lavant), is depressed and, happening upon a party, decides to crash it. There he meets an aging actress who has also just left her lover, and the two begin a complex relationship that grants them a temporary reprieve from the cruelties of everyday existence.

Carax's debut is an auspicious one; his visual gifts are clearly already almost fully developed, and the film contains a number of peerless sequences that are later revisited in MAUVAIS SANG and LOVERS ON THE BRIDGE. However, BOY MEETS GIRL has a certain immediacy, perhaps because of its low budget and stunning black-and-white photography, that Carax's later films lack.