Film
The Soft Skin
Truffaut's elegant, melancholy study of infidelity and desire in 1960s Paris. A middle-aged publisher begins an affair with a stewardess, caught between two women and the lies that unravel. It's intimate rather than spectacular—a film about the small betrayals that fracture ordinary lives, shot with Truffaut's characteristic warmth and sad understanding.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you like quiet, observant films about adult infidelity where the tension lives in small domestic gestures, careful framing and what goes unsaid, the way Truffaut's more brooding work does.
Skip it if you need the story to move briskly, since much of its 119 minutes is spent watching a man weigh his choices in hotel rooms, restaurants and stairwells.
What it asks of you: Patience first: it unfolds at a measured, almost deliberate pace, and it wants you to sit with mundane detail and read the silences rather than wait for big dramatic beats.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
Jules and Jim1962
Truffaut's most famous love triangle, equally beautiful and destructive. Three people who can't quite figure out how to be happy together, across decades. If you loved the emotional honesty of The Soft Skin, this is essential.
But It's romantic in a way that can feel self-pitying. The film loves its characters' suffering a little too much for some tastes.
Contempt1963
Godard's masterpiece about a marriage cracking apart in real time. A film director, his wife, an American producer. The Contempt of the title is exactly what The Soft Skin traces: how respect dies between people who love each other.
But It's formally playful—colorful, digressive, weird. If you want straightforward emotion, you won't find it here.
Hiroshima Mon Amour1959
A brief affair between a French actress and a Japanese architect. Like The Soft Skin, it's about two people who can't quite be together, but Resnais makes it metaphysical—about memory, time, the impossibility of connection.
But Abstract and dreamlike. Some find it maddening rather than moving; patience required.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Soft Skin
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
The Remains of the Day1993
Both films track the exact moment a man chooses his private life over his conscience, then watches that choice metastasize.
A butler spends his life serving with perfect restraint, suppressing everything he feels. A meditation on duty, silence, and how we destroy ourselves by never speaking. It's about infidelity of a kind—the betrayal of your own heart.
But It's British and buttoned-up, very different in texture. The emotional impact creeps up; it doesn't hit you immediately.
More like this (8)
Laura1944
An American film noir about a detective falling for a dead woman's portrait. It shares Soft Skin's obsessive intensity—desire that blinds people to reality, passion that distorts everything around it.
But It's a murder mystery first, which can feel like a framework for the love story rather than its equal.
The 400 Blows1959
Truffaut's other masterpiece, about a boy's fractured childhood. Different story, same gift: the precision of how small moments break us, the camera's understanding of human weakness.
But It's sadder than The Soft Skin. A film about childhood suffering reads differently than one about adult desire.
The Leopard1963
An aging Sicilian prince watches his world change, his marriage steady but distant. A film about time, decay, and people choosing comfort over passion. Gorgeous and elegiac.
But It's very long and very slow. The beauty can feel cold if you're not in the right frame of mind.
Breakfast at Tiffany's1961
Holly Golightly and her suitor; two people who can't quite admit they want each other. It's lighter than The Soft Skin but working similar emotional territory—desire dressed as indifference.
But Its tone is all charm and surface. Some find it superficial, especially after watching something as honest as Soft Skin.
The Manchurian Candidate1962
Frank Sinatra, political intrigue, a mother's suffocating love. Like The Soft Skin, it maps how people who should care about each other instead destroy each other.
But It's a thriller, so it prioritizes plot. The emotional currents are subtext, not the main event.
The Lovers1958
Louis Malle's film about a couple's affair—literally called 'Lovers.' It caused outrage for its honesty about sex and infidelity. A direct ancestor of Soft Skin's moral world.
But It's very French cinema of its era; some scenes feel dated. The sex scenes, shocking then, aren't shocking now.
The Godfather Part II1974
Both use parallel narratives (or dual attention) to show how men construct lies that inevitably find them. The affair here is with power rather than another woman, but the betrayal is identical.
Coppola intercuts two timelines: Vito building an empire and Michael destroying his marriage while running it. The Soft Skin in Sicilian crime epic form—same theme, different scale. How ambition poisons everything you love.
But It's long and baroque and male, all muscle and rage. Truffaut's sadness is gentler.
A Separation2011
Both films trust the viewer to see that infidelity (emotional or otherwise) is less interesting than what it reveals about character and what it costs everyone around you.
An Iranian couple divorcing, entangled with another family. It shares The Soft Skin's precision about how ordinary people make small choices that metastasize into catastrophe. No Hollywood resolution. Just consequence.
But It's slow, legalistic, frustrating. You'll want someone to make a big gesture; the film won't let them.
People
Cast
Françoise DorléacNicole
Jean DesaillyPierre Lachenay
Nelly BenedettiFranca Lachenay
Daniel CeccaldiClément
Laurence BadieIngrid
Philippe DumatDirecteur Cinéma Reims- Paule EmanueleOdile
Maurice GarrelBontemps
Sabine HaudepinSabine Lachenay
Dominique LacarrièreLa Secrétaire Dominique
Jean LanierMichel
Pierre RischChanoine
Directing
- Claude Othnin-GirardAssistant Director
- Jean-François AdamAssistant Director
- Jean-Pierre LéaudAssistant Director Trainee
- François TruffautDirector
- Suzanne SchiffmanScript Supervisor
Writing
- François TruffautScreenplay
- Jean-Louis RichardScreenplay
Production
- António da Cunha TellesAssociate Producer
- António da Cunha TellesProducer
- François TruffautProducer
- Marcel BerbertProduction Manager
- Gérard PoirotUnit Manager
Recommended by
Masculin Féminin, The Human Stain, Bed and Board, Laughter in the Dark, Claire's Knee, The Macomber Affair, Muriel, or the Time of Return, The Married Woman, The Third Generation, François Truffaut: Stolen Portraits, À double tour, Vijeta