In 2010, on the occasion of its 50th anniversary, the film was restored under the supervision of cinematographer Raoul Coutard and had a successful run at New York's Film Forum before the release of the restored version on DVD. Godard was not involved in the reissue of the film, and much talk circulated about his having disowned the picture. In an article in the New York Post on May 30, 2010, New Yorker critic Richard Brody, author of Everything Is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard (Metropolitan, 2008), said, "He has the problem that many artists have of feeling somehow tied by audiences and by the critics to that early work, whereas he has the sense that he had gone much further after that."

Jean-Luc Godard has been one of the most prolific and influential filmmakers in the world, turning out nearly 100 features, documentaries, shorts, and film essays since the 1950s. After a remarkable run of pictures between his first feature, , and the apocalyptic satire Weekend (1967), he mostly left behind fiction features for the documentary and essay pieces he produced with the Dziga-Vertov Group, a Marxist collective he formed in 1968 with, among others, Jean-Pierre Gorin. The group did turn out one internationally known feature, Tout va bien (1972), starring Jane Fonda and Yves Montand. Godard made what was highly touted as a return to mainstream commercial filmmaking (although the terms "mainstream" and "commercial" must be considered very broad when applied to Godard) with Sauve qui peut (la vie)/Every Man for Himself (1980). At nearly 82 years old as of this writing, Godard continues to work and just had his latest film, Goodbye to Language 3D (2013), picked up for American distribution by Fox.

Jean-Paul Belmondo's career, both in France and globally, took off with his appearance in this film. He continues to work in motion pictures at nearly 80 years old as of this writing. He has made more than 80 films with such famous directors as Claude Lelouch, Alain Resnais, Claude Chabrol, François Truffaut, Philippe de Broca, Jean-Pierre Melville, and Vittorio De Sica.

Belmondo also worked with Godard in Une femme est une femme/A Woman Is a Woman, Pierrot le Fou (1965), and the comic short Charlotte et son Jules.

After a much-publicized, and critically panned, start in two Otto Preminger films, Saint Joan (1957) and Bonjour Tristesse (1958), Iowa-born Jean Seberg's career seemed destined for failure until she made her iconic appearance in Breathless. The film gave her international recognition, but her career-and personal life-continued to experience ups and downs. Despite a memorable performance opposite Warren Beatty in Robert Rossen's Lilith (1964) and the lead in the big-budget Hollywood musical Paint Your Wagon (1969), she worked and lived mostly in France. Several failed relationships (including marriage to writer Romain Gary), the death of her newborn daughter in 1970, and a nasty campaign by the FBI to smear her because of her association with anti-war politics and the radical Black Panther party contributed to her personal problems and several suicide attempts. She was found dead in her car on a suburban Paris street, apparently the victim of an overdose, in 1979 at the age of 40.

Seberg worked with Godard once more in the "Le Grand Escroq" episode of the multi-director anthology film The World's Most Beautiful Swindlers (1964). She appears as a character named Patricia Leacock, an American journalist who is somewhat inspired by her character in this movie.

Raoul Coutard is the cinematographer most closely associated with the Nouvelle Vague period, although he has shot more than 75 films in a career of more than 40 years. He made 14 films with Jean-Luc Godard between Breathless and Weekend, and then two more after Godard's so-called return to mainstream filmmaking: Passion (1982) and First Name: Carmen (1983). Coutard has also worked with directors François Truffaut (Shoot the Piano Player, 1960; Jules and Jim, 1962; The Bride Wore Black, 1968; et al), Jacques Demy (Lola), Costa-Gavras (Z, 1969; The Confession, 1970), and others. He has won numerous awards for his work, including the César (France's equivalent of the Academy Awards), the International Award from the American Society of Cinematographers, and at festivals in Venice and Cannes.

Algerian-born jazz pianist Martial Solal, who gained international fame with his music for the film, has been recording and performing since he moved to Paris in 1950. In his early years, prior to his work on Breathless, he played with such jazz legends as Django Reinhardt and Sidney Bechet. He has also written music for films by Marcel Carné, Jean-Pierre Melville, and Bertrand Blier.

By the time of the release of Breathless, Godard was already into preproduction for his second film, Le Petit Soldat (1963). Because of its observations about France's war with its independence-seeking colony Algeria, the film was banned from distribution for several years, during which time Godard had completed and released Une femme est une femme/A Woman Is a Woman and Vivre sa vie.

Godard makes a cameo appearance near the end of the film as the bystander (wearing sunglasses and reading the paper) who recognizes Michel and rats him out to the police.

by Rob Nixon