Important Movies

The film was especially appreciated by filmmakers and film critics associated with the French New Wave movement. André Bazin said "as a conventional love story, the film could have been a success if the scenario had respected the rules of the movie game. But Renoir wanted to make his own style of drame gai, and the mixture of genres proved disconcerting to the public."[119] Alain Resnais said seeing the film was "the single most overwhelming experience I have ever had at the cinema".[76] Louis Malle said "for all of us, my generation of French filmmakers, La Regle du jeu was the absolute masterpiece".[120] François Truffaut articulated the film's enormous influence and said "it isn't an accident that The Rules of the Game inspired a large number of young people who had first thought of expressing themselves as novelists to take up careers as filmmakers". He also said "It is the credo of movie lovers, the film of films, the film most hated when it was made and most appreciated afterwards, to the extent that it ultimately became a true commercial success".[57]


Other filmmakers influenced by The Rules of the Game include Satyajit Ray, who called it "a film that doesn't wear its innovations on its sleeve ... Humanist? Classical? Avant-Garde? Contemporary? I defy anyone to give it a label. This is the kind of innovation that appeals to me."[121] Bernardo Bertolucci called the film a "supreme prophesy about the reality of that time".[31] Wim Wenders said "rarely has there been a film so void of any prejudice whatsoever".[113] Peter Bogdanovich said it is "still shocking".[31] Noah Baumbach praised the film's plot.[115] Cameron Crowe said The Rules of the Game is "so rich in detail, you get lost in it almost immediately".[116] Henri Cartier-Bresson, who worked on the film before beginning a long career as a photojournalist, called it "one of the summits of art and a premonition of everything that was to happen in the world".[40] Robert Altman said "The Rules of the Game taught me the rules of the game".[116]


Altman's Gosford Park is similar to The Rules of the Game in many of its plot elements, including the relationship between wealthy people and their servants, and the hunting sequence.[122] Italian film critic Francis Vanoye said The Rules of the Game has influenced numerous films that feature a group of character who spend a short time together at a party or gathering – often while hunting animals – during which their true feelings about each other are revealed. Along with Gosford Park, these films include Jean Grémillon's Summer Light, Ingmar Bergman's Smiles of a Summer Night, Carlos Saura's The Hunt, Peter Fleischmann's Hunting Scenes From Bavaria, Nikita Mikhalkov's An Unfinished Piece for a Player Piano, Theo Angelopoulos'sThe Hunters, Lawrence Kasdan's The Big Chill[123] and Denys Arcand's The Decline of the American Empire.[124] The Rules of the Game has also been compared to Paul Bartel's Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills.[125]