Alain Delon is the embodiment of cool as Jef Costello, a professional killer of exquisite precision and minimalist habit, who finds himself cornered after a job goes wrong and witnesses place him at the scene. Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï is the apotheosis of the French polar—a film of breathtaking economy and style, with barely a wasted word or gesture. Its influence on filmmakers from John Woo to Jim Jarmusch to Luc Besson is incalculable: a distilled vision of the lone man walking his fatalistic path to the end.