A vivid memory from 1959 (I was 13) was seeing Truffaut's THE 400 BLOWS at my local cinema in Ireland. That ending was astonishing as Antoine Doinel, that neglected child (about my own age) drifting into petty crime, runs away from his remand home and keeps running until he reaches the sea, as the image freeze frames ....
Jean-Pierre Leaud made his name as Truffaut's alter-ego, and returned to the role of Doinel several times as we followed the misadventures and romances of the adult Antoine, in those agreeable Truffaut films like STOLEN KISSES (BAISERS VOLES) and LOVE ON THE RUN (L'AMOUR EN FUITE). 
A year after THE 400 BLOWS he played the 15 year old living on his own in a room in Pigalle, overlooking Paris, is Duvivier's enjoyable BOULEVARD. He was also of course the spoiled movie brat star of Truffaut's DAY FOR NIGHT in 1973. Other movies included LAST TANGO IN PARIS, and Truffaut's ANNE AND MURIEL - he is still working now.
1959 was a pretty good year for French movies: there were also Chabrol's LES COUSINS, Mocky's LES DRAGUEURS, Franju's EYES WITHOUT A FACE, while Rene Clement was shooting PLEIN SOLEIL, and Godard was shooting BREATHLESS ... to join that new cinema world of Hitchcock and Antonioni in 1960.
I just bought all of the Doniel films on blu-ray but have yet to watch them.
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