# Made in U.S.A.
*Made in U.S.A.* is a 1966 French crime film directed by [Jean-Luc Godard](https://www.edgepedia.org/jean-luc-godard), loosely adapted from the 1965 novel *The Jugger* by Richard Stark, the pen name of the American mystery writer [Donald E. Westlake](https://www.edgepedia.org/donald-e-westlake). [Anna Karina](https://www.edgepedia.org/anna-karina) stars as Paula Nelson, a journalist investigating the death of her former lover in a fictionalized Atlantic City, and the film was the last feature Godard made with her.[1](https://www.criterion.com/films/2109-made-in-u-s-a) • [2](https://usercontent.hkiff.org.hk/Press/HKIFF47/20230214_Jean_Luc_Godard/%28EN%29%20HKIFF47%20Godard%20x%20Anna%20Karina.pdf)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director and source | Jean-Luc Godard, his twelfth feature, loosely adapted from *The Jugger* (1965) by Richard Stark (Donald E. Westlake)[3](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1199-made-in-u-s-a-the-long-goodbye) |
| Production | Shot quickly in 1966, produced by Georges de Beauregard with Rome-Paris Films, Anouchka Films, and SEPIC[3](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1199-made-in-u-s-a-the-long-goodbye) • [4](https://cinema-francais.fr/film/made-in-usa-1966) |
| Release | French theatrical release 27 January 1967; 85 minutes, color, 2.35:1[4](https://cinema-francais.fr/film/made-in-usa-1966) • [1](https://www.criterion.com/films/2109-made-in-u-s-a) |
| Key crew | Cinematography Raoul Coutard; editing Agnès Guillemot[4](https://cinema-francais.fr/film/made-in-usa-1966) |
| Cast | Anna Karina (Paula Nelson), Jean-Pierre Léaud, László Szabó, Marianne Faithfull[1](https://www.criterion.com/films/2109-made-in-u-s-a) |
| U.S. availability | No U.S. distributor until roughly four decades after a single 1967 New York Film Festival screening; Criterion released it on DVD in 2009[3](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1199-made-in-u-s-a-the-long-goodbye) • [5](https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark%3A/12148/cb45341600d) |
| Critical standing | 85% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer from 20 reviews[6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1207721-made_in_usa) |
## Spoilers
### Story and style
[Paula Nelson](https://www.edgepedia.org/paula-nelson) arrives in Atlantic City to meet her lover Richard Politzer, finds him dead, and investigates. Her inquiry brings her into contact with gangsters, including the talkative Typhus, whom she knocks out, and she is herself placed under surveillance and arrested and interrogated.[9](https://embed.letterboxd.com/film/made-in-usa/details/) • [10](https://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/film/Made_in_USA/6160) The plot is a noir skeleton on which Godard hangs political and cinematic references: characters carry the names of [Robert McNamara](https://www.edgepedia.org/robert-mcnamara), Richard Nixon, the crime writer David Goodis, and the director [Kenji Mizoguchi](https://www.edgepedia.org/kenji-mizoguchi) (as Doris Mizoguchi), and the cast includes a slapstick Jean-Pierre Léaud and Marianne Faithfull singing an a cappella "As Tears Go By."[1](https://www.criterion.com/films/2109-made-in-u-s-a)
The film is dedicated to [Nicholas Ray](https://www.edgepedia.org/nicholas-ray) and [Samuel Fuller](https://www.edgepedia.org/samuel-fuller), "who raised me to respect image and sound," a tribute to the American directors whose work had shaped Godard's filmmaking.[3](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1199-made-in-u-s-a-the-long-goodbye) Godard chose the style of American film noir because he felt that "the structure of the American film noir is itself political," and the film's conflicts are presented as products of the Cold War, "made in USA."[11](https://www.thecine-files.com/past-issues/spring-2012-issue/featured-articles/politicsgodard/)
## Production and release
Godard made the film in 1966 so quickly that J. Hoberman, the American film critic who wrote the Criterion Collection essay on it, describes the result as almost an improvisation.[3](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1199-made-in-u-s-a-the-long-goodbye) It was produced by Georges de Beauregard, who had also produced Godard's earlier features, with cinematography by Raoul Coutard and editing by Agnès Guillemot, both regular collaborators of the director.[4](https://cinema-francais.fr/film/made-in-usa-1966) The film was shot in Paris, with no effort to make the settings look American.[4](https://cinema-francais.fr/film/made-in-usa-1966) • [7](https://www.the-cinematograph.com/movies/made-in-u-s-a/)
Its release history is unusual. Although it premiered at the 1967 [New York Film Festival](https://www.edgepedia.org/new-york-film-festival), that was a single screening; producer Georges de Beauregard's insolvency, following the French government censorship of his previous production, Jacques Rivette's *The Nun*, combined with complications over the literary rights to Westlake's novel, kept the film without a U.S. distributor or even a limited American theatrical run for about four decades. It reached North American home video through the Criterion Collection in 2009.[3](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1199-made-in-u-s-a-the-long-goodbye) • [5](https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark%3A/12148/cb45341600d) Westlake's legal battle with the film's producer contributed to its standing among readers of the Parker novels, many of whom disowned the adaptation.[8](https://inhousearchive.substack.com/p/in-defense-of-made-in-usa-1966-parker)
## Politics and the American title
The film's politics sit at the boundary between Godard's early pop-culture period and the militant cinema that followed. Hoberman describes it as anticapitalist and anticonsumerist, decrying miniskirts and rock and roll as forms of fascist mind control, yet more devoted to mid-century pop culture than any Godard film before or after.[11](https://www.thecine-files.com/past-issues/spring-2012-issue/featured-articles/politicsgodard/) Gilles Jacob, writing in early 1967, called it Godard's first "consciously made political film."[3](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1199-made-in-u-s-a-the-long-goodbye)
The setting and title carry the political argument. The film alludes to the [Vietnam War](https://www.edgepedia.org/vietnam-war), the [Algerian War](https://www.edgepedia.org/algerian-war) (indirectly, with Morocco standing for Algeria), and the disappearance of the opposition politician [Mehdi Ben Barka](https://www.edgepedia.org/mehdi-ben-barka), and the title, together with abundant references to Hollywood, points at the United States as the source of the absurdities corrupting the present age.[7](https://www.the-cinematograph.com/movies/made-in-u-s-a/) Godard himself put it plainly: "les U.S.A., c'est la France" (the U.S.A., that is France).[12](https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/tape15/PQDD_0035/NQ27156.pdf) In a Montreal seminar he explained the detective figure as an image of Western liberty: an investigator who walks around with hands in pockets, answers to no factory or government, and can grab someone by the collar and ask questions.[13](https://www.global-geneva.com/global-issues/media/godards-made-in-usa-politics-and-atrocity-unraveled)
## Relation to Alphaville and to Karina
*Made in U.S.A.* extends the thinking of *Alphaville* (1965) rather than remaking it: both films follow a trench-coated investigator seeking justice in a faraway city, mixing politics, cinematic devices, and wordplay with a stylized comic-book world of guns and fast dialogue. The choice of "Atlantic City" as the setting is itself a wordplay, since abbreviating "Atlantic" and substituting the Greek alpha yields "Alpha-ville." The film ends with Paula asking how the political terms "left" and "right," which a character calls obsolete, can be replaced.[7](https://www.the-cinematograph.com/movies/made-in-u-s-a/)
For Anna Karina, Godard's wife from 1961 and the central actress of his films from 1960 to 1967, this was the final feature collaboration; she worked with him once more afterward on the short *Anticipation* within *The Oldest Profession* (1967).[2](https://usercontent.hkiff.org.hk/Press/HKIFF47/20230214_Jean_Luc_Godard/%28EN%29%20HKIFF47%20Godard%20x%20Anna%20Karina.pdf) • [14](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jan/08/jean-luc-godard-anna-karina-muse)
## Reception
Contemporary and later critical response has been divided on the film's coherence but largely positive on its standing in Godard's career. The film holds 85% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer from 20 reviews, with critics describing it as gorgeous, minor, and pivotal, and as challenging as it is important within Godard's body of work.[6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1207721-made_in_usa) Among readers of the Parker novels it remains controversial as an adaptation, with the frequent complaint that it shares nearly nothing with its source novel.[8](https://inhousearchive.substack.com/p/in-defense-of-made-in-usa-1966-parker) [The Criterion Collection](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-criterion-collection) frames it as a final burst of exuberance from Godard's early-sixties run of films that also points toward the more political cinema that would define his later work.[1](https://www.criterion.com/films/2109-made-in-u-s-a)
## References
1. [Made in U.S.A (1966), The Criterion Collection](https://www.criterion.com/films/2109-made-in-u-s-a)
2. [Jean-Luc Godard x Anna Karina Retrospective, Hong Kong International Film Festival Society](https://usercontent.hkiff.org.hk/Press/HKIFF47/20230214_Jean_Luc_Godard/%28EN%29%20HKIFF47%20Godard%20x%20Anna%20Karina.pdf)
3. [Made in U.S.A: The Long Goodbye, by J. Hoberman, The Criterion Collection](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1199-made-in-u-s-a-the-long-goodbye)
4. [Made in USA (1966), cinema-francais.fr](https://cinema-francais.fr/film/made-in-usa-1966)
5. [Notice bibliographique Made in USA, Bibliothèque nationale de France](https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark%3A/12148/cb45341600d)
6. [Made in U.S.A., Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1207721-made_in_usa)
7. [Made in U.S.A, The Cinematograph](https://www.the-cinematograph.com/movies/made-in-u-s-a/)
8. [In Defense of Made in U.S.A (1966), Parker Through the Looking Glass](https://inhousearchive.substack.com/p/in-defense-of-made-in-usa-1966-parker)
9. [Made in U.S.A (1966), Letterboxd](https://embed.letterboxd.com/film/made-in-usa/details/)
10. [Made in USA, Larousse](https://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/film/Made_in_USA/6160)
11. [The Politics of Pre-Political Godard: Alphaville, Made in USA, The Cine-Files](https://www.thecine-files.com/past-issues/spring-2012-issue/featured-articles/politicsgodard/)
12. [Fantasy America: The United States (dissertation)](https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/tape15/PQDD_0035/NQ27156.pdf)
13. [Godard's 'Made in U.S.A.': Politics and Atrocity Unraveled, Global Geneva](https://www.global-geneva.com/global-issues/media/godards-made-in-usa-politics-and-atrocity-unraveled)
14. [Jean-Luc Godard: the artist and his muse, The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jan/08/jean-luc-godard-anna-karina-muse)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Crime, thriller, and mystery films (individual works) › 1960s films*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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