This remarkable collection pulls together the entirety of Optimum's Godard offerings in one convenient package, representing a career-spanning retrospective that puts together many of the French New Wave master's finest films in one BIG box. In terms of chronology, it encompasses his very first feature ("A bout de souffle") right through to his most recent feature ("Notre musique"). In between, there are obviously many films missing, but this set nevertheless presents a broad overview of the phases of Godard's career. The earliest years begin with the bold "A bout de souffle," with its fractured editing and shattering of cinematic conventions. Godard followed up this striking masterpiece with "Le petit soldat," which was banned at the time for its political commentary on the French/Algerian War, and which couches its politics in a more traditional narrative than Godard's debut. During these early years, Godard also attempted radically stylized versions of popular Hollywood genres, with the hilariously bright "Une femme est une femme" (musicals), the enigmatic social commentary of "Alphaville" (sci-fi and film noir), and the stately meta-film "Le mepris" (romantic epics). After the genre-blending experimentation of these early years, spanning roughly 1959-1964, Godard became increasingly political and radical as the 60s wore on, stepping further away from narrative with each new film. This box represents that transitional period with "Pierrot le fou" (a summation of Godard's early 60s period in one film), "Made in USA" (a brightly colored stab at a spy thriller), and "La Chinoise" (an absurdist approach to student radicalism and Godard's growing engagement with Communist philosophy). This box set leaves a large gap for Godard's fiercely radical 70s film, which are still unreleased on DVD anywhere, but picks up again in the 80s, when the master director made some of his finest films yet. Optimum includes the episodic "Passion," which is like a remake of "Le mepris" updated with Godard's new concerns about filmmaking, art, and commerce. There's also "Detective," an oddball late 80s work that follows the diverging stories of a group of people all living in a small European hotel: a boxer, a hotel detective, a pilot, and the webs of family and enemies around them. It's nominally a detective story and a mystery, but Godard typically fragments it into so much more. The box is rounded out by a trio of Godard's 90s features -- "Helas pour moi," "Eloge de l'amour," and "Notre musique" -- which demonstrate the modern Godard's fluid grasp of loose narratives coupled with dense, essayistic montages. The last film, especially, is a post-modern masterpiece, a lucid commentary on millennial wars, the disintegration of Yugoslavia, and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. By stretching from the very beginning of Godard's career to his most recent films, this excellent box set brings together one of the most significant bodies of work in film. For those new to Godard's incredible films, this box is a near-perfect primer, an introduction to all his major themes and an opportunity to see an outline of his development over the first 50 years of his career. The bonus disc, with its trio of biographical and analytical features on Godard, is just icing on the cake as compared to the wonderful films themselves.