While his career had ended without fanfare, Lang's American and later German works were championed by the critics of the "Cahiers du cinéma", such as François Truffaut and Jacques Rivette. Truffaut wrote that Lang, especially in his American career, was greatly underappreciated by "cinema historians and critics" who "deny him any genius when he 'signs' spy movies ... war movies ... or simple thrillers." Filmmakers that were influenced by his work include Jacques Rivette, William Friedkin, Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan, Luis Buñuel, Osamu Tezuka, Alfred Hitchcock, Jean-Luc Godard and Stanley Kubrick.