Léaud is one of the most visible and well-known actors to be associated with the French New Wave film movement and, aside from his work with Truffaut, collaborated with Jean-Luc Godard (nine films), Jean Eustache, Jacques Rivette and Agnès Varda. The early 1970s was perhaps the peak of his professional career when he had three critically acclaimed films released: Bertolucci's "Last Tango in Paris" (1972), Truffaut's "La Nuit américaine", and Eustache's "The Mother and the Whore" (both 1973). In the Bertolucci film, Léaud appeared in the same film as a hero of his, Marlon Brando, although the two men never met, since all of Léaud's scenes were shot on Saturdays and Brando refused to work on Saturdays.