Richard Linklater’s new Netflix film 89% RT was inspired by his own ’90s comedy classic that led to Clerks

Richard Linklater had no trouble finding inspiration for the chaotic behind-the-scenes drama depicted in his new Netflix film. He experienced similar chaos while directing his own groundbreaking feature film, released in 1990.

In an interview with ScreenRantTatiana Hullender, director of Netflix New wave references its own cult classic Lazy as the film that most influenced his latest work, which offers a fictionalized depiction of the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s world-changing debut feature Panting:

Well, I think the most influential film on this subject was obviously my first film. And I don’t define it as my first film, actually, but the first where I had a crew, [Slacker]. I finally had a lot of people after working alone for a long time, so it was the first time I had to explain myself in front of a lot of people.

Godard flew by the seat of his pants while making Pantingoften inventing scenes on the fly. Linklater can identify with this unorthodox and rather daring approach to filmmaking, as he himself employed something similar on Lazy:

I was making a film whose script was quite unconventional. It wasn’t a scenario. People were wondering about me, so I brought all this anxiety. Maybe it was a strange self-confidence, mixed with incredible anxiety and volatility, that it could all come crashing down while making your first film.

Linklater can also consider himself a young, unproven director, as Godard was when he made Panting. “I was around the same age as Godard, in my late twenties, I was making my first film“he said.”It infused this film, for sure, but in a good way.”

Lazy exerted its own profound influence on independent cinema of the 1990s, helping to launch a subgenre that would be known, aptly, as “slacker comedy.” That of Kevin Smith Clerk And Mallratsas well as that of Linklater Dazed and confusedwere later examples of this form, which invariably detailed unambitious and bored people enduring seemingly hopeless circumstances, with the occasional help of cannabis.

that of Godard Panting was an even more influential film in its time, serving as a founding example of the movement that would become known as the Nouvelle Vague, or French New Wave, a cycle of daring feature films made by directors who were highly skilled in cinema and determined to break all the rules of commercial cinema.

ScreenRantLinklater’s opinion New wave calls him, “an ode to the French New Wave“it’s also a”charming movie.” The review notes how Linklater’s love of Godard’s cinematic style becomes palpable over the course of his film, saying:

Even behind the camera, you sense that Linklater is delighted, and that kind of joy is contagious as the director extols the freedom of the artist and contemplates how the most beautiful works can be born from chaos.

New waveThe overall Rotten Tomatoes score of 89% places it among the highest-rated films of Linklater’s career. 89% is also the RT score touted by Linklater’s other 2025 feature, the theatrically released film Blue Moonwith Ethan Hawke, frequent collaborator of the director.

Big things were apparently in store for Linklater’s Godard film from its premiere at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, when it received an 11-minute standing ovation, the fifth longest at that year’s event.

New wave stars Zoey Deutch as Jean Seberg, Guillaume Marbeck as Jean-Luc Godard, Aubry Dullin as Jean-Paul Belmondo and Adrien Rouyard as François Truffaut. It will be released on Netflix on November 14.