The first trailer for director Kent Jones’ wonderful documentary Hitchcock/Truffaut has been released online. Having recently seen the film at the Toronto International Film Festival, I can confirm that it’s an absolute delight. The movie briefly covers the recording and release of the invaluable interview book Hitchcock/Truffaut, during which filmmaker Francois Truffaut sat down with Alfred Hithcock and, over the course of a few days, discussed the latter’s entire filmography. But this book is not the focus of Jones’ documentary. Instead, he enlists some of today’s best filmmakers—including David Fincher, Martin Scorsese, Wes Anderson, and James Grey—to discuss how the book and Hitchcock’s work influenced them as filmmakers and, most intriguingly, dissect the genius of Hitchcock.

The only problem with Hitchcock/Truffaut is that it’s not 10 hours long. Watching the film is like sitting in on a lecture with David Fincher or Martin Scorsese offering brilliant insight into Hitchcock’s oeuvre and the genius behind some of his filmmaking decisions. To see Fincher unpack the perverted nature of Vertigo is worth the price of admission alone. Jones layers the film with the audio recordings from the Truffaut interview scatterd throughout, and they’re a joy to listen to. Hitchcock/Truffaut is a must-watch for any serious fan of cinema.

Check out the trailer below, via Apple, and click here to read Matt’s review. The movie opens in theaters on December 2nd.

Here’s the synopsis for Hitchcock/Truffaut:

In 1962 Hitchcock and Truffaut locked themselves away in Hollywood for a week to excavate the secrets behind the mise-en-scène in cinema. Based on the original recordings of this meeting—used to produce the mythical book Hitchcock/Truffaut—this film illustrates the greatest cinema lesson of all time and plummets us into the world of the creator of Psycho, The Birds, and Vertigo. Hitchcock’s incredibly modern art is elucidated and explained by today’s leading filmmakers: Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, Arnaud Desplechin, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Wes Anderson, James Gray, Olivier Assayas, Richard Linklater, Peter Bogdanovich and Paul Schrader.