A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end... but not necessarily in that order.

Jean-Luc Godard is widely credited with this aphorism in connection with his New Wave aesthetics—especially his embrace of jump cuts, ellipses, and non-linear narration that disrupt classical Hollywood continuity. The remark circulates primarily in interviews and secondary accounts discussing Godard’s approach to story construction in the 1960s and after, when his films often foregrounded montage, quotation, and essayistic structure over plot-driven causality. However, the line is frequently repeated without a stable, citable occasion (date, publication, or recorded interview), and it is often used as a shorthand summary of Godard’s general attitude toward narrative order rather than as a reliably documented verbatim statement.

The quote distinguishes between the necessities of narrative (some sense of setup, development, and resolution) and the convention that these must appear in chronological sequence. Godard implies that stories are constructed artifacts: the “beginning,” “middle,” and “end” are functions that can be distributed, delayed, or repeated through montage, flashback, ellipsis, and other disruptions. The deeper claim is aesthetic and philosophical: order is not inherent in events but imposed by form, and rearranging order can reveal new causalities, ironies, or political meanings. It also serves as a manifesto for modern cinema’s freedom to privilege rhythm, association, and ideas over plot clarity.

1) "A film should have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order."
2) "A movie has to have a beginning, a middle, and an end — but not necessarily in that order."