[3] The film is known for its lush photography, which features frequent segues among full color, black-and-white, and sepia-toned shots, and for its music score by Francis Lai.

[8] A young widow, Anne Gauthier, is raising her daughter Françoise alone following the death of her husband, who worked as a stuntman and died in a film set accident that she witnessed.

Still working as a film script supervisor, Anne divides her time between her home in Paris and Deauville in northern France, where her daughter attends boarding school.

Still working as a race car driver, Jean-Louis divides his time between Paris and Deauville, where his son also attends boarding school.

After a busy week at the track preparing for the next race, Jean-Louis calls, and they meet early Sunday morning and drive to Deauville in the rain.

Every day, Anne closely follows news reports of the race, which takes place in poor weather conditions along the icy roads of the French Riviera.

According to director Claude Lelouch, the story originated from an experience following his disappointment trying to get a distribution deal for his film The Grand Moments.

[9] The title may have come from a line in the film, where Jean-Louis and Anne are listening to the news on the radio driving in a fast Ford Mustang and a commentator says, "A man and a woman have just died after skidding in a powerful car".

Although early disagreements and the low-budget skeleton crew caused initial tension between the director and actress, they quickly resolved their differences and the two went on to become close friends.

The climactic scene at a railway station was not scripted at the time of shooting, and Aimée did not know that director Lelouch had decided on the two main characters reuniting at the end.

The love scene was shot in the Hotel Barrière Le Normandy Deauville which, in memory of the film, has a suite entitled "A Man and a Woman".

[14][15] It was the sixth most popular film at the French box office in 1966, after La Grande Vadrouille, Dr Zhivago, Is Paris Burning?, A Fistful of Dollars and Lost Command.

In his New York Times review, Bosley Crowther wrote: "For a first-rate demonstration of the artfulness of a cameraman and the skill at putting together handsome pictures and a strongly sentimental musical score, there is nothing around any better than Claude Lelouch's A Man and a Woman".

[17] Crowther lauded the "beautiful and sometimes breath-taking exposition of visual imagery intended to excite the emotions" and praised the director for his ability to create something unique from the commonplace: Mr. Lelouch, who was his own script writer as well as director and cameraman, has a rare skill at photographing clichés so that they sparkle and glow with poetry and at generating a sense of inspiration in behavior that is wholly trivial.

[17]The review in Variety commented on the performances of the lead actors: "Anouk Aimee has a mature beauty and an ability to project an inner quality that helps stave off the obvious banality of her character, and this goes too for the perceptive Jean-Louis Trintignant as the man".

Harry James recorded a version of the film's theme song on his album For Listening and Dancing, released in 1981 on Reader's Digest RD4A 213.