Some speculated that Almereyda's death was hushed up on orders of the Radical politicians Louis Malvy and Joseph Caillaux, who were later punished for wartime treason.

Vigo is noted for two films that affected the future development of both French and world cinema: Zero for Conduct (1933) and L'Atalante (1934).

Zero for Conduct was approvingly described by critic David Thomson in The New Biographical Dictionary of Film as "forty-four minutes of sustained, if roughly shot anarchic crescendo.

The simple story of a newly married couple splitting and reuniting effortlessly merges unpolished, naturalistic filmmaking with shimmering, dreamlike sequences and effects.

Martin Scorsese wrote a letter for the occasion[9] with praise for Vigo, Sergei Parajanov and Mikhail Vartanov, all of whom struggled with heavy censorship.