[2][3] Along with The 400 Blows and À Double Tour by Claude Chabrol, who produced The Sign of Leo, it counts as one of the first films of the French New Wave.

In early summer in Paris, the would-be composer or architect, American by nationality, Peter Wesselrin, commonly known as Pierre, learns that his rich aunt has died.

Expecting a substantial legacy, he borrows a large sum from his closest friend, the journalist Jean-François, and throws a celebratory party for everybody he knows.

A Nouvelle Vague characteristic was to include cameos for fellow directors and favourite actors, and consequently this film features Jean-Luc Godard, Stéphane Audran, Marie Dubois and Macha Méril.

Though praised by other members of the Nouvelle Vague, including Jean-Luc Godard, who put it on his top ten for 1962,[6] it was slow to reach the English-speaking world, not being screened until 1966 in the UK and 1970 in the United States.

[4] A commentator noted how "the film is littered with painful moments" and that "with its depiction of one man's long physical and spiritual decline, Le Signe Du Lion recalls the great naturalist novels of Émile Zola as well as the works of American realists such as Theodore Dreiser.

"[4] Another critic wrote that the film is "also a precise, poetic documentary on Paris, with the city turning into a stone prison that gradually crushes resistance until the musician suffers total moral and physical disintegration.