film within film

His masterpiece '8½' directly explores the filmmaking process itself as a narrative, blurring the line between the director's life and his unfinished film.

His film 'Day for Night' (La Nuit américaine) deconstructs cinema from within by chronicling the making of a film and the behind-the-scenes reality of production.

His works like 'Nightcrawler' (through Jake Gyllenhaal's character) and 'Zodiac' repeatedly examine cinema, performance, and obsession as nested narratives within larger films.