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In his film La Chinoise, a voice over -- which can easily be attributed to Godard himself, engages in the following Q&A.
Woman: "god, why have you forsaken me?" Man: "because I don't exist."
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I'm not a religious person, but I'm a faithful person. I believe in images. I have no children, only movies. -Jean-Luc Godard Adherents
I was raised a Protestant, but I don't practice. I am, however, very interested in Catholicism. -Jean-Luc Godard Adherents
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There are many quotes and sites that claim Jean-Luc Godard is an atheist, many of which fail to cite a quote for his atheism. One such site is quoted with the following: "Jean-Luc Godard was born on Wednesday, December 03, 1930 in Paris and he is a famous film director from France of Atheist religion." [1]
Google Search for Jean-Luc Godard atheist returns many results
Godard was a devout Maoist. Maoism is a subset of Marxist Communism. Communism was a comprehensive, all-embracing religion and not simply a political party, political system or philosophy. This fact is illustrated by the numerous ways in which Communism embraced and attemped to promulgate peculiar quasi-religious (and often clearly anti-scientific) beliefs which had nothing all to do with politics or government. Although Communism typically touted itself as anti-religious and pro-science, it was, in fact, deeply anti-scientific and clearly a religion. One of Communism's hallmarks in the Soviet Union and China was its aggressive and violent suppression of other religions. Communism was "anti-religious" only in the sense that it forcibly suppressed all religions other than itself.
Godard's intensely Maoist period ended in 1980. After the 1970s, Godard appears to have come to an increased awareness of the true nature of Maoism in China and subsequently moderated his devotion specifically to Maoism. In 1981, the Communist Party of China, which was brought to power principally by Mao Zedong, officially repudiated the Cultural Revolution and placed responsibility for it on Mao. According to contemporary Chinese government estimates, approximately 30 million Chinese were killed by Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution. But the majority of these deaths were caused by famine and starvation, with probably less than 10 million people directly executed by Maoists (principally, Mao's Red Guards). By the late 1990s and early 21st Century, Godard appeared to have become a more generalized socialist or Marxist, whose activism and politics largely lacked the religious and specifically sectarian qualities exhibited in earlier decades. [Adherents is the source for the preceeding two paragraphs
Maoism is often referred to as a religion that is without any theistic belief inherent in itself. --Sapient 21:39, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
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"Godard was claiming for his own relentlessly secular cinema the possibility of a secular exaltation equal to that of Bresson's religious work. He set out to make a film in which he would seek a Bressonian spiritual depth and intensity of inner experience without reference to God or religion." - From Everything is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard (pp. 97-98) by Richard Brody.
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See talk page for a discussion on whether this page is sourced well enough to be atheist, currently listed under ambiguous until a solid quote for atheism exists.