A Carabinier (also sometimes spelled Carabineer or Carbineer) (Carabinero in Spanish, Carabiniere in Italian) was originally a cavalry soldier armed with a carbine (a short version of a musket). The word is derived from the identical French word carabinier.

The carbine was considered a more appropriate firearm for a horseman than a full-length musket, since it was lighter and easier to handle while on horseback. The term carabinier evolved to include other units such as light infantry and gendarmes.

Today the term is used by some armies, police, and gendarmeries.

Carabiniers saw action during the Napoleonic wars in Europe, including the Battle of Waterloo, and many other conflicts throughout the 19th century. Carabiniers differed from army to army and over time, but typically were medium cavalry, similar in armament and tactical role to Dragoons.

Napoleon inherited two French Carabinier regiments of heavy cavalry (the two most senior cavalry regiments in the army), which gained some prestige in his wars. In 1810 French Carabiniers were equipped like cuirassiers with helmets and breastplates (though these were of brass and brass-skinned iron), and were no longer equipped with carbines. The French army has no carabinier regiments today. The British army raised regiments of carabiniers in the late 17th century. The descendents of one such regiment survived as the 3rd Carabiniers (Prince of Wales's Dragoon Guards) until 1971 when it was amalgamated with the Royal Scots Greys. Accordingly no regiment bears the title today, although the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards are sub-titled "Carabiniers and Greys".

Jean-Luc Godard (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃lyk ɡɔdaʁ]; born 3 December 1930) is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement La Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave".

Like his New Wave contemporaries, Godard criticized mainstream French cinema's "Tradition of Quality", which "emphasized craft over innovation, privileged established directors over new directors, and preferred the great works of the past to experimentation." To challenge this tradition, he and like-minded critics started to make their own films. Many of Godard's films challenge the conventions of traditional Hollywood in addition to French cinema.^{[citation needed]} He is often considered the most radical French filmmaker of the 1960s and 1970s. Several of his films express his political views.His films express his knowledge of film history through their references to earlier films. In addition, Godard's films often cite existentialism, as he was an avid reader of existential and Marxist philosophy.^{[citation needed]} His radical approach in film conventions, politics and philosophies made him an influential filmmaker of the French New Wave.