Vigo was born to Emily Clero and the militant anarchist Miguel Almereyda. Much of Vigo’s early life was spent on the run with his parents. His father was imprisoned and murdered in Fresnes Prison on 13 August 1917. Some speculated that Almereyda was hushed up by order of Radical politicians Louis Malvy and Joseph Caillaux, men later punished for war-time treason. The young Vigo was subsequently sent to boarding school under an assumed name, Jean Sales, to conceal his identity.

Vigo was married and had a daughter, Luce Vigo, a film critic, in 1931. He died in 1934 of complications from tuberculosis, which he had contracted eight years earlier.

Zero for Conduct was banned by the French government until after the war, and L’Atalante was mutilated by its distributor. By this point, Vigo was too ill to strenuously fight the matter. Both films have outlived their detractors; L’Atalante was chosen as the 10th-greatest film of all time in Sight & Sound’s 1962 poll, and as the 6th-best in its 1992 poll. In the late 1980s a 1934 copy of L’Atalante was found in the British National Film and Television Archive, and became a key element in the restoration of the film to its original version.

2011 Parajanov-Vartanov Institute Award posthumously honored Jean Vigo for Zero for Conduct and was presented to his daughter and French film critic Luce Vigo. Martin Scorsese wrote a letter for the occasion with praise for Vigo, Sergei Parajanov and Mikhail Vartanov, all of whom struggled with heavy censorship.