Cinematheque Film Schedule

Germany, Greece, Italy, Russia | 2008 | Theo Angelopoulos

Willem Dafoe, Bruno Ganz, Michel Piccoli, and Irène Jacob star in the last completed film by the late, great Greek filmmaker Theo Angelopoulos. The second part of a planned trilogy that Angelopoulos was finishing when he died in 2012 (2004’s virtuosic The Weeping Meadow was the first part), The Dust of Time follows a Greek-American movie director (Dafoe) as he attempts to tell his mother’s life story on screen—specifically, her love for two men during...

United States | 1956-70 | John and Faith Hubley

John Hubley (1914-1977) was an important American animator who worked at Disney during the 1930s and 1940s but later joined United Productions of America, where he created Mr. Magoo and helped pioneer UPA’s more contemporary and design-y style of “limited animation.” After running afoul of the House Committee for Un-American Activities in the early 1950s, he left UPA and founded his own independent animation company with his wife and fellow artist, Faith. There he won...

United States | 1986 | Oliver Stone

Willem Dafoe earned his first Academy Award nomination for his performance in Oliver Stone's semiautobiographical classic, about an inexperienced young soldier's shattering experiences during the Vietnam War. Winner of four Oscars, including Best Picture and Director. With Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, Forest Whitaker, and Johnny Depp.

Italy, United States | 2007 | Abel Ferrara

Willem Dafoe, Bob Hoskins, Matthew Modine, and Asia Argento star in this unreleased-in-America Abel Ferrara comedy inspired by John Cassavetes' The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. The movie is set in a struggling topless club in downtown Manhattan, where the financially-strapped owner fights with his brother, and the dancers threaten a "strip strike." "A sincere and inspired meditation on art and creation, but in a loose, funny key." -The NY Times.

United States | 1956-70 | John and Faith Hubley

John Hubley (1914-1977) was an important American animator who worked at Disney during the 1930s and 1940s but later joined United Productions of America, where he created Mr. Magoo and helped pioneer UPA’s more contemporary and design-y style of “limited animation.” After running afoul of the House Committee for Un-American Activities in the early 1950s, he left UPA and founded his own independent animation company with his wife and fellow artist, Faith. There he won...

Luxembourg, United Kingdom, United States | 2000 | E. Elias Merhige

UK/USA/Luxembourg, 2000,Tonight we welcome actor Willem Dafoe, who will appear in person to answer questions after a screening of a little-known film that contains one of his most celebrated performances (and earned him his second Oscar nomination). Shadow of the Vampire is a fictionalized account of the filming of F.W. Murnau’s 1922 German silent horror classic Nosferatu. Dafoe plays Max Schreck, the star of Murnau’s film, who, in this reimagining, takes method acting to new...

United States | 2012 | Joe Swanberg

Joe Swanberg's new movie is one of the most acclaimed works by this prolific indie filmmaker. Jane Adams (Hung, Happiness) plays an aging L.A. actress who is keenly aware that the roles she can play are drying up. Her mid-life crisis is exacerbated when her 25-year-old niece turns up at her Malibu beach house and announces that she also wants to act in movies.

United States | 2013 | Eliza Hittman

A lonely 14-year-old girl who longs to be sexually experienced like her slightly older best friend sets her sights on an older, thuggish college boy who "will sleep with anyone." Eliza Hittman's highly acclaimed debut feature—a rare coming-of-age story from a female point of view—is “brilliantly, brutally tactile" (Village Voice). "Rarely has the zone between girlhood and womanhood been captured with such urgent honesty." -The L.A. Times.

France, Italy | 2013 | Valeria Golino

The highly acclaimed first feature directed by veteran Italian actress Valeria Golino (Rain Man) shows her to be a filmmaker of sensitivity and style. An introspective woman who advocates euthanasia for terminally ill patients (and secretly facilitates assisted suicides) has a crisis of conscience when she supplies life-ending drugs to a cynical, suicidal man who turns out to be perfectly healthy. “An impressively mature directing debut.” –The Hollywood Reporter.

United States | 1961 | Shirley Clarke

Shirley Clarke's boundary-shattering Beat-era classic, based on an off-Broadway play by Jack Gelber, focuses on eight junkies—some of whom play jazz as they wait for their fix in a NYC loft apartment. A preppy young filmmaker (William Redfield) agrees to pay for the drugs if they will let him film the "connection." This taboo-breaking indie movie was initially banned in New York until the state's supreme court OK’ed its release. Has a 92% "fresh" rating...

United States | 2013 | E.L. Katz

Winner of both the Audience Award and the prize for Best First Feature at SXSW 2013, this appallingly hilarious black comedy examines how low people will go for money. An auto mechanic and new father (Pat Healy) is laid off the same day he finds an eviction notice on his front door. He finds salvation at a local bar in the form of a bored, wealthy couple who are willing to pay a lot of...

France, Portugal | 2012 | Manoel de Oliveira

The most recent feature from 105-year-old Portuguese master Manoel de Oliveira features a top-notch cast of European art-film stars (Michel Lonsdale, Claudia Cardinale, Jeanne Moreau) and Oliveira regulars (Leonor Silveira, Luís Miguel Cintra, Ricardo Trépa). Based on a play by Raul Brandão, the movie is a claustrophobic drama, set during the late 19th century, in which an elderly couple anxiously awaits the return of their elusive, long-absent son, who’s been seen in town. Don’t miss...

France, Italy | 2013 | Valeria Golino

The highly acclaimed first feature directed by veteran Italian actress Valeria Golino (Rain Man) shows her to be a filmmaker of sensitivity and style. An introspective woman who advocates euthanasia for terminally ill patients (and secretly facilitates assisted suicides) has a crisis of conscience when she supplies life-ending drugs to a cynical, suicidal man who turns out to be perfectly healthy. “An impressively mature directing debut.” –The Hollywood Reporter.

United States | 1961 | Shirley Clarke

Shirley Clarke's boundary-shattering Beat-era classic, based on an off-Broadway play by Jack Gelber, focuses on eight junkies—some of whom play jazz as they wait for their fix in a NYC loft apartment. A preppy young filmmaker (William Redfield) agrees to pay for the drugs if they will let him film the "connection." This taboo-breaking indie movie was initially banned in New York until the state's supreme court OK’ed its release. Has a 92% "fresh" rating...

United States | 1961 | Martin Ritt

Never released on DVD or Blu-ray in the U.S., this jazz film classic (with a Duke Ellington score) stars Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier as American musicians in Left Bank Paris who fall for tourists Joanne Woodward and Diahann Carroll. With Louis Armstrong.

Italy | 1962 | Dino Risi

In one of the great examples of Commedia all'italiana, a brash, middle-aged playboy (Vittorio Gassman) takes an uptight young law student (Jean-Louis Trintignant) on a two-day, top-down, summer joy ride in his sports car. They speed along the Italian coast, ogling girls and having a series of carefree adventures. Dino Risi's masterpiece, set during Italy's postwar economic boom, is perhaps the first modern-day road movie. But this favorite of Martin Scorsese and Alexander Payne has...

France | 2013 | Bertrand Tavernier

The new film by veteran French filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier (whose 1980 A Week’s Vacation was the first movie ever presented by the Cinematheque) is a biting and buoyant political comedy about a handsome, arrogant, and (thankfully) fictional French Minister of Foreign Affairs (Thierry Lhermitte) who is continually setting fires around the world that his beleaguered staff –and new speechwriter—must put out. “A sparkling and savvy comedy...Spry, pleasingly funny.” –Variety.

France | Cambodia | 2013 | Rithy Panh

Two new documentaries that remember the casualties of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge. The Missing Picture, one of this year’s five Oscar nominees for Best Foreign Language Film, is a unique autobiography in which Cambodian filmmaker Rithy Panh employs painted, miniature clay figurines to re-create a genocide that was never documented on film—specifically the atrocities visited on his own family by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge during the nightmarish 1970s. Has a 98% “fresh” rating on...

France | Cambodia | 2011 | Davy Chou

Two new documentaries that remember the casualties of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge. Golden Slumbers is a poetic remembrance of Cambodian cinema, which shone brightly from 1960 to 1975 with more than 400 productions. Unfortunately the Khmer Rouge regime destroyed almost every one of the movies and executed most of the country’s creative community. “Elegantly assembled and deeply moving.” –Variety.

Italy | 1962 | Dino Risi

In one of the great examples of Commedia all'italiana, a brash, middle-aged playboy (Vittorio Gassman) takes an uptight young law student (Jean-Louis Trintignant) on a two-day, top-down, summer joy ride in his sports car. They speed along the Italian coast, ogling girls and having a series of carefree adventures. Dino Risi's masterpiece, set during Italy's postwar economic boom, is perhaps the first modern-day road movie. But this favorite of Martin Scorsese and Alexander Payne has...

France | 2013 | Bertrand Tavernier

The new film by veteran French filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier (whose 1980 A Week’s Vacation was the first movie ever presented by the Cinematheque) is a biting and buoyant political comedy about a handsome, arrogant, and (thankfully) fictional French Minister of Foreign Affairs (Thierry Lhermitte) who is continually setting fires around the world that his beleaguered staff –and new speechwriter—must put out. “A sparkling and savvy comedy...Spry, pleasingly funny.” –Variety.

United States | 1961 | Martin Ritt

Never released on DVD or Blu-ray in the U.S., this jazz film classic (with a Duke Ellington score) stars Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier as American musicians in Left Bank Paris who fall for tourists Joanne Woodward and Diahann Carroll. With Louis Armstrong.

France | 2013 | Jérôme Bonnell

Gabriel Byrne and Emmanuelle Devos play strangers (he’s an Irish professor; she’s a French actress) who meet on a train bound for Paris. This contemporary Brief Encounter is set on the first day of summer. “A bracingly romantic drama that's alive with a mature sense of passion and mystery.” –The L.A. Times.

France, West Germany | 1979 | Werner Herzog

Klaus Kinski and Isabelle Adjani star in Werner Herzog’s eerie, poetic update of F.W. Murnau’s silent vampire classic, which adds color and sound (and 11,000 live rats—no CGI here) to the 1922 original, an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Shot simultaneously in two languages (English and German), the film will be shown in its little-known subtitled version. “Five stars (highest rating) …A pinnacle of horror cinema…Chillingly poetic…Atmospheric, rhapsodic and achingly transcendent." –Time Out New...

United Kingdom | 2013 | various directors

If the commercials are what get you to watch that big football game in early February, then it’s Super Bowl Weekend at the Cinematheque! The British Arrows awards (formerly the British Television Advertising Awards) honor the best, the wittiest, and the most innovative ads produced in the UK for television, cinemas, and the internet during the preceding year. This annual compilation of British Arrows prize winners is always hugely entertaining—just ask the thousands of people...

United States | 2013 | Beth B

The cutting-edge performers and artists who have recently reclaimed the once-disreputable art form of burlesque—and pushed it into bold new realms of satire, parody, and even empowerment—are surveyed in this new film by the always subversive Beth B. Features interviews with—and performances by—such groundbreaking underground luminaries as Bambi the Mermaid, Bunny Love, Dirty Martini, Julie Atlas Muz, Mat Fraser, Rose Wood, Tigger, and World Famous *Bob*. "Allowing its subjects to bare their souls as much...

France, West Germany | 1979 | Werner Herzog

Klaus Kinski and Isabelle Adjani star in Werner Herzog’s eerie, poetic update of F.W. Murnau’s silent vampire classic, which adds color and sound (and 11,000 live rats—no CGI here) to the 1922 original, an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Shot simultaneously in two languages (English and German), the film will be shown in its little-known subtitled version. “Five stars (highest rating) …A pinnacle of horror cinema…Chillingly poetic…Atmospheric, rhapsodic and achingly transcendent." –Time Out New...

France | 2013 | Jérôme Bonnell

Gabriel Byrne and Emmanuelle Devos play strangers (he’s an Irish professor; she’s a French actress) who meet on a train bound for Paris. This contemporary Brief Encounter is set on the first day of summer. “A bracingly romantic drama that's alive with a mature sense of passion and mystery.” –The L.A. Times.

United Kingdom | 2013 | various directors

If the commercials are what get you to watch that big football game in early February, then it’s Super Bowl Weekend at the Cinematheque! The British Arrows awards (formerly the British Television Advertising Awards) honor the best, the wittiest, and the most innovative ads produced in the UK for television, cinemas, and the internet during the preceding year. This annual compilation of British Arrows prize winners is always hugely entertaining—just ask the thousands of people...

United States | 2013 | Beth B

The cutting-edge performers and artists who have recently reclaimed the once-disreputable art form of burlesque—and pushed it into bold new realms of satire, parody, and even empowerment—are surveyed in this new film by the always subversive Beth B. Features interviews with—and performances by—such groundbreaking underground luminaries as Bambi the Mermaid, Bunny Love, Dirty Martini, Julie Atlas Muz, Mat Fraser, Rose Wood, Tigger, and World Famous *Bob*. "Allowing its subjects to bare their souls as much...