Cinematheque Film Schedule

France, Germany, Portugal, Spain | 2022 | Albert Serra

Named the best film of 2022 by Cahiers du Cinéma magazine and called “the art movie of the year” by IndieWire, the new film by Albert Serra (The Death of Louis XIV) is a sensuous, languorous contemporary thriller set on the French Polynesian island of Tahiti. There the French High Commissioner (Benoît Magimel) schmoozes members of the wealthy establishment and leaders of the indigenous community—that is, when he’s not hanging out at the island’s more...

United States | 2022 | Michael Morris

Surprise Best Actress Oscar nominee Andrea Riseborough gives what Oscar winner Kate Winslet has called “the greatest female performance onscreen I have ever seen in my life” in this highly acclaimed but little-seen indie drama. Riseborough plays a single, alcoholic West Texas mother who wins the lottery but squanders the money before she can make a better life for herself and her son. With Allison Janney and Marc Maron. “Recalls the grit of 1970s American...

France, United Kingdom | 1968-73 | various directors

Here are three newly-restored documentary shorts about legendary Black American author James Baldwin: Sedat Pakay’s James Baldwin: From Another Place (1973); Terence Dixon’s Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris (1970); and Horace Ové’s Baldwin’s N***** (1968), featuring Dick Gregory. This program “gives us an opportunity to examine [a] critical period in Baldwin’s adult life—to see how distance from his home country changed how the writer saw himself in relation to the world and helped...

United Kingdom | 1963 | Peter Brook

British schoolboys stranded on a remote tropical island after a plane crash establish their own society before devolving into savagery. This documentary-like adaptation of William Golding’s allegorical novel is the most famous movie by the late, great experimental theatre (and film) director Peter Brook. DCP. 90 min. See next blurb for another film by Peter Brook.

United Kingdom | 1967 | Peter Brook

Inmates of a French insane asylum in 1808 re-enact the murder of French Revolution firebrand Jean-Paul Marat in a play written and staged by fellow inmate, the Marquis de Sade. Meanwhile, the institution’s director and an audience of bourgeois playgoers observe this “therapeutic” theatrical from a safe distance—until all hell breaks loose. Peter Brook’s galvanizing film version of his Royal Shakespeare Company production—one of the most celebrated theatrical events of the 1960s—features Patrick Magee and...

Italy | 1961 | Dino Risi

Italian funnyman Alberto Sordi (The White Sheik, Mafioso) stars in this 62-year-old comedy that wasn’t released in the U.S. until just this year! Sordi plays an idealistic resistance fighter who turns left-wing journalist and novelist after WWII. But because he can’t stomach the values and money-grubbing in postwar Italy, his fortunes suffer. “Critic’s Pick…A stellar specimen of commedia all’italiana by a true maestro of the form.” –A.O. Scott, NY Times. “Italian social realism at its...

France, United Kingdom | 1968-73 | various directors

Here are three newly-restored documentary shorts about legendary Black American author James Baldwin: Sedat Pakay’s James Baldwin: From Another Place (1973); Terence Dixon’s Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris (1970); and Horace Ové’s Baldwin’s N***** (1968), featuring Dick Gregory. This program “gives us an opportunity to examine [a] critical period in Baldwin’s adult life—to see how distance from his home country changed how the writer saw himself in relation to the world and helped...

Italy | 1961 | Dino Risi

Italian funnyman Alberto Sordi (The White Sheik, Mafioso) stars in this 62-year-old comedy that wasn’t released in the U.S. until just this year! Sordi plays an idealistic resistance fighter who turns left-wing journalist and novelist after WWII. But because he can’t stomach the values and money-grubbing in postwar Italy, his fortunes suffer. “Critic’s Pick…A stellar specimen of commedia all’italiana by a true maestro of the form.” –A.O. Scott, NY Times. “Italian social realism at its...

France, Germany, Portugal, Spain | 2022 | Albert Serra

Named the best film of 2022 by Cahiers du Cinéma magazine and called “the art movie of the year” by IndieWire, the new film by Albert Serra (The Death of Louis XIV) is a sensuous, languorous contemporary thriller set on the French Polynesian island of Tahiti. There the French High Commissioner (Benoît Magimel) schmoozes members of the wealthy establishment and leaders of the indigenous community—that is, when he’s not hanging out at the island’s more...

Canada | 1967/2005 | Michael Snow

We pay tribute to recently deceased Canadian artist and filmmaker Michael Snow with a pairing of his most famous movie (an avant-garde milestone made early in his career) and one of his late works. Wavelength (1967) features the most famous slow zoom in cinema history—a 45-min. drift across a room in NYC where some enigmatic human activity (including a murder) takes place. Filmmakers Hollis Frampton and Joyce Wieland and film critic Amy Taubin appear in...

Germany, Serbia | 2019 | Angela Schanelec

A middle-aged widow still struggling to regain her balance after her husband’s death experiences another existential crisis when her teen son disappears without a trace for a week. Angela Schanelec’s acclaimed, precision-tooled puzzle is tinged with mystery and melancholy, while paying homage to Ozu and Bresson. With Franz Rogowski. “An uncompromising, sophisticated, multi-layered work of art.” –Hollywood Reporter. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 103 min.

Cameroon, France, West Germany | 1988 | Claire Denis

Claire Denis’ first feature was inspired by her own West African childhood. Chocolat focuses on a French woman who returns to her childhood home in Cameroon, where she recalls her friendship with an African “houseboy” (Isaach de Bankolé) and also the sexual tension between this servant and her beautiful mother. “[An] amazingly assured debut.” –Time Out Film Guide. Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 105 min.

France | 2002/22 | Gaspar Noé

Regardless (or irregardless) of the original title, Gaspar Noé’s 2002 succès de scandale has now been reversed! This new version of Irreversible undoes the film’s backward chronology and places the appalling action—which includes a brutal assault and its violent aftermath—in its proper order. Monica Bellucci and Vincent Cassel star in the film, which is one of the darkest and most disturbing movies ever made. It is definitely not for the squeamish, and even the non-squeamish...

United States | 1953 | Harry Essex

We return to the Capitol Theatre (W. 65th & Detroit Ave.) for the first time in four years to present a new restoration of perhaps the only classic film noir shot in 3-D! I, the Jury marked the screen debut of Mickey Spillane’s brutal private eye Mike Hammer, who here spends the Christmas holiday tracking down the mysterious killer of his best friend. Hammer’s relentless pursuit takes him into the rarefied worlds of art collecting...

France, Sweden | 1974 | Jacques Tati

Cleveland’s alternative film theater (the Cinematheque) ventures to “Cleveland’s illegitimate theater,” the Wizbang! Theatre in Cleveland Heights, for an evening of “variety, circus, mayhem”—and a movie! The movie is Parade, the final film by beloved French comic and filmmaker Jacques Tati (M. Hulot’s Holiday, PlayTime). In Parade, Tati takes his cameras to the circus and serves as ringmaster for a delightful, memorable show before a live audience. Circus acts and other big-top shenanigans combine with...

Japan | 1969 | Yoshishige Yoshida

The most celebrated work by recently deceased Japanese New Wave director Yoshishige Yoshida is a rarely shown landmark of world cinema. Stylishly shot in ‘scope and boasting great visual beauty, Yoshida’s monumental magnum opus tells two parallel stories. One follows the life and loves of 1920s Japanese anarchist and free love advocate Sakae Ōsugi; the other focuses on two 1960s students inspired by Ōsugi’s radical ideas. Director’s cut. Subtitles. DCP. 220 min.

West Germany | 1969 | Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Rainer Werner Fassbinder stars in his very first feature—a bargain-basement crime movie about an ex-con and pimp who, despite coercion, resists joining the “Syndicate.“ Hanna Schygulla co-stars as the thug’s prostitute-lover. “In this bleak world of bare sets, static camera shots, and stylised acting, was awkwardly born one of the greatest ‘lives in film‘ the cinema has seen.“ –Time Out Film Guide. Subtitles. 35mm. 88 min.

United Kingdom | 1971 | Mike Hodges

Voted the greatest British movie ever made in a 2004 survey of UK film critics conducted by Britain’s Total Film magazine, Mike Hodges’ debut feature is a gritty gangster classic that provided star Michael Caine with one of his most iconic roles—that of a dapper, sexy, but brutal and amoral hit man who travels to Newcastle to investigate his brother’s death. Get Carter‘s most ardent fans include Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie. With Britt Ekland...

United Kingdom | 1971 | Mike Hodges

Voted the greatest British movie ever made in a 2004 survey of UK film critics conducted by Britain’s Total Film magazine, Mike Hodges’ debut feature is a gritty gangster classic that provided star Michael Caine with one of his most iconic roles—that of a dapper, sexy, but brutal and amoral hit man who travels to Newcastle to investigate his brother’s death. Get Carter‘s most ardent fans include Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie. With Britt Ekland...

United States | 1976 | John Carpenter

Frequently cited as John Carpenter’s best film, this taut mash-up of Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo and George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead is set at a decommissioned Los Angeles police precinct house on the night before it is permanently closed. A ruthless gang of armed street criminals lays siege to the building. With the phones disconnected, it falls to a skeleton LAPD crew (and a convicted killer) to defend this fortress. Carpenter also...

United States | 1976 | John Carpenter

Frequently cited as John Carpenter’s best film, this taut mash-up of Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo and George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead is set at a decommissioned Los Angeles police precinct house on the night before it is permanently closed. A ruthless gang of armed street criminals lays siege to the building. With the phones disconnected, it falls to a skeleton LAPD crew (and a convicted killer) to defend this fortress. Carpenter also...

West Germany | 1969 | Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Rainer Werner Fassbinder stars in his very first feature—a bargain-basement crime movie about an ex-con and pimp who, despite coercion, resists joining the “Syndicate.“ Hanna Schygulla co-stars as the thug’s prostitute-lover. “In this bleak world of bare sets, static camera shots, and stylised acting, was awkwardly born one of the greatest ‘lives in film‘ the cinema has seen.“ –Time Out Film Guide. Subtitles. 35mm. 88 min.

United States | 2023 | Alison O'Daniel

The Cinematheque is the community partner on this acclaimed new feature by Alison O’Daniel—a Cleveland Institute of Art graduate who also once worked for the Cinematheque—showing in this year’s 47th Cleveland International Film Festival. (The Festival takes place in person March 22-April 1 at Playhouse Square and online April 2-9). The CIFF47 website describes the movie this way: “Loosely hung on the backdrop of a string of tuba burglaries from high schools in Southern California,...

Mexico, West Germany | 1972 | Werner Herzog

In one of Werner Herzog’s greatest films, Klaus Kinski (unforgettable) plays a megalomaniacal, 16th-century Spanish conquistador trekking through the Amazonian wilderness on a relentless quest for El Dorado, the fabled city of gold. This moody, mesmerizing, visually stunning masterpiece has music by Popol Vuh. Subtitles. Restored DCP. 94 min.

United States | 1942 | Alfred Hitchcock

This WWII-era Hitchcock classic stars Robert Cummings as a man mistakenly thought to have committed an act of sabotage at the California munitions plant where he works. With the authorities in close pursuit, he races across the country to find the real culprit—eventually arriving at the Statue of Liberty. Priscilla Lane co-stars in this movie that, with its “wrong man” theme and climax at an iconic American monument, is now seen as a warm-up for...

United States | 1942 | Alfred Hitchcock

This WWII-era Hitchcock classic stars Robert Cummings as a man mistakenly thought to have committed an act of sabotage at the California munitions plant where he works. With the authorities in close pursuit, he races across the country to find the real culprit—eventually arriving at the Statue of Liberty. Priscilla Lane co-stars in this movie that, with its “wrong man” theme and climax at an iconic American monument, is now seen as a warm-up for...

United States | 1985 | Andrei Konchalovsky

Based on a screenplay by Akira Kurosawa and directed by the Russian helmer of Siberiade (hence the existential overtones), this breakneck action thriller stars Jon Voight and Eric Roberts (both Oscar-nominated) as escaped cons barreling through the frigid Alaskan wilderness on a train with a dead engineer and no brakes. “Wrenchingly intense and brutally powerful…A most exciting action epic…Serious enough to work strongly on numerous levels.” –Variety. With Rebecca De Mornay. 35mm. 111 min.