Cinematheque Film Schedule

United States | 2014 | Colin M. Day

This “lively, involving documentary” (L.A. Times) explores the efficacy and ethics of saving street art from defacement and destruction—and then selling it for a lot of money that the artist does not share. The film centers on one well-meaning San Francisco collector who tries to save a rat painted in 2010 on the side of a Haight-Ashbury building by famed, anonymous British street artist Banksy. His intention is to donate it to a museum, but...

United States | 2015 | Todd Rohal, Joe Swanberg

Mumblecore movie star and SpongeBob SquarePants writer and artist Kent Osborne plays a version of himself in this “sequel” to Joe Swanberg’s 2011 indie comedy Uncle Kent—a movie you don’t have to have seen before watching this one. (The Village Voice has called Uncle Kent 2 “the most stand-alone sequel ever made.”) It’s an outrageous, surreal work that finds Osborne at the San Diego Comic Con, where he loses his mind and confronts the end...

United States | 1928 | Buster Keaton, Edward Sedgwick

New England’s foremost silent film accompanist, Jeff Rapsis, returns to the Cinematheque to accompany the first comedy Buster Keaton made for MGM near the end of the silent era. (It’s one of his funniest movies.) Buster plays a lovestruck Hollywood newsreel cameraman who must contend with both a local tong war and a precocious organ grinder’s monkey before getting the girl. 69 min.

Belgium, France, Luxembourg | 2015 | Jaco Van Dormael

God exists, but He is a jerk. Or so Toto the Hero and Mr. Nobody director Jaco Van Dormael has it in his outrageous, religiously incorrect new fantasy, one of the most acclaimed films of the past two years. (It won Magritte Awards, Belgium’s Oscars, for Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay.) The movie imagines a God who lives in a Belgian high-rise and never gets out of his robe and pajamas. He delights in tormenting...

Italy | 2016 | Gianfranco Rosi

One of this year’s five Oscar nominees for Best Documentary Feature, Gianfranco Rosi’s observational documentary chronicles how the current European migrant crisis has affected the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, located only 70 miles from the coast of North Africa. For two decades now, Italian fishermen and their families on the island have had to coexist with boatloads of African and Middle Eastern refugees who risk (and often lose) their lives crossing the Mediterranean in search...

United States | 1927/1928 | Tod Browning

Before he directed such horror classics as Dracula and Freaks, Tod Browning made an unparalleled series of lurid, twisted silent thrillers starring the peerless “man of a thousand faces,” Lon Chaney. (One of them, 1927’s vampire movie London After Midnight, is one of the most coveted of lost films.) Tonight we show the best two Browning/Chaney movies that survive, both with live musical accompaniment by New Hampshire silent film pianist Jeff Rapsis (see 3/3 at...

Great Britain | 1984 | Michael Radford

The late John Hurt co-stars with Richard Burton (in his last screen appearance) in this grim, impressive, and powerful version of George Orwell’s cautionary, dystopian classic. The film’s superb production design rivals (and pre-dates) that in Brazil. Music by the Eurythmics. 113 min.

Belgium, France, Luxembourg | 2015 | Jaco Van Dormael

God exists, but He is a jerk. Or so Toto the Hero and Mr. Nobody director Jaco Van Dormael has it in his outrageous, religiously incorrect new fantasy, one of the most acclaimed films of the past two years. (It won Magritte Awards, Belgium’s Oscars, for Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay.) The movie imagines a God who lives in a Belgian high-rise and never gets out of his robe and pajamas. He delights in tormenting...

Great Britain | 1984 | Michael Radford

The late John Hurt co-stars with Richard Burton (in his last screen appearance) in this grim, impressive, and powerful version of George Orwell’s cautionary, dystopian classic. The film’s superb production design rivals (and pre-dates) that in Brazil. Music by the Eurythmics. 113 min.

United States | 2014 | Colin M. Day

This “lively, involving documentary” (L.A. Times) explores the efficacy and ethics of saving street art from defacement and destruction—and then selling it for a lot of money that the artist does not share. The film centers on one well-meaning San Francisco collector who tries to save a rat painted in 2010 on the side of a Haight-Ashbury building by famed, anonymous British street artist Banksy. His intention is to donate it to a museum, but...

Great Britain, Italy, United States | 1953 | John Huston

Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Gina Lollobrigida, Peter Lorre, and Robert Morley star in John Huston’s spoof of the international-intrigue thriller, co-written by Truman Capote, about a bunch of rival, shady uranium speculators on the same Africa-bound boat. The problem was that most moviegoers didn’t see this absurd tale as a joke, so the film flopped and Bogie, who invested in it, lost a lot of money. (He called it “a mess.”) It became a cult...

France, Germany | 2016 | Mia Hansen-Løve

Isabelle Huppert swept the major 2016 film critics’ awards for Best Actress—and not just for her performance in Elle. When critics groups in New York, Los Angeles, and Boston—as well as the National Society of Film Critics—announced their year-end accolades, they also cited Huppert’s performance in Things to Come, which is itself one of the most acclaimed films of the past year. It’s a warm, funny, sensitive drama about a longtime philosophy teacher (Huppert) whose...

France, Germany | 2016 | Mia Hansen-Løve

Isabelle Huppert swept the major 2016 film critics’ awards for Best Actress—and not just for her performance in Elle. When critics groups in New York, Los Angeles, and Boston—as well as the National Society of Film Critics—announced their year-end accolades, they also cited Huppert’s performance in Things to Come, which is itself one of the most acclaimed films of the past year. It’s a warm, funny, sensitive drama about a longtime philosophy teacher (Huppert) whose...

Great Britain, Italy, United States | 1953 | John Huston

Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Gina Lollobrigida, Peter Lorre, and Robert Morley star in John Huston’s spoof of the international-intrigue thriller, co-written by Truman Capote, about a bunch of rival, shady uranium speculators on the same Africa-bound boat. The problem was that most moviegoers didn’t see this absurd tale as a joke, so the film flopped and Bogie, who invested in it, lost a lot of money. (He called it “a mess.”) It became a cult...

United States | 1929 | Buster Keaton, Edward Sedgwick

Buster Keaton’s second film for MGM was also his last silent feature. It’s also one of his least shown and most underrated comedies. Keaton plays a pants-presser in love with a stage actress who marries him in order to spite the man she really loves, an actor who has jilted her. “Three of the sequences (a play ruined by Buster’s gaucheness, getting a drunk bride to bed, and an extraordinary shipboard fight) put the film...

Great Britain | 1968 | Anthony Harvey

If talking politics ruined last Christmas for you, then take heart. It could have been worse. In this classic costume drama, King Henry II (Peter O’Toole) and his estranged wife Eleanor of Aquitane (Oscar winner Katharine Hepburn) spend Christmas 1183 arguing violently over which of their sons should succeed to the British throne. Anthony Hopkins and Timothy Dalton both made their screen debuts in this much-honored film that earned O’Toole the third of his eight...

Chile | 2016 | Pablo Larraín

Gael García Bernal stars in the second acclaimed film of 2016 by Jackie director Pablo Larraín. The movie, which was Chile’s official entry for this year’s Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, chronicles the political persecution suffered by Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet and Communist Senator Pablo Neruda after he criticized the country’s president in 1948. “[Larraín] at his stunning best…A work of such cleverness and beauty, alongside such power, that it’s hard to know how...

Chile | 2016 | Pablo Larraín

Gael García Bernal stars in the second acclaimed film of 2016 by Jackie director Pablo Larraín. The movie, which was Chile’s official entry for this year’s Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, chronicles the political persecution suffered by Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet and Communist Senator Pablo Neruda after he criticized the country’s president in 1948. “[Larraín] at his stunning best…A work of such cleverness and beauty, alongside such power, that it’s hard to know how...

United States | 1929 | Buster Keaton, Edward Sedgwick

Buster Keaton’s second film for MGM was also his last silent feature. It’s also one of his least shown and most underrated comedies. Keaton plays a pants-presser in love with a stage actress who marries him in order to spite the man she really loves, an actor who has jilted her. “Three of the sequences (a play ruined by Buster’s gaucheness, getting a drunk bride to bed, and an extraordinary shipboard fight) put the film...

Great Britain | 1968 | Anthony Harvey

If talking politics ruined last Christmas for you, then take heart. It could have been worse. In this classic costume drama, King Henry II (Peter O’Toole) and his estranged wife Eleanor of Aquitane (Oscar winner Katharine Hepburn) spend Christmas 1183 arguing violently over which of their sons should succeed to the British throne. Anthony Hopkins and Timothy Dalton both made their screen debuts in this much-honored film that earned O’Toole the third of his eight...

Iran | 2016 | Mehrdad Oskouei

Iranian filmmaker Mehrdad Oskouei spent seven years trying to secure access to the all-female juvenile detention center in Tehran that is the setting for her acclaimed new documentary. There she interviews some of the incarcerated teenage girls about their crimes (which range from cocaine possession to bank robbery to patricide) and about the societal and cultural and conditions that may have sparked them. “The world needs to see this spare, revelatory film and hear these...

Japan | 1953 | Josef von Sternberg

The final feature by the great Joseph von Sternberg (The Blue Angel, The Docks of New York) was an independent production shot in Japan. Inspired by a true case, the film focuses on twelve shipwrecked Japanese sailors who, at the end of WWII, were stranded and forgotten on a remote island inhabited by a man and a woman. They spend the next few years fighting over the woman and vying for control of the island....

Japan | 1953 | Josef von Sternberg

The final feature by the great Joseph von Sternberg (The Blue Angel, The Docks of New York) was an independent production shot in Japan. Inspired by a true case, the film focuses on twelve shipwrecked Japanese sailors who, at the end of WWII, were stranded and forgotten on a remote island inhabited by a man and a woman. They spend the next few years fighting over the woman and vying for control of the island....

France | 1946 | Julien Duvivier

The great Michel Simon (L’Atalante, Boudu Saved from Drowning) stars in the first film version of Georges Simenon’s 1933 crime novel Mr. Hire’s Engagement (remade in 1989 as Monsieur Hire). Simon plays a lonely misanthrope and voyeur, living in a suburb of Paris where he is widely disliked and distrusted, who is framed for a murder he didn’t commit. Part film noir, part tragic romance, this nasty thriller is a “near-perfect piece of film craftsmanship,”...

France | 1946 | Julien Duvivier

The great Michel Simon (L’Atalante, Boudu Saved from Drowning) stars in the first film version of Georges Simenon’s 1933 crime novel Mr. Hire’s Engagement (remade in 1989 as Monsieur Hire). Simon plays a lonely misanthrope and voyeur, living in a suburb of Paris where he is widely disliked and distrusted, who is framed for a murder he didn’t commit. Part film noir, part tragic romance, this nasty thriller is a “near-perfect piece of film craftsmanship,”...

United States | 1966 | William Wyler

Audrey Hepburn and Peter O’Toole star in William Wyler’s elegant caper comedy, set in Paris, about an art forger’s daughter who hires a burglar to help her steal a statue from a museum. Wyler previously directed Hepburn in Roman Holiday. With Charles Boyer and Eli Wallach; music by John Williams. DCP. 123 min.

France | 1983 | Raúl Ruiz

The late Chilean/French filmmaker Raúl Ruiz (1941-2011) was one of the most imaginative and prolific directors in the modern cinema. Although most of Ruiz’s 100+ features are virtually impossible to see in the U.S., tonight and next Saturday you have a chance to see two of his greatest works in rare (and essential) 35mm prints. (Both were plucked from the 16-film Ruiz retrospective presented late last year by the Film Society of Lincoln Center.) Three...

United States | 1966 | William Wyler

Audrey Hepburn and Peter O’Toole star in William Wyler’s elegant caper comedy, set in Paris, about an art forger’s daughter who hires a burglar to help her steal a statue from a museum. Wyler previously directed Hepburn in Roman Holiday. With Charles Boyer and Eli Wallach; music by John Williams. DCP. 123 min.

United States | 2016 | Martin Scorsese

Martin Scorsese’s longtime dream project follows two 17th-century Portuguese Jesuit priests (Andrew Garfied, Adam Driver) who journey to Japan to find a long-missing third priest (Liam Neeson). This man, their mentor, has reputedly renounced his faith in the face of anti-Christian persecution by the shogunate. This magisterial historical drama has the sweep of Kurosawa and the spirituality of Mizoguchi. “Five stars (highest rating)… Ranks among the greatest achievements of spiritually minded cinema…Scorsese has hit the...

China, France | 2015 | Zhao Liang

The awesome human and environmental destruction wrought by Chinese coal mining in Inner Mongolia is captured on an epic scale—without resorting to interviews or talking heads—in this much heralded, monstrously poetic nonfiction film that The Village Voice calls “a work of film art.” Subtitles. DCP. 90 min.

Poland | 2015 | Agnieszka Smoczyńska

Hans Christian Andersen goes Goth and new wave in this imaginative and outlandish horror musical, set in 1980s Poland. It follows a pair of carnivorous mermaid sisters who go ashore and land gigs as strippers and singers in a half-glam, half-gritty nightclub. While living among the humans, one sibling looks for love, the other for dinner. A future cult classic, it’s like The Hunger with scales. “[A] wholly original and ominously enchanting nightmare.” –Indiewire. Adults...

Israel | 2015 | Tomer Heymann

This acclaimed and award-winning new documentary profiles Ohad Naharin, artistic director of the Batsheva Dance Company and one of the world’s most important and influential modern dance choreographers. Filmed over eight years, the movie includes extensive rehearsal and performance footage, as well as rare archival clips. With Natalie Portman. “Possibly the most exciting documentary for fans of edgier modern dance since Pina.” –Variety. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 100 min.

United States | 1980 | Richard Rush

A fugitive (Steve Railsback) stumbles upon an action movie set and replaces a stunt man who has died. He uses the film shoot to hide from the police, but soon discovers that there’s no hiding from the movie’s imperious, eccentric director (Peter O’Toole in the sixth of his eight Oscar-nominated roles), who may be trying to kill him. Reality and illusion blur in this witty, head-spinning cult classic that Pauline Kael called “a virtuoso piece...

France, Portugal | 1983 | Raúl Ruiz

This dark fairy tale by the late, great Raúl Ruiz (see 3/18 at 9:15) is a surreal, nightmarish variant on Peter Pan. It contains a 10-year-old “lost boy” who has murdered his family; a sleepwalking maid who may be the boy’s mother; and a crazed lecher who keeps the servant imprisoned on his rocky island. (There are no pirates.) Rape, incest, and castration factor into this sexually charged, visually stunning, absurdist fantasia that operates on...

Denmark, Sweden | 1987 | Bille August

Max von Sydow stars in this epic film that won the 1989 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film as well as the top prize at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival. Set during the late 1850s, the film follows an older widower and his young son as they emigrate from their native Sweden to Denmark in search of a better life. Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 157 min.

Poland | 2015 | Agnieszka Smoczyńska

Hans Christian Andersen goes Goth and new wave in this imaginative and outlandish horror musical, set in 1980s Poland. It follows a pair of carnivorous mermaid sisters who go ashore and land gigs as strippers and singers in a half-glam, half-gritty nightclub. While living among the humans, one sibling looks for love, the other for dinner. A future cult classic, it’s like The Hunger with scales. “[A] wholly original and ominously enchanting nightmare.” –Indiewire. Adults...

Israel | 2015 | Tomer Heymann

This acclaimed and award-winning new documentary profiles Ohad Naharin, artistic director of the Batsheva Dance Company and one of the world’s most important and influential modern dance choreographers. Filmed over eight years, the movie includes extensive rehearsal and performance footage, as well as rare archival clips. With Natalie Portman. “Possibly the most exciting documentary for fans of edgier modern dance since Pina.” –Variety. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 100 min.