Cinematheque Film Schedule

Belgium, France | 2000 | Chantal Akerman

Proust’s La Prisonnière (volume five of Remembrance of Things Past) is the inspiration for Chantal Akerman’s strange, mesmerizing tale of entrapment, sexual possession, and surveillance, in which a jealous young man who shares an enormous Paris apartment with his bisexual girlfriend obsessively watches or questions her every move. Filmed in elegant, somber colors, the movie is at once spare and voluptuous, with an undertow of intense feeling and a soaringly romantic classical music soundtrack. Undistributed...

Australia, France | 2022 | Benjamin Millepied

Paul Mescal (Aftersun) and Melissa Barrera (In the Heights) star in this radical reimagining of Bizet’s famous opera, a magical-realist dance drama (new score by Nicholas Britell) in which an illegal Mexican immigrant and a renegade U.S. border guard flee to L.A. together. This musical drama is the first feature directed by French choreographer and dancer Benjamin Millepied, former principal dancer for the New York City Ballet (and husband of Natalie Portman). With Rossy de...

United States | 1950 | Billy Wilder

To escape his creditors, a hack Hollywood screenwriter (William Holden) hides out in a dilapidated mansion owned by faded, reclusive, silent-screen legend Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson). He is soon entrapped in Desmond’s web, becoming her lover as she enlists him to engineer her motion picture comeback. Billy Wilder’s morbid, sordid, and bitter salute to old Hollywood is an unforgettable amalgam of film noir, black comedy, and haunted house movie. With Erich von Stroheim and Buster...

United States | 1962 | Morton DaCosta

One of the greatest and most beloved American musicals ever made! Set in 1912, this high-energy film stars Robert Preston as a smooth-talking, itinerant con man who blows into a small Iowa town one day posing as a music professor. He says he wants to start a boys’ marching band in the burg, but his real intention is to bilk local citizens of their hard-earned cash—and then skedaddle. “76 Trombones” and “Till There Was You”...

United States | 1950 | Billy Wilder

To escape his creditors, a hack Hollywood screenwriter (William Holden) hides out in a dilapidated mansion owned by faded, reclusive, silent-screen legend Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson). He is soon entrapped in Desmond’s web, becoming her lover as she enlists him to engineer her motion picture comeback. Billy Wilder’s morbid, sordid, and bitter salute to old Hollywood is an unforgettable amalgam of film noir, black comedy, and haunted house movie. With Erich von Stroheim and Buster...

Australia, France | 2022 | Benjamin Millepied

Paul Mescal (Aftersun) and Melissa Barrera (In the Heights) star in this radical reimagining of Bizet’s famous opera, a magical-realist dance drama (new score by Nicholas Britell) in which an illegal Mexican immigrant and a renegade U.S. border guard flee to L.A. together. This musical drama is the first feature directed by French choreographer and dancer Benjamin Millepied, former principal dancer for the New York City Ballet (and husband of Natalie Portman). With Rossy de...

United States | 1972 | Jack Starrett

Hall of Fame running back and Civil Rights advocate Jim Brown stars in this action-packed Blaxploitation classic about a Vietnam vet who wreaks vengeance on the Cleveland crime syndicate responsible for the death of his parents. Stella Stevens and Rip Torn co-star in this movie that proved popular enough to spawn a sequel. Billy Preston’s theme song was later used by Quentin Tarantino. 35mm scope print! 92 min.

France, Italy | 2022 | Emanuele Crialise

Penélope Cruz plays a loving mother who must contend with both an aloof, unfaithful husband and a troubled transgender child in this touching memory piece set in less-than-progressive 1970s Italy. The title means “The Immensity.” “A story of quiet desperation and secret yearning in the hearts of teens and the middle-aged alike.” –The Guardian (UK). Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 97 min.

United States | 1951 | Billy Wilder

Kirk Douglas stars in one of Billy Wilder’s most cynical and scathing films—about a disgraced big city journalist, now living in New Mexico, who intentionally delays the rescue of a trapped miner in order to milk the incident for its sensationalized news and “human interest” value, while resurrecting his own byline. “A revelation, as timely now as when it was made.” –San Francisco Chronicle. DCP. 111 min.

United States | 1972 | Jack Starrett

Hall of Fame running back and Civil Rights advocate Jim Brown stars in this action-packed Blaxploitation classic about a Vietnam vet who wreaks vengeance on the Cleveland crime syndicate responsible for the death of his parents. Stella Stevens and Rip Torn co-star in this movie that proved popular enough to spawn a sequel. Billy Preston’s theme song was later used by Quentin Tarantino. 35mm scope print! 92 min.

New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States | 2022 | Peter Jackson

The Beatles’ final public performance, which took place on the roof of their Apple Corps headquarters in central London on January 30, 1969, is captured in its entirety in this excerpt from Peter Jackson’s celebrated documentary series The Beatles: Get Back. DCP. 65 min.

France, Italy | 2022 | Emanuele Crialise

Penélope Cruz plays a loving mother who must contend with both an aloof, unfaithful husband and a troubled transgender child in this touching memory piece set in less-than-progressive 1970s Italy. The title means “The Immensity.” “A story of quiet desperation and secret yearning in the hearts of teens and the middle-aged alike.” –The Guardian (UK). Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 97 min.

France, Germany, Hungary | 2000 | Béla Tarr

Béla Tarr’s follow-up to his monumental 1994 masterpiece Sátántangó is another dark fable featuring stunning b&w cinematography and extremely long takes. Set in a nameless, timeless Hungarian hamlet that’s visited one day by a mysterious traveling circus replete with an enormous stuffed whale, the film employs only 39 shots to chronicle how the circus’s much-heralded, demagogue-like star attraction, “The Prince,” sparks violence and destruction in the village. From a novel by Sátántangó author László Krasznahorkai....

Netherlands | 2023 | Suzanne Raes

This new documentary takes viewers behind the scenes of the recent Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The film captures curators, conservators, collectors, and experts as they prepare this blockbuster show, the largest Vermeer exhibition ever mounted and an art-world sensation. It also sheds new light on the elusive, 17th-century Dutch master who painted “Girl with a Pearl Earring” among others. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 78 min.

New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States | 2022 | Peter Jackson

The Beatles’ final public performance, which took place on the roof of their Apple Corps headquarters in central London on January 30, 1969, is captured in its entirety in this excerpt from Peter Jackson’s celebrated documentary series The Beatles: Get Back. DCP. 65 min.

France, Germany, Hungary | 2000 | Béla Tarr

Béla Tarr’s follow-up to his monumental 1994 masterpiece Sátántangó is another dark fable featuring stunning b&w cinematography and extremely long takes. Set in a nameless, timeless Hungarian hamlet that’s visited one day by a mysterious traveling circus replete with an enormous stuffed whale, the film employs only 39 shots to chronicle how the circus’s much-heralded, demagogue-like star attraction, “The Prince,” sparks violence and destruction in the village. From a novel by Sátántangó author László Krasznahorkai....

United States | 2022 | Alexandre O. Philippe

The immense influence of 1939’s The Wizard of Oz on David Lynch’s work—from his 1969 short The Alphabet to 2017’s Twin Peaks: The Return—is explored in six chapters hosted by different celebrity experts in this fascinating new feature laden with film clips. Among the “hosts” are filmmakers John Waters, David Lowery (The Green Knight), Karyn Kusama (Jennifer’s Body), and Rodney Ascher (Room 237). “Lynch/Oz offers an exciting prism through which to view Lynch’s oeuvre.” –Screen...

Belgium, France, Netherlands | 2022 | Cédric Klapisch

Nominated for eight 2023 César Awards (French Oscars) including Best Film, Director, and Original Screenplay, this uplifting new dance movie focuses on a young ballerina who pivots to modern dance after an injury ends her classical career. She finds comfort and hope in her new troupe. The film’s lead, Paris Opera ballet dancer Marion Barbeau, delivers a star-making turn. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 117 min.

United States | 2022 | Sam Green

The immersive new film from the Oscar-nominated director of The Weather Underground explores the phenomenon of sound through 32 specific sonic experiences—from a tree falling in the forest to old answering-machine audio tapes. Featuring original music by JD Samson of Le Tigre, this sensory work meditates on the power of sound to bend time, cross borders, and profoundly shape our perception of the world. “Critic’s Pick…Full to bursting with humor, emotion and curiosity, 32 Sounds...

United States | 1981 | Jon Else

Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (subject of Christopher Nolan’s new film), who oversaw the development of the atomic bomb during WWII and soon regretted it, is the all-too-human focus of this Oscar-nominated documentary. Contains sobering newsreel footage. Format TBA. 88 min. Special thanks to Jon Else.

United States | 1953 | Billy Wilder

Billy Wilder’s richly-entertaining, suspenseful WWII comedy-drama is set in a German POW camp during WWII. There a cynical, opportunistic American sergeant (William Holden in an Oscar-winning turn) is suspected of being the informant responsible for the recent deaths of two U.S. prisoners who tried to escape. Film director Otto Preminger plays the camp commandant. DCP. 120 min.

United States | 2022 | Alexandre O. Philippe

The immense influence of 1939’s The Wizard of Oz on David Lynch’s work—from his 1969 short The Alphabet to 2017’s Twin Peaks: The Return—is explored in six chapters hosted by different celebrity experts in this fascinating new feature laden with film clips. Among the “hosts” are filmmakers John Waters, David Lowery (The Green Knight), Karyn Kusama (Jennifer’s Body), and Rodney Ascher (Room 237). “Lynch/Oz offers an exciting prism through which to view Lynch’s oeuvre.” –Screen...

Belgium, France, Netherlands | 2022 | Cédric Klapisch

Nominated for eight 2023 César Awards (French Oscars) including Best Film, Director, and Original Screenplay, this uplifting new dance movie focuses on a young ballerina who pivots to modern dance after an injury ends her classical career. She finds comfort and hope in her new troupe. The film’s lead, Paris Opera ballet dancer Marion Barbeau, delivers a star-making turn. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 117 min.

United States | 1923 | Charles Chaplin

Charlie Chaplin has only a cameo in his first foray into serious filmmaking—a silent tale of a young French woman (Edna Purviance) who leaves her village and her true love to move to Paris, where she becomes the mistress of a cynical rich man (Adolphe Menjou). Stylish, sophisticated, and psychologically complex, the film impressed critics and influenced Ernst Lubitsch. But it proved a commercial flop, so Chaplin took it out of release for five decades....

United States | 2022 | Sam Green

The immersive new film from the Oscar-nominated director of The Weather Underground explores the phenomenon of sound through 32 specific sonic experiences—from a tree falling in the forest to old answering-machine audio tapes. Featuring original music by JD Samson of Le Tigre, this sensory work meditates on the power of sound to bend time, cross borders, and profoundly shape our perception of the world. “Critic’s Pick…Full to bursting with humor, emotion and curiosity, 32 Sounds...

France | 1973 | Jean Eustache

Here's a new 4K restoration of the seminal masterpiece that film magazine Cahiers du cinema proclaimed “the greatest French film of the 70’s.” Jean Eustache’s three-and-a-half-hour epic, made eight years before he committed suicide at age 42, is a scathing account of the insecurity, sorrow, and despair beneath the sexual liberation of the 1960s and 1970s. It focuses on three characters co-existing in an uneasy ménage à trois: Alexandre (Jean-Pierre Léaud), a prototypical unemployed, aging...

United States | 1959 | William Wyler

Grafton Nunes, film scholar and former President + CEO of the Cleveland Institute of Art, introduces one of the most famous and honored Hollywood epics ever made, never before shown at the Cinematheque. Set largely in Judea at the time Jesus walked the earth, the film stars Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd as boyhood best friends who take different paths through life (Heston remains a freedom-loving Jew, Boyd swears allegiance to the Roman occupiers), eventually...

Italy | 2022 | Davide Ferrario

The brilliant Italian writer of The Name of the Rose and much more takes us on a tour of his vast private library (30,000+ volumes!) in this documentary comprised largely of footage shot in 2015—one year before Eco’s death. The film illustrates Eco’s belief that a library is the “memory of the world.” Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 80 min.

United States | 1954 | Billy Wilder

Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, and William Holden star in Billy Wilder’s sparkling Cinderella story. It tells of a chauffeur’s daughter who loves the two wealthy brothers her dad works for—one a handsome playboy, the other a sober workaholic. DCP. 113 min.

United States | 1970 | Ján Kadár

Harry Belafonte teams up with Zero Mostel and the director and star of The Shop on Main Street (Ján Kadár, Ida Kaminska) for this whimsical tale of a poor, desperate Jewish tailor in NYC who is offered help by Black hipster claiming to be both Jewish and an angel. Is he really from Heaven—or Harlem? From a Bernard Malamud story, co-adapted by Bill Gunn. “Three and a half stars (out of four)…Touching, humorous…A tale often...

United States | 1970 | Ján Kadár

Harry Belafonte teams up with Zero Mostel and the director and star of The Shop on Main Street (Ján Kadár, Ida Kaminska) for this whimsical tale of a poor, desperate Jewish tailor in NYC who is offered help by Black hipster claiming to be both Jewish and an angel. Is he really from Heaven—or Harlem? From a Bernard Malamud story, co-adapted by Bill Gunn. “Three and a half stars (out of four)…Touching, humorous…A tale often...

France, Portugal | 2022 | João Pedro Rodrigues

The new feature from the Portuguese provocateur who previously directed The Ornithologist and The Last Time I Saw Macao is a compact, erotic, eco-conscious, anti-colonialist musical fantasy about a prince who is so distraught by environmental destruction that he joins a cadre of gay firemen to help them fight wildfires. “Will-o’-the-Wisp lives up to the flighty, elusive promise of its title, teasing its viewers in more ways than one.” –Variety. “A prank in fancy dress,...

France | 1973 | Jean Eustache

Here's a new 4K restoration of the seminal masterpiece that film magazine Cahiers du cinema proclaimed “the greatest French film of the 70’s.” Jean Eustache’s three-and-a-half-hour epic, made eight years before he committed suicide at age 42, is a scathing account of the insecurity, sorrow, and despair beneath the sexual liberation of the 1960s and 1970s. It focuses on three characters co-existing in an uneasy ménage à trois: Alexandre (Jean-Pierre Léaud), a prototypical unemployed, aging...

Uganda, United States | 2021 | Cathryne Czubek, Hugo Perez

“Hooray for Wakaliwood!” is what you’ll be exclaiming after viewing this new documentary on low-budget, gonzo moviemaking in Uganda. Wakaliwood is a film studio run by DIY filmmaking legend Isaac Nabwana (aka Nabwana IGG), a former brick-maker whose love of schlocky Chuck Norris action flicks inspired his transition to moviemaking. Nabwana churns out potboilers whose primitive production values and crude special effects reflect the movies’ meager budgets (ranging from 85 to a few hundred dollars)....

France, Germany, Italy | 2022 | Pietro Marcello

Pietro Marcello’s enchanting follow-up to his breakthrough movie Martin Eden delineates the first 20 years in the life of a young French girl born at the end of WWI. Raised by her widower father, she grows up poor and lonely between the two world wars—hopeful for love, escape, and something better in life. With Louis Garrel. “Scarlet delicately weaves together music and fantasy, history and folklore, realist drama and ethereal romance, to craft a timeless...

France, Germany, Italy | 2022 | Pietro Marcello

Pietro Marcello’s enchanting follow-up to his breakthrough movie Martin Eden delineates the first 20 years in the life of a young French girl born at the end of WWI. Raised by her widower father, she grows up poor and lonely between the two world wars—hopeful for love, escape, and something better in life. With Louis Garrel. “Scarlet delicately weaves together music and fantasy, history and folklore, realist drama and ethereal romance, to craft a timeless...

Uganda, United States | 2021 | Cathryne Czubek, Hugo Perez

“Hooray for Wakaliwood!” is what you’ll be exclaiming after viewing this new documentary on low-budget, gonzo moviemaking in Uganda. Wakaliwood is a film studio run by DIY filmmaking legend Isaac Nabwana (aka Nabwana IGG), a former brick-maker whose love of schlocky Chuck Norris action flicks inspired his transition to moviemaking. Nabwana churns out potboilers whose primitive production values and crude special effects reflect the movies’ meager budgets (ranging from 85 to a few hundred dollars)....

France | 1974 | Jean Eustache

Jean (The Mother and the Whore) Eustache’s final narrative feature is a superb (but little-known) semi-autobiographical tale about a 13-year-old French boy, happily living with his grandmother in a rural village, who is forced to relocate to a city in the South of France and move in with his impoverished seamstress mother (Ingrid Caven). There he drops out of school, works as a mechanic, falls in with a bad lot, and most importantly, learns about...

France, Italy | 1963 | Jean-Luc Godard

Brigitte Bardot, Michel Piccoli, and Jack Palance star in this essential Godard masterpiece that is also a great movie about moviemaking. When a respected screenwriter (Piccoli) makes compromises while adapting Homer’s The Odyssey for a vulgar American producer (Palance), his beautiful wife (Bardot) begins to drift away from him. Great Mediterranean locations! With Fritz Lang. “The greatest work of art produced in post-war Europe.” –Colin McCabe, Sight & Sound. Cleveland revival premiere! Subtitles. DCP. 103...

Japan | 1959 | Hiroshi Inagaki

Toshiro Mifune (with a prosthetic nose) stars in this little-known samurai version of Cyrano de Bergerac, in which a poet-swordsman with an oversized schnoz helps a friend woo a woman whom he himself secretly loves. Mifune had previously worked with filmmaker Inagaki on the well-regarded Samurai trilogy(1954-56). Subtitles. 35mm color & scope print! 111 min.

United States | 1955 | Billy Wilder

While his wife and son spend their summer vacation in Maine, a Manhattan executive (Tom Ewell), left home alone in the sweltering city, contemplates an extramarital affair with the sexy model (Marilyn Monroe) who lives upstairs. Billy Wilder’s screen adaptation of George Axelrod’s hit stage comedy provided Monroe with one of her most iconic roles. Scope DCP. 105 min.

Japan | 1959 | Hiroshi Inagaki

Toshiro Mifune (with a prosthetic nose) stars in this little-known samurai version of Cyrano de Bergerac, in which a poet-swordsman with an oversized schnoz helps a friend woo a woman whom he himself secretly loves. Mifune had previously worked with filmmaker Inagaki on the well-regarded Samurai trilogy(1954-56). Subtitles. 35mm color & scope print! 111 min.

France, Italy | 1963 | Jean-Luc Godard

Brigitte Bardot, Michel Piccoli, and Jack Palance star in this essential Godard masterpiece that is also a great movie about moviemaking. When a respected screenwriter (Piccoli) makes compromises while adapting Homer’s The Odyssey for a vulgar American producer (Palance), his beautiful wife (Bardot) begins to drift away from him. Great Mediterranean locations! With Fritz Lang. “The greatest work of art produced in post-war Europe.” –Colin McCabe, Sight & Sound. Cleveland revival premiere! Subtitles. DCP. 103...