Monday, January 27 at 7pm
Once Upon a Time in Uganda
Directed by Cathryne Czubek (U.S. 2023) 94 min. DCP.
In this uplifting documentary set in the heart of Uganda, two unlikely friends from opposite sides of the world unite over their shared love of Chuck Norris and gonzo ’80s action flicks. With sheer determination and an outrageous sense of humor, they team up to create their own explosive movies, catapulting Wakaliwood to international stardom and bringing laughter and joy to millions. Take a look behind the scenes of Wakaliwood, a world like no other, where you can definitely “expect the unexpectable.”
“Once Upon a Time in Uganda reminds you how the art of moviemaking can make dreams real.” – New York Times
Monday, February 3rd at 7pm
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Directed by Robert Wiene (Germany 1919) 75 min. DCP. With Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt, Lil Dagover.
One of the greatest horror movies of the silent era, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari also probably remains the ultimate expression of narrative through set design: the film’s angled shadows and interiors reflect a chilling tale of mind control and somnambulistic murder.
Monday, February 10th at 7pm
The Maltese Falcon
Directed by John Huston (U.S. 1941) 100 min. 35MM. With Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre.
The rules of the game keep changing in this proto film noir. Screenwriter-turned-director John Huston helmed the third adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s novel, a screen version whose ensemble acting plays no small part in its iconic stature. Bogart’s Sam Spade established the private detective persona in the genre of the same name, Mary Astor is luminously intelligent and Peter Lorre’s cosmopolitan crook is at once menacing and comic. Preserved by the Library of Congress.
Monday, February 17th at 7pm
Breathless
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard (France 1960) 90 min. 35MM. With Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg, Daniel Boulanger. French with English subtitles.
Godard burst onto the film scene with this jazzy, free-form and sexy homage to the American film genres that inspired him. With its lack of polish, surplus of attitude, anything-goes crime narrative and effervescent young stars, Breathless helped launch the French New Wave and ensured cinema would never be the same.
Monday, February 24th at 7pm
About Elly
Directed by Asghar Farhadi (Iran, France 2009) 114 min. DCP With Golshifteh Farahani, Shahab Hosseini, Taraneh Alidoosti. Persian and German with English subtitles.
A gripping mystery from the Academy Award winning director of A Separation. With the return of their close friend Ahmad from Germany, a group of old college pals decide to reunite for a weekend outing by the Caspian Sea. The fun starts right away as they quickly catch on to the plan of lively Sepideh, who has brought along Elly, her daughter’s kindergarten teacher, in hopes of setting her up with recently divorced Ahmad. But seemingly trivial lies, which start accumulating from the moment the group arrives at the seashore, suddenly swing round and come back full force when one afternoon Elly suddenly vanishes.
“This superb ensemble drama, nearly the equal of Farhadi’s Oscar-winning A Separation, must be seen, but with as little prior knowledge as possible. Farhadi and his editor Hayedeh Safiyari are masters of withholding information until the suspense becomes almost unbearable. About Elly shows that the ethical dilemmas of ordinary adults can, with this level of talent, become as gripping as any thriller.” – Farran Smith Nehme, the New York Post
Monday, March 3rd at 7pm
The Big Combo
Joseph H. Lewis (U.S. 1955) 89 min. 35MM. With Richard Conte, Cornell Wilde, Jean Wallace.
In a city of unsympathetic characters, a gangster (Conte) is hunted by a cop (Wilde) who is driven not by the law, but by his obsessive attachment to an ex-mistress (Wallace) – now a suicidal moll dating the ruthless criminal. In the film’s depiction of this romantic yet sadomasochistic relationship (as elsewhere), Lewis fought with Hollywood’s censorship board about violence and deviancy, much of which remains – whether on-screen, implied, or evoked by John Alton’s bold chiaroscuro cinematography. 35mm restored print courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive; restoration funding provided by The Film Foundation.
Monday, March 17th at 7pm
Atlantics
Mati Diop (France, Senegal, Belgium, 2019) 105 min. DCP. With Mame Bineta Sane, Amadou Mbow, Traore, Nicole Sougou. Wolof with English subtitles.
In Senegal’s bustling capital, two young lovers sneak private moments with the urgency of youthful desire, knowing their time is limited, as Ada (newcomer Sané) is soon to be wed to a wealthy but frivolous man. Meanwhile, Souleiman (first-time actor Traoré) hasn’t been paid for weeks and is forced to leave land for the sea in hopes of finding a better life. When he sets off, Ada is haunted by his memory and, then, perhaps more. Like the works of Claire Denis and Matías Piñeiro, Diop’s film rejects a simple narrative framework, instead focusing on the poetic and thoughtful, with politics that simmer beneath the surface. And like her uncle, the iconic filmmaker Djibril Diop Mambéty — whose work also explored migration — she refuses a reductive portrait of those dreaming of a better life. Leaving comparisons aside, Diop stands very much on her own two feet with an evocative and stunning study of how love and loss haunts us all. Known for her work in front of the camera (starting with Claire Denis’ 35 Rhums) and her body of short films, Mati Diop made her highly anticipated leap to feature filmmaking. The jump was an assured one, as Atlantics picked up the Jury Grand Prize in Cannes Competition, making Diop the first Black woman to win an award in the French festival’s 72-year history (Toronto International Film Festival program notes).
Monday, March 24th at 7pm
High Noon
Fred Zinnemann (U.S. 1952) 85 min. DCP. With Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, Katy Jurado, Lloyd Bridges.
No movie hero ever walked taller than Gary Cooper in High Noon. As Marshal Will Kane, he’s ready to turn in his badge and settle down with his new wife (Kelly) until he learns a criminal is arriving on the noon train bent on revenge. When the locals turn a deaf ear to Kane’s pleas for help (even deputy Lloyd Bridges refuses), the lawman must face a gang of killers alone. This iconic Western, named by the American Film Institute as one of the 100 greatest films of all time, won four Oscars, including a Best Actor award for Cooper and Best Song for “Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin’” (American Cinematheque program notes).
Monday, March 31st at 7pm
Caché
Michael Haneke (France 2005) 117 min. 35MM. With Daniel Auteuil, Juliette Binoche, Maurice Bénichou. French with English subtitles.
Winner of the Best Director prize at Cannes, Haneke’s thriller unearths France’s colonialist guilt and contemporary racism via its depiction of an affluent couple tormented by anonymous calls, disturbing drawings and surveillance tapes. Each clue points to an ugly secret, leading to the film’s famously enigmatic final shot (watch closely!).
Monday, April 7th at 7pm
Once Upon a Time in the West
Sergio Leone (Italy 1968) 105 min. DCP. With Henry Fonda, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards, Charles Bronson.
Sergio Leone reimagined the American Western genre with Once Upon a Time in the West, in which two mysterious strangers join forces to defend a widow after a sinister hired gun murders her family in a bid to grab their land for the railroad. Unlike the well-groomed characters depicted in traditional studio Westerns, the inhabitants of Leone’s frontier are dusty, sweaty, and grimy. Leone also cast good-guy icon Henry Fonda radically against type as the darkest of villains, and brought the European stylistic reinterpretations perfected in his low-budget spaghetti Westerns to the quintessential cowboy movie location—John Ford’s iconic Monument Valley (Museum of Modern Art program notes).
Monday, April 14th at 7pm
Close Your Eyes
Victor Erice (Spain, Argentina 2023) 169 min. DCP. With Manolo Solo, Jose Coronado, Ana Torrent. In Spanish, Catalan with English subtitles.
Over three decades after the release of his previous film, revered Spanish auteur Víctor Erice (The Spirit of the Beehive, El Sur, and Dream of Light) returns with a “poignant cinematic swan song” (The Hollywood Reporter). A reflective culmination of Erice’s career in film, Close Your Eyes is a haunting meditation on memory, absence, and the enduring resonance of the moving image. Aging filmmaker Miguel Garay (Solo) is called upon to recount his memories of working on his final and still unfinished film, The Farewell Gaze – during whose production, the lead actor and Miguel’s close friend vanished without a trace. Approached by an investigative journalist decades later, Miguel reconnects with the film’s crew, former lovers, and the missing man’s daughter, seeking closure and understanding for what the disappearance meant to all their lives.
“A stunning return. A quietly astonishing new movie…has its own warm spirit of optimism but, happily, none of the self-regarding solipsism you might fear from such a personal valentine to cinema.” – Justin Chang, The New Yorker
Monday, April 21st at 7pm
Bound
Lana and Lilly Wachowski (U.S. 1996) 108 min. DCP. With Gina Gershon, Jennifer Tilly, Joe Pantoliano.
Before they blew the world’s mind with The Matrix, Lana and Lilly Wachowski delivered a jolt of pure pulp pleasure with their hyperstylish debut, which puts a deliciously sapphic spin on a crackerjack caper premise. When butch plumber Corky (Gershon) catches the eye of alluring femme (fatale) Violet (Tilly), little does she know she’s about to be drawn into both a torrid affair and a high-stakes heist that will pit the pair against the mob. With crackling dialogue, luscious neonoir cinematography, and live-wire performances by Gershon, Tilly, and Joe Pantoliano, Bound is a genre-reimagining joyride that keeps both the tension and the erotic heat rising through each crazily careening twist.
“The Wachowskis’ subsequent work leans so heavily on ambitious philosophical and humanist ideas that scenes are given over to the thematically expository, with characters speaking in fluffy purple prose. But there’s a grasp of acid wit and serrated-edge terseness to the dialogue here that’s very much in the tradition of classic noir. [Yet] this is an erotic thriller where eroticism is the agent of redemption, not damnation.” – Jake Cole, Slant Magazine
Monday, April 28th at 7pm
Les Cowboys
Thomas Bidegain (France 2016) 104 min. DCP. With François Damiens, Finnegan Oldfield. French with English subtitles.
Country and Western enthusiast Alain (Damiens) is enjoying an outdoor gathering of fellow devotees with his wife and teenage children when his daughter abruptly vanishes. Learning that she’s eloped with her Muslim boyfriend, he embarks on an increasingly obsessive quest to track her down. As the years pass and the trail grows cold, Alain sacrifices everything, while drafting his son into his efforts. The echoes of The Searchers are unmistakable, but the story departs from John Ford’s film in unexpected ways, and escapes its confining European milieu as the pursuit assumes near-epic proportions in post-9/11 Afghanistan. This muscular debut, worthy of director Thomas Bidegain’s screenwriting collaborations with Jacques Audiard, yields a sweeping vision of a world in which the codes of the Old West no longer seem to hold (Film at Lincoln Center notes).