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Cinema Space is a fully voluntary and independent initiative to bring you beautifully restored classics and contemporary world cinema! Programs are open and free to all audiences and enthusiasts.

 

RSVP is mandatory. Please select an upcoming program below and click on the [RSVP - CLICK HERE] activated link to view information about the film and reserve your spot. You will receive an automatic email confirmation. 


*Programs dates and times are subject to change.

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cinema space

Cinema Space is a fully voluntary and independent initiative to share beautifully restored classics and contemporary world cinema through free community screenings for audiences and enthusiasts in Abu Dhabi.

 

Come one, come all, and bring guests to discover essential cinema!

Manarat Al Saadiyat Auditorium 
Cultural District, Sheikh Khalifa Highway 
Abu Dhabi 
U.A.E. 
United Arab Emirates
Manarat Al Saadiyat Auditorium 
Cultural District, Sheikh Khalifa Highway 
Abu Dhabi 
U.A.E. 
United Arab Emirates
Manarat Al Saadiyat Auditorium 
Cultural District, Sheikh Khalifa Highway 
Abu Dhabi 
U.A.E.
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How it works

Cinema Space is a fully voluntary and independent initiative to bring you beautifully restored classics and contemporary world cinema! Programs are open and free to all audiences and enthusiasts.

 

RSVP is mandatory. Please select an upcoming program below and click on the [RSVP - CLICK HERE] activated link to view information about the film and reserve your spot. You will receive an automatic email confirmation. 


*Programs dates and times are subject to change.

free programs below

programs

01

World Cinema

Exciting and original storytelling from international filmmakers

02

Restored Classics

Experience great original classics in beautiful film restorations

03

Family programs

 Marvelous, fun and inspiring films for audiences of all ages

Saturday, april 21 | 3:00pm

apollo 13

(NEW PRESENTATION!) | FAMILY FRIENDLY PROGRAM

 

[RSVP OPENS APRIL 16]
Directed by Ron Howard

USA | 1995 | 140 minutes | In English | (G)

 

Synopsis:  Nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Apollo 13 is the inspiring and riveting story of the real-life space flight that gripped the nation and changed the world. Ron Howard directs Academy Award winner Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise and Ed Harris in a riveting suspense-thriller. Stranded 205,000 miles from Earth in a crippled spacecraft, astronauts Jim Lovell (Hanks), Fred Haise (Paxton) and Jack Swigert (Bacon) fight a desperate battle to survive. Meanwhile, at Mission Control, astronaut Ken Mattingly (Sinise), flight director Gene Kranz (Harris) and a heroic ground crew race against time - and odds - to bring them home. It's a breathtaking adventure that tells a story of courage, faith and ingenuity that is all the more remarkable because it is true!

saturday, april 28 | 4:00pm

king kong

(NEW FILM RESTORATION!) | FAMILY FRIENDLY PROGRAM

 

[RSVP OPENS APRIL 24]

Directed by Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack

USA | 1933 | 104 minutes | In English | (G)


Synopsis:  A film ahead of its time, King Kong defied the technological limitations of the 1930s. Special effects pioneer Willis O'Brien's revolutionary stop-motion animation was not only technically brilliant but also highly imaginative filled with memorable moments: a moviemaking expedition on a fantastic isle filled with dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures; the giant simian's lovestruck obsession with the film shoot's blonde starlet (Fay Wray); Kong's capture; his Manhattan rampage; and the fateful finale atop the Empire State Building, where Kong cradles his palm-sized beloved and swats at machine-gunning airplanes. King Kong is a milestone of moviemaking that has endured for more than seven decades.

Monday, May 7 | 7:30pm

The soul of the tiger

[RSVP OPENS APRIL 30]

L' Âme du tigre (Original Title)
Directed by François Yang

Switzerland | 2016 | 91 minutes | In French, Mandarin | English Subtitles | (18+)

 

Synopsis:  Alex Chen and his girlfriend, Eloane, head to the mountains in order to go rock climbing. Their light-hearted holiday is put to an abrupt end, however, when Alex receives a shocking telephone call: his brother Jun is dead. Back in Paris’s Chinatown, Alex is determined to find out what happened. While his French mother retreats into mourning, his Chinese father refuses to tell him anything in detail. Reluctant to believe that his brother died of a sudden brain haemorrhage, Alex begins to dig deeper into his father’s family history. His beautiful yet mysterious cousin Lili, who soon begins to exert an unexplainable force of attraction upon him, assists Alex in his quest. Fribourg-born François Yang’s autobiographically inspired debut is a subtly staged family drama in which cultures, family secrets and taboos collide.

saturday, april 28 | 7:00pm

M

(NEW FILM RESTORATION!)

 

[RSVP - 7:00 PM - CLICK HERE]

Directed by Fritz Lang

Germany | 1931 | 110 minutes | In German | English Subtitles | (PG)

 

Synopsis:  Of all Fritz Lang’s creations, none have been more innovative or influential than M, the film that launched German cinema into the sound era with stunning sophistication and mesmerising artistry. A spate of child killings has stricken a terrified Berlin. Peter Lorre gives a legendary performance as the murderer Hans Beckert, who soon finds himself chased by all levels of society. From cinema’s first serial killer hunt, Lang pulls back to encompass social tapestry, police procedural, and underworld conspiracies in an astonishingly multi-faceted and level-headed look at a deeply incendiary topic. One of the greatest psychological thrillers of all time, M remains as fresh and startling almost 80 years on.

Sunday, april 29 | 7:30pm

the silences of the palace

[RSVP - 7:30 PM - CLICK HERE]

Samt el qusur (Original Title)

Directed by Moufida Tlatli
Tunisia | 1994 | 128 minutes | In Arabic | English Subtitles | 18+


Synopsis:  During the funeral of Prince Sid'Ali, 25-year-old Alia visits the palace where she spent her childhood and where her mother was a servant. She never knew her father - he may even have been the prince. As she wanders the deserted corridors, the images of her youth return, such as her forbidden friendship with Sarra, daughter of one of the princes, who taught Alia to love the lute. She also re-experiences memories of her mother, the brave and beautiful Khedija, who protected Alia against the furtive desires of the prince. Director Moufida Tlatli's film delicately reveals the lonely lives of the women who were locked up for life in an Arab palace, half slaves, half mistresses.

saturday, May 5 | (7:00 pm)

mediterranea

[RSVP - 7:00 PM - CLICK HERE]
Directed by Jonas Carpignano

Italy | 2015 | 111 minutes | In Italian, French, Arabic | English Subtitles | (PG)

 

Synopsis:  This remarkably timely, eye-opening look at an all-too-real issue charts the death-defying struggle of African migrants as they risk everything to start a new life in Europe. Ayiva (first time actor Koudous Seihon in a revelatory performance) and Abas (Alassane Sy) are close friends from Burkina Faso determined to make it to Italy in order to find work and provide for their families back home. But even after surviving the harrowing journey—desert bandits, a treacherous sea voyage, arrest—nothing can prepare the two men for the hostility and violence that awaits them. A gripping tale of survival told with vivid realism, Mediterranea immerses viewers in the heart of a humanitarian crisis that for far too many is a lived reality.

 

Monday, May 7 | 7:30pm

secret sunshine

[RSVP OPENS APRIL 30]

Directed by Lee Chang-dong

South Korea | 2007  | 142  minutes | In Korean | English Subtitles | (18+)

 

Synopsis:  Lee Chang-dong's riveting, critically lauded drama is a beautifully rendered exploration of motherhood, grief, faith, and emotional survival. Cannes Best Actress Award-winner Jeon Do-yeon plays Shin-ae, a single mother who relocates to her husband's hometown Miryang ("Secret Sunshine") for a new start his sudden passing. Attempting to make a new life there for her young son is a challenge, and she manages to befriend only a bumbling repair man with dubious intentions. When tragedy strikes again, Shin-ae undergoes an emotionally shattering journey that pits her against everything she's known about humanity, love, forgiveness, and God. 

saturday, May 12 | 7:00pm

l'avventura

(NEW FILM RESTORATION!)

 

[RSVP OPENS MAY 7]
Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni

Italy | 1960 | 143 minutes | In Italian | English Subtitles | (G)

 

Synopsis:  Michelangelo Antonioni invented a new film grammar with this masterwork. An iconic piece of challenging 1960s cinema and a gripping narrative on its own terms, L’avventura concerns the enigmatic disappearance of a young woman during a yachting trip off the coast of Sicily, and the search taken up by her disaffected lover (Gabriele Ferzetti) and best friend (Monica Vitti, in her breakout role). Antonioni’s controversial international sensation is a gorgeously shot tale of modern ennui and spiritual isolation. 

Monday, May 14 | 6:30pm

pickpocket

(NEW FILM RESTORATION!)

Location: Sorbonne University, Al Reem Island


[RSVP OPENS MAY 7]
Directed by Robert Bresson

France | 1959 | 76 minutes | In French | English Subtitles | (G)

 

Synopsis:  This incomparable story of crime and redemption from the French master Robert Bresson follows Michel, a young pickpocket who spends his days working the streets, subway cars, and train stations of Paris. As his compulsive pursuit of the thrill of stealing grows, however, so does his fear that his luck is about to run out. A cornerstone of the career of this most economical and profoundly spiritual of filmmakers, Pickpocket is an elegantly crafted, tautly choreographed study of humanity in all its mischief and grace, the work of a director at the height of his powers.

spotlight

Actor Robert Mitchum's incomparable career stretched across five decades as he blossomed from a bit player in war films and westerns in the 1940s into a bona fide star collaborating with iconoclastic filmmakers such as Howard Hawks, Otto Preminger, Jacques Tourneur, John Huston, Vincente Minnelli, and Nicholas Ray. The magnetic presence he created on screen has endured as a paragon of timeless cool. We encourage you to explore his legacy through films in the photo gallery below.

robert mitchum centenary

Directed by Robert Parrish

 

This Technicolor western adapted from a novel by Tom Lea stars Robert Mitchum as an expat mercenary who fled to Mexico at age 14 after avenging his father’s murder. He’s hired by a cruel Mexican governor (Pedro Armendáriz) to carry out an arms deal that takes him to Texas, where his refusal to help hunt Apaches puts him in conflict with a U.S. Army major (Gary Merrill)—and into the orbit of the major’s unhappy wife (Julie London). Mitchum’s layered performance as a reluctantly violent man at a moral crossroads, and caught between two national identities, is the heart of Parrish’s elegiac, cerebral western, exquisitely shot by Alex Phillips and Floyd Crosby. (Jordan Raup, NYFF Retrospective)

1945

the story of g.i. joe

Directed by William Wellman

 

Robert Mitchum’s extraordinary, Oscar-nominated performance as the stoic, exhausted, and quietly beleaguered Lieutenant Walker in this adaptation of correspondent Ernie Pyle’s dispatches from the war in Europe, made him a star. Director William Wellman, himself a WWI vet, and producer Lester Cowan closely collaborated with Pyle (played by Burgess Meredith, who was doing service in the Air Force at the time) to make a film that was true to the life of the WWII soldier—the absolute exhaustion, the endurance of terror and shock and loss, the spells of boredom, the camaraderie. The result is a film built like a ballad, unlike any other of its era. (Jordan Raupp, NYFF Retrospective)

1946

till the end of time

Directed by Edward Dmytryk

 

This lovely, eloquently simple film about returning WWII vets and their difficulties adjusting to the homefront was made and released by RKO to get the jump on The Best Years of Our Lives. Robert Mitchum’s Tabeshaw, who has come home with a steel plate in his head, and his pal Cliff (Guy Madison), who left as a boy and has returned as a man, spend their days looking for something they can relate to, and the action is comprised of a series of small encounters, many of which (for instance, Madison and Dorothy McGuire’s war widow flanking a vet with the shakes at a lunch counter) are quietly devastating. (Jordan Raupp, NYFF Retrospective)

1946

undercurrent

Directed by Vincente Minnelli

 

A bit of an anomaly within Minnelli’s often more colorful and ebullient oeuvre, this black-and-white, paranoiac romantic thriller finds the master harnessing his consummate stylishness to spin a haunting, noirish tale. Timid Ann (Katharine Hepburn) marries the highly eligible Alan Garroway (Robert Taylor), whose wealth and good looks conceal an underlying and profound cruelty. Ann grows increasingly obsessed with learning the truth about what happened to Alan’s brother, Michael (Mitchum), who has been missing for some time… This gripping movie casts Hepburn, Taylor, and Mitchum all against type, and was one of three films that Mitchum filmed simultaneously following his breakout performance in The Story of G.I. Joe. (Jordan Raupp, NYFF Retrospective)

1947

out of the past

Directed by Jacques Tourneur

 

Tourneur’s landmark noir boasts one of Mitchum’s most iconic roles. He is magnetic as Jeff, the low-key proprietor of a gas station in small-town California. When some ill-intentioned characters from Jeff’s shadowy past arrive on the scene looking for him, it sets off a riveting chain of events that reunites him with Kathie (Jane Greer, one of the all-time great femme fatales), the slippery girlfriend of powerful and shady Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas). Out of the Past is singularly rich with twists, turns, and profound ideas concerning the complex relationship between the past, the present, and fate. (Jordan Raupp, NYFF Retrospective)

1947

pursued

Directed by Raoul Walsh

 

Walsh’s powerful, very dark and Freudian film noir/western hybrid—a favorite of Martin Scorsese—stars Mitchum as Jeb, the only survivor of a brutal massacre that wiped out the rest of his family when he was a boy. He is then adopted into the home of another family (led by chilly matriarch Judith Anderson), where he comes to fall in love with his foster sister (Teresa Wright). Now an adult, Jeb still yearns to untangle the messy, suppressed memories of his childhood trauma, and of the mysterious one-armed man who has haunted and tormented him throughout his life. Told in elaborate flashback, with frequent expressionistic touches, Pursued opened up new paths for the western and remains one of Mitchum’s great achievements. (Jordan Raupp, NYFF Retrospective)

1947

crossfire

Directed by Edward Dmytryk

 

This adaptation of writer/director-to-be Richard Brooks’s novel The Brick Foxhole, about a group of vets, led by Robert Mitchum’s Sergeant Keeley, searching postwar Washington for their amnesiac friend (George Cooper) so they can clear him of a murder charge, embodies the essence of what has come to be known as “film noir”—moody, troubled characters; nocturnal action; chiaroscuro cinematography; low-key acting spiced with bits of bravura eccentricity; and a plot so crazy that it feels like a nightmare. If Robert Ryan’s unhinged southern bigot, Gloria Grahame’s thoroughly disenchanted cocktail hostess, and Paul Kelly as her ex-(or maybe not) husband get to play the acting solos, Mitchum does a beautiful job on rhythm. (Jordan Raupp, NYFF Retrospective)

1948

the red pony

Directed by Lewis Milestone

 

John Steinbeck (The Grapes of Wrath) adapted three of his own classic short stories to create a powerful family portrait in The Red Pony. Young Tom Tiflin is unable to find the love and guidance he needs from his parents. For friendship and support, Tom turns to easy-going hired hand, Billy Buck (Robert Mitchum). In an attempt to become closer to his son, Tom’s father gives him a red pony to raise. As the horse becomes the focus of Tom’s life, it ultimately drives the family further apart as Tom turns to Billy for help in rearing his beloved pet. Family ties and Tom and Billy’s friendship are put to the test when the red pony becomes sick. Directed by award winning director Lewis Milestone (All Quiet on the Western Front) with an evocative and rich musical score by Aaron Copland.

1948

blood on the moon

Directed by Robert Wise

 

Robert Wise’s synthesis of western and film noir was a breakthrough for the director and further solidified Robert Mitchum as one of Hollywood’s most intriguing leading men. Mitchum plays Jim Garry, an underemployed cowboy enlisted by an old friend (Robert Preston) to collude in a scheme to get an aging cattle owner to sell off his herd at a discount. The deadly intrigue that results from this plot leads Jim to wonder whether he’s on the right side of the conflict and to further crave the trust of the cattle owner’s daughter (Barbara Bel Geddes). Mitchum flourishes amid Wise’s assured direction of screenwriter Lillie Hayward’s foreboding, twist-laden, psychologically rich script, adapted from a novel by Luke Short. (Jordan Raup, NYFF Retrospective)

1951

his kind of woman

Directed by John Farrow

 

Mitchum had a good time shooting this ambling comedy thriller, playing a down-on-his-luck gambler who takes a mysterious gig that brings him to an exclusive Baja resort, where he meets up with a colorful crew of characters, including a beautiful woman (Jane Russell) and her movie star boyfriend (Vincent Price). The good time came to a close with endless reshoots of a new ending conceived by RKO studio head Howard Hughes and directed by Richard Fleischer. It is one of Mitchum’s best films. (Jordan Raup, NYFF Retrospective)

1952

the lusty men

Directed by Nicholas Ray

 

“The kind of love I have for the film,” said Nicholas Ray of The Lusty Men, “is not as a filmmaker adoring a child, it’s as a part of the literature of America.” Set in the punishing, rootless world of the rodeo circuit, this is one of Ray’s very best films, and Robert Mitchum’s Jeff McCloud is its sad, busted, but still beating heart. According to Lee Server’s biography of the actor, Mitchum was so excited by his work in the film (in which he did many of his own stunts) that he went out with his director to celebrate, got drunk, appropriated a gun from an FBI agent, and fired it into a stack of dishes. (Jordan Raup, NYFF Retrospective)

1952

Macao

Directed by Joseph von Sternberg

 

Nicholas Ray was brought on to finish this atmospheric crime yarn after producer Howard Hughes forced Josef von Sternberg off the project. (Allegedly, Robert Mitchum helped write a few scenes with Ray.) But its initial director’s signature textures and tones still shine through: dresses and gloves sheathed in glitter; an Escher-like casino; a pier-set finale that recalls Sternberg’s The Docks of New York. It was, by all accounts, an unpleasant, tumultuous production. The final movie, though, is buoyant—a shimmering cinematic vacation starring Mitchum as an American runaway tasked with capturing a crime lord while also wooing a singer played by Jane Russell. (Jordan Raup, NYFF Retrospective)

1953

angel face

Directed by Otto Preminger

 

Robert Mitchum finds himself caught up in the machinations of a femme fatale in Preminger’s seminal noir. When ambulance driver Frank Jessup is summoned to a Beverly Hills mansion after wealthy Catherine Tremayne is evidently poisoned, he enters the orbit of her enterprising stepdaughter, Diane (Jean Simmons), who persuades Frank to quit his job and become her chauffeur—and ultimately her lover. But after sensing there may be a devious agenda behind her gentle facade, he must find a way to extricate himself from her schemes before it’s too late. Mitchum is as sympathetic and charismatic as ever in this gripping thriller to rival Preminger’s other great noirs. (Jordan Raup, NYFF Retrospective)

1954

river of no return

Directed by William Wellman

 

In this CinemaScope western adventure, Robert Mitchum is ex-con farmer Matt Calder, who lives with his young son in a remote riverside area. Gambler Harry (Rory Calhoun) and his fiancée Kay (Marilyn Monroe), a former saloon singer, are stranded while en route to collect on a mining claim, and Matt takes them in. When Harry tests the limits of Matt’s hospitality, he makes off with his horse and rifle, leaving Kay behind. Susceptible to the threat of hostile Indians, Matt, his son, and Kay make off down the river in Harry’s abandoned raft, but the river itself proves to be just as perilous… Monroe and Preminger had a famously rocky on-set rapport (prompting Preminger to buy out his own contract from Fox), but Mitchum’s effortless subtlety beautifully balances Monroe’s broad strokes. (Jordan Raup, NYFF Retrospective)

1954

track of the cat

Directed by William Wellman

 

Mitchum reunited with his Story of G.I. Joe director William Wellman (“I was very, very fond of him,” Mitchum said of Wellman, “and he tolerated me”) for a different kind of movie, based on a Walter Van Tilburg Clark novel, about a homesteading family in snow country whose livestock is being destroyed by a roaming mountain lion. Wellman and his DP William Clothier (The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance) worked out a stark visual design, keeping everything—sets, costumes, make-up, and exteriors—in black and white tones, with the exceptions of one scarlet hunting jacket and one yellow scarf. They also shot on location at Mt. Rainier, where 30-foot snowdrifts made for the most arduous and exhausting shoot of Mitchum’s career. (Jordan Raup, NYFF Retrospective)

1955

night of the hunter

Directed by Charles Laughton

 

Robert Mitchum’s turn in the only film directed by Laughton is a towering achievement. An expressionist, southern gothic noir, The Night of the Hunter (adapted by James Agee from Davis Grubb’s novel) tracks the devious exploits of self-styled reverend and serial killer Harry Powell (Mitchum) as he gets out of jail and sets out to wed Willa Harper (Shelley Winters), the widow of his deceased cellmate, and murder her for her hidden fortune; it falls to her children to stop the madman living in their house. Mitchum is the charismatic monster lurking at the center of Laughton and Agee’s lyrical nightmare (one of only two films completed from an Agee script), and it ranks among cinema’s greatest and most chilling performances. (Jordan Raup, NYFF Retrospective)

1957

heaven knows, mr. allison

Directed by John Huston

 

With a clever script by director John Huston and screenwriting veteran John Lee Mahin, Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957) stars Roberts Mitchum as a no-nonsense Marine and Deborah Kerr as a dedicated nun: a decidedly odd couple stranded on a South Pacific island overrun by hostile Japanese forces during World War II. Their struggle to survive and their growing friendship are beautifully captured by the camera of superb cinematographer Oswald Morris, and given further support by composer Georges Auric's lovely score.

1958

thunder road

Directed by Arthur Ripley

 

This tale of moonshine runners in the hills of Tennessee and Kentucky was the most personal project of Robert Mitchum’s entire career—in addition to starring, he produced and co-wrote it. Korean War vet Lucas (Mitchum) returns home and sets about working for his family’s moonshine business, making perilous deliveries in a modified hot rod. But he soon finds himself taking heat from both the cold-blooded city gangsters who want to take control of the moonshine network and the cops who want to crack down on it. A veritable cult classic with driving scenes that still seem daring, Thunder Road is both an exhilarating ride and a richly characterized expression of Mitchum’s artistry. (Jordan Raup, NYFF Retrospective)

1975

the wonderful country

Directed by Robert Parrish

 

This Technicolor western adapted from a novel by Tom Lea stars Robert Mitchum as an expat mercenary who fled to Mexico at age 14 after avenging his father’s murder. He’s hired by a cruel Mexican governor (Pedro Armendáriz) to carry out an arms deal that takes him to Texas, where his refusal to help hunt Apaches puts him in conflict with a U.S. Army major (Gary Merrill)—and into the orbit of the major’s unhappy wife (Julie London). Mitchum’s layered performance as a reluctantly violent man at a moral crossroads, and caught between two national identities, is the heart of Parrish’s elegiac, cerebral western, exquisitely shot by Alex Phillips and Floyd Crosby. (Jordan Raup, NYFF Retrospective)

1960

home from the hill

Directed by Vincente Minnelli

 

Vincente Minnelli’s widescreen color melodramas for MGM are all very special, and this adaptation of William Humphrey’s sprawling 1958 saga of an overpowering Texas landowner and his family (with echoes of Giant and The Big Country) is one of the finest. Mitchum—whose Captain Hunnicutt was intended for Clark Gable—got along very well with Minnelli (they’d worked together a decade earlier on Undercurrent), but less well with his younger co-star George Peppard, who asked Mitchum if he’d studied the Stanislavsky Method. “No,” said Mitchum, “but I’ve studied the Smirnoff Method.” (Jordan Raup, NYFF Retrospective)

1960

the sundowners

Directed by Fred Zinnemann


Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr star in a heartwarming romance as big as the Australian Outback--The Sundowners. Australia, 1920s. Ida Carmody (Kerr) loves her husband, Paddy (Mitchum), and Paddy loves the wandering life traveling the wide-open Outback as a sheep drover. Ida and their son, Sean (Michael Anderson), long to settle down on a ranch of their own. But no ranch can ever be big enough to hold hard-drinking, hard-gambling Paddy, no matter his intentions. And Ida should know that forced to choose between the home she yearns for and a wanderlust life with Paddy, she will follow her heart ... and her husband.

1962

cape fear

Directed by J. Lee Thompson

 

Max Cady (Robert Mitchum) is fresh out of jail following an eight-year bid for rape, and the first order of business is terrorizing lawyer Sam Bowden (Gregory Peck), who testified against him, along with Bowden’s wife (Polly Bergen) and teenage daughter (Lori Martin). J. Lee Thompson’s influential thriller, scored by Bernard Herrmann and shot by Sam Leavitt, features a performance from Mitchum that channels the menace and malice of his Harry Powell from The Night of the Hunter. Mitchum and Peck—both recast in supporting roles in Martin Scorsese’s 1991 remake—enact a mortal struggle that is enduringly gripping, harrowing and iconic. (Jordan Raup, NYFF Retrospective)

1962

the longest day

Directed by Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Bernhard Wicki


The triumph and tragedy of the World War II heroes who stormed Normandy Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944, are immortalized in this film. Seen through the eyes of Allied generals, foot soldiers, strategists and paratroopers, The Longest Day recounts the largest and greatest military mission of all time. In a battle that would change the course of history, 5,000 ships unloaded over 3 million men on the beaches of France, and the Allies gained a valuable foothold on enemy territory, at an incalculable cost. This massive production required five directors and featured an international cast of thousands, including John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Henry Fonda, Eddie Albert, Richard Burton, Sean Connery, Peter Lawford, Rod Steiger, Stuart Whitman, Robert Ryan, Edmond O'Brien, Curt Jürgens and more!

1966

el dorado

Directed by Howard Hawks

 

The first of Howard Hawks’s two variations on his own Rio Bravo finds Robert Mitchum playing a hard-drinking sheriff who teams up with an old friend (hired gun John Wayne) to protect a wealthy rancher (Ed Asner) and his family from the threatening advances of another rancher’s fearsome gang. Along the way, they enlist the help of a gambler with a distinctive hat (James Caan) and an aging, Native American deputy sheriff (Arthur Hunnicutt)—but, against such great odds, will this motley crew survive? Mitchum supplies his own distinctive charm and charisma, and Hawks masterfully imbues the proceedings with both a narrative leanness and an expansive sense of character. (Jordan Raup, NYFF Retrospective)

1970

ryan's daughter

Directed by David Lean


Lovely, headstrong Rosy (Sarah Miles) cannot forsake her passionate romance with the handsome British officer (Christopher Jones). Yet there is a greater love - the devotion of her reserved schoolteacher husband Charles (Robert Mitchum), who stands by Rosy when her illicit affair leads to a charge of treason. Two honored alumni of Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago - director David Lean and screenwriter Robert Bolt - frame this brooding tale within the expansive beaches, craggy cliffs and heathered hills of Ireland's Dingle Peninsula. Freddie Young's lush cinematography and John Mills' memorable portrayal of a town simpleton won Academy Awards. The remarkable movie containing them casts a haunting spell.

1973

the friends of eddie coyle

Directed by Peter Yates

 

In Peter Yates’s adaptation of George V. Higgins’s novel, Robert Mitchum is Eddie, an aging, Boston-area gunrunner facing a prison bid for a job gone awry and caught in a web of deals and double-crosses while grappling with whether to give up his former associates to the feds. Fully integrating himself within a stellar ensemble cast (including a brilliant array of character actors, including Peter Boyle, Richard Jordan, and Steven Keats) and blending into Yates’s finely created working-class atmosphere, Mitchum gives one of his career-best performances here, conjuring a blend of melancholy, spiritual exhaustion, and cloaked malevolence. (Jordan Raup, NYFF Retrospective)

1974

the yakuza

Directed by Sydney Pollack

 

East meets West in the form of two iconic stars: Japanese gangster film star Ken Takakura teams with Mitchum in a thriller set in Tokyo’s treacherous criminal underworld. Mitchum delivers an alternately rough and sleepy, cynical and gentle performance as retired cop Kilmer, who returns to Japan after many years to help an old army buddy (Brian Keith) after his daughter is kidnapped by a yakuza boss. Navigating the complex codes of the yakuza ethos, he’s guided by Ken (Takakura), a former gangster and brother of Mitchum’s old flame, but betrayals and double crosses lie ahead in Paul Schrader’s first feature screenplay, co-written with his brother Leonard and Robert Towne. Even in his late fifties, Mitchum proves he’s fully capable of handling complex action choreography. (Jordan Raup, NYFF Retrospective)

1975

farewell, My lovely

Directed by Dick Richards

 

In the first half of the 1970s, Robert Mitchum reached a new peak, the end of which came with this sepulchrally nostalgic, neon-lit adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s second Philip Marlowe novel. The film has its charms—not the least of which is a cameo appearance by Jim Thompson…as Charlotte Rampling’s husband—but Mitchum (who would reprise the role of Marlowe in the truly terrible 1978 version of The Big Sleep) is the one who gives the film its secret force, as if he were confronting the end of both his leading-man identity and the world that formed him as a star with bravery and grace. (Jordan Raup, NYFF Retrospective)

1995

dead man

Directed by Jim Jarmusch

 

Jim Jarmusch’s hypnotic, parable-like, revisionist Western follows the spiritual rebirth of a dying 19th-century accountant (Johnny Depp) named William Blake (no relation to the poet . . . or is there?). Guiding Blake through a treacherous landscape of U.S. Marshals, cannibalistic bounty hunters, shady missionaries, and cross-dressing fur traders is a Plains Indian named Nobody (Gary Farmer), one of the most fully realized Native American characters in contemporary cinema. Dead Man doubles as a barbed reflection on America’s treatment of its indigenous people and a radical twist on the myths of the American West. Jarmusch’s metaphysical masterpiece features Robert Mitchum in one of his final roles, as a gun-toting, cigar-smoking factory owner. (Jordan Raup, NYFF Retrospective)

themes

Filmmakers have been adapting William Shakespeare's plays for cinema with a timeless passion over the years. A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, Henry V, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, Chimes at Midnight: these are just a few of the landmark film adaptations that created new cinematic experiences for audiences. Explore films included in the photo gallery below.

shakespeare in film

Explore films included in the gallery below.

1929

the taming of the shrew

Directed by Sam Taylor


Legendary Hollywood paramours Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks make their only joint film appearance in this early talkie adaptation of William Shakespeare's classic comedy of the sexes. Pickford plays the sharp-tongued Katherine, and Fairbanks assays the role of the lothario Petruchio in this broadly satiric version of the Bard's tale co-starring Edwin Maxwell and Dorothy Jordan and directed by Sam Taylor.


1935

a midsummer night's dream

Directed by Max Reinhardt, William Dieterle


Love is blind, fickle and true. And under the sway of capricious fairies it becomes blinder ( a queen romances a donkey), more fickle (best friends swoon over each other's beau) and truest of all (lovers repledge their devotion). "Lord, what fools these mortals be!" in Shakespeare's bewitching romantic comedy. James Cagney, Olivia de Havilland front an all-star cast in this tale of the one night each year when magic infuses the world of humans, fairies walk among men and love will change the order of all things. A winner of two Academy Awards, nominated for the "Best Picture" Oscar, this is an exquisite film adaptation of Shakespeare’s beloved play.

1944

henry v

Directed by Laurence Olivier


Olivier mustered out of the navy to film this adaptation of Shakespeare’s history. Embroiled in World War II, Britons took courage from this tale of a king who surmounts overwhelming odds and emerges victorious. This sumptuous Technicolor rendering features a thrilling re-creation of the battle of Agincourt, and Sir Laurence in his prime as director and actor.

1948

hamlet

Directed by Laurence Olivier


Winner of four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor, Sir Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet continues to be the most compelling version of Shakespeare’s beloved tragedy. Olivier is at his most inspired—both as director and as the melancholy Dane himself—as he breathes new life into the words of one of the world’s greatest dramatists.

1948

macbeth

Directed by Orson Welles

 

Something wicked this way comes in Orson Welles’ cinematic retelling of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Welles stars as the titular Macbeth—a doomed Scottish lord tragically undone by his own ambition. Welles’ noir-tinged interpretation bubbles over with supernatural prophecy and murderous intrigue, effectively mixing the use of shadow and oblique camera angles to achieve an ominous sense of a land in peril. Beautifully shot by John L. Russell and starring Orson Welles, Jeanette Nolan, Dan O’Herlihy, Roddy McDowall and Alan Napier, Macbeth is an altogether unique interpretation of Shakespeare’s Scottish play.

1952

oTHELLO

Directed by Orson Welles


Gloriously cinematic despite its tiny budget, Orson Welles’s Othello is a testament to the filmmaker’s stubborn willingness to pursue his vision to the ends of the earth. Unmatched in his passionate identification with Shakespeare’s imagination, Welles brings his inventive visual approach to this enduring tragedy of jealousy, bigotry, and rage, and also gives a towering performance as the Moor of Venice, alongside Suzanne Cloutier as the innocent Desdemona, and Micheál MacLiammóir as the scheming Iago. Shot over the course of three years in Italy and Morocco and plagued by many logistical problems, this fiercely independent film joins Macbeth and Chimes at Midnight in making the case for Welles as the cinema’s most audacious interpreter of the Bard.

1953

julius caesar

Directed by Joseph Manckiewicz


Based on William Shakespeare's classic play, this historical drama won numerous international honors, including Best Actor BAFTAs for Marlon Brando and John Gielgud and a Best Art Direction Oscar. When Brutus (James Mason), Cassius (Gielgud) and a band of rogue Roman officials murder Julius Caesar (Louis Calhern), they're driven out of Rome. But they vow to return and fight Marc Antony (Brando) -- who proves his loyalty to the bitter end.

1955

richard iii

Directed by Laurence Olivier


In Richard III, director, producer, and star Laurence Olivier brings Shakespeare’s masterpiece of Machiavellian villainy to ravishing cinematic life. Olivier is diabolically captivating as Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who, through a series of murderous machinations, steals the crown from his brother Edward. And he surrounds himself with a royal supporting cast, which includes Ralph Richardson, John Gielgud, and Claire Bloom. Filmed in VistaVision and Technicolor, Richard III is one of the most visually inspired of all big-screen Bard adaptations.

1957

throne of blood

Directed by Akira Kurosawa


A vivid, visceral Macbeth adaptation, Throne of Blood, directed by Akira Kurosawa, sets Shakespeare’s definitive tale of ambition and duplicity in a ghostly, fog-enshrouded landscape in feudal Japan. As a hardened warrior who rises savagely to power, Toshiro Mifune gives a remarkable, animalistic performance, as does Isuzu Yamada as his ruthless wife. Throne of Bloodfuses classical Western tragedy with formal elements taken from Noh theater to create an unforgettable cinematic experience.

1964

hamlet

Directed by Grigori Kozintsev

 

 Grigori Kozintsev's renowned Soviet production ranks among the finest adaptations of Shakespeare on film. His strong visual style places the characters on a rich widescreen canvas while preserving the inward dimension of Hamlet's character. Laurence Olivier, director and star of Hamlet, the Oscar-winning 1948 English production, praised Kozintsev's Hamlet, singling out Innokenty Smoktunevsky's performance as the definitive screen performance of the Prince of Denmark.

1966

chimes at midnight

Directed by Orson Welles


The crowning achievement of Orson Welles’s extraordinary cinematic career, Chimes at Midnight was the culmination of the filmmaker’s lifelong obsession with Shakespeare’s ultimate rapscallion, Sir John Falstaff. Usually a comic supporting figure, Falstaff—the loyal, often soused friend of King Henry IV’s wayward son Prince Hal—here becomes the focus: a robustly funny and ultimately tragic screen antihero played by Welles with looming, lumbering grace. Integrating elements from both Henry IV plays as well as Richard II, Henry V, and The Merry Wives of Windsor, Welles created a gritty and unorthodox Shakespeare film as a lament, he said, “for the death of Merrie England.” Poetic, philosophical, and visceral—with a kinetic centerpiece battle sequence that rivals anything in the director’s body of work—Chimes at Midnight is as monumental as the figure at its heart.

1967

the taming of the shrew

Directed by Franco Zeffirelli


Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton seem to be channeling the legendary dramas of their marriage in this boisterous and bawdy adaptation of William Shakespeare's classic comedy, directed by Franco Zeffirelli. A younger sister cannot wed until her older, shrewish sister Katharina (Taylor) marries first. Petruchio (Burton) is brought in to trick Katharina into wedlock, but the two fall in love despite their passionate bickering.


1968

romeo and juliet

Directed by Franco Zeffirelli


Franco Zeffirelli directs this version of Shakespeare's romantic tragedy--breaking with the norm and casting a 17 (Leonard Whiting) and 15-year-old (Olivia Hussey) to play the lead roles. The filming took place in Italy, broke another tradition by having nude love scenes, has a well-known score by Nino Rota (who went on to write the music for The Godfather) and is probably still one of the most profitable film adaptations of a Shakespeare play. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards and won two--for Costumes and Cinematography.

1971

king lear

Directed by Peter Brook


Peter Brook directs his own adaptation of Shakespeare's classic tragedy. King Lear (Paul Scofield), having decided to split his kingdom between his three daughters, decides to apportion the lands according to which daughter declaims her love for him best. When his daughter Cordelia refuses to flatter her father's ego with claims of devotion, Lear angrily gives the lion's share of his power to her sisters, Goneril and Regan. They soon abuse this trust, and Lear finds himself emasculated and powerless. Before long he is drifting into madness, as his former empire falls apart.

1971

macbeth

Directed by Roman Polanski


Roman Polanski imbues his unflinchingly violent adaptation of William Shakespeare’s tragedy of ruthless ambition and murder in medieval Scotland with grit and dramatic intensity. Jon Finch and Francesca Annis give performances charged with fury and sex appeal as a decorated warrior rising through the ranks and his driven wife, scheming together to take the throne by any means. Coadapted by Polanski and the great theater critic and dramaturge Kenneth Tynan, and shot against a series of stunning, stark British Isle landscapes, this version of Macbeth is among the most atmospheric and authentic of all Shakespeare films.

1985

ran

Directed by Akira Kurosawa


With Ran, legendary director Akira Kurosawa reimagines Shakespeare’s King Lear as a singular historical epic set in sixteenth-century Japan. Majestic in scope, the film is Kurosawa’s late-life masterpiece, a profound examination of the folly of war and the crumbling of one family under the weight of betrayal, greed, and the insatiable thirst for power.

1989

henry v

Directed by Kenneth Branagh


From Kenneth Branagh — in his masterful directorial debut — comes the classic adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Henry V, winner of an Academy Award and 2 nominations. Once an undisciplined prince, Henry has matured into the powerful King of England and has set off on a campaign to conquer France. But with the fate of the war uncertain, Henry must come to terms with what it means to be king and rally his men to victory… or to death.

1995

richard III

Directed by Richard Loncraine


Shakespeare’s classic play about the Machiavellian rise to power and subsequent short reign of King Richard IIl of England is set in an alternative 1930s, in this celebrated film adaptation. A brutal civil war has erupted in England with Houses of Lancaster and York battling for control of the throne. Amid the turmoil the despotic Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Ian McKellen) plots his own route to power, deviously scheming a murderous agenda that will lead to his installation as dictator monarch. Steeped in fascist iconography, the film openly draws from the aesthetic of the Third Reich, a stylistic choice that emphasizes the pure evil at the heart of Richard’s agenda. Based on an acclaimed stage production for the Royal National Theatre (which also starred McKellen), the film features an all-star cast which includes Sir Ian McKellen, Kristin Scott Thomas, Robert Downey Jr and Dame Maggie Smith.