Capital Celluloid 2027 — Day 41: Tue Feb 10

The Passing of the Third Floor Back (Viertel, 1935): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 6.15pm

This is a 35mm screening in the 'Projecting the Archive' series at BFI Southbank.

BFI introduction:
One of the most accomplished British films of the 1930s, this fantasy melodrama boasts a wonderful ensemble cast headed by one of the industry’s finest imports: Conrad Veidt. Set in that most evocative, claustrophobic locale, the English boarding house, Jerome K. Jerome’s play brings together characters from different classes to play out its drama of sexual and class politics, reflecting on relationships and generational shift. The script was co-written by Alma Reville (Alfred Hitchcock’s wife and early collaborator), whose sensitive depiction of female characters is one of the film’s greatest assets, particularly Rène Ray as the put-upon maid and Beatrix Lehmann as a bitter spinster.

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2027 — Day 40: Mon Feb 9

Night and the City (Dassin, 1950): Garden Cinema, 8pm

The latest season of the London Review of Book’s long-running film series continues its exploration of visions of London created by non-British filmmakers throughout 2026. First up for the new year is the golden-age British film noir Night and the City. It was Jules Dassin’s last film before he was blacklisted by Hollywood. He declared that he had not read the novel by the now-cult writer, Gerald Kersh, on which it was based. It follows the attempts of a small-time American con artist Harry Fabian (Richard Widmark on definitive, anti-heroic form) to establish himself shattered post-war London’s wrestling rackets. With a production history as vivid as its tangled plot, Night and the City was widely misunderstood upon release, but is now regarded as a classic of the genre: ‘A work of emotional power and existential drama that stands as a paradigm of noir pathos and despair,’ according to the film scholar Andrew Dickos.

Introducing Night and the City, and discussing it afterwards with regular host Gareth Evans, will be the novelist, occasional LRB contributor and screenwriter Ronan Bennett (Top Boy, Public Enemies, The Day of the Jackal).

Time Out review:
Bizarre film noir with Richard Widmark as a small time nightclub tout trying to hustle his way into the wrestling rackets, but finding himself the object of a murderous manhunt when his cons catch up with him. Set in a London through which Widmark spends much of his time dodging in dark alleyways, it attempts to present the city in neo-expressionist terms as a grotesque, terrifyingly anonymous trap. Fascinating, even though the stylised characterisations (like Francis L Sullivan's obesely outsized nightclub king) remain theoretically interesting rather than convincing. Inclined to go over the top, it all too clearly contains the seeds of Jules Dassin's later - and disastrous - pretensions.
Tom Milne

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2027 — Day 39: Sun Feb 8

The Fall of Otrar (Amirkulov, 1991): BFI IMAX, 10.45am

This monumental historical epic set in the 13th century, four-years-in-the-making yet slipped into semi-obscurity, was recently restored in 4K and is finally available in all its grandiosity on the IMAX screen and part of the Restored strand.

Chicago Reader review:
Shot in 1990, as Kazakhstan was asserting its independence, this brutal historical epic by Ardak Amirkulov charts political intrigue among the Kipchaks, a confederation of tribes on the steppes of central Asia, before they were overrun by Genghis Khan. At 165 minutes this is a pretty long haul, and the shifting alliances mapped out in the dark and claustrophobic first part can be difficult to follow; the payoff comes in the second part, which opens out into dramatic locations and bloody battle as the Mongols lay siege to Otrar. The film’s respectful treatment of Islam was welcomed in Kazakhstan as a celebration of national identity, though Amirkulov’s attitude may be more ambivalent: as Genghis Khan prepares to execute the governor of Otrar, he points out two holy men whose marginal religious differences have allowed him to divide and conquer.
J R Jones

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2027 — Day 38: Sat Feb 7

The Ashes (Wajda, 1965): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 2.10pm

This is part of the Andrzej Wajda season at BFI Southbank. The screening of The Ashes on Saturday 28 February will be introduced by writer Michael Brooke.

BFI Southbank introduction:
This epic tale of the Napoleonic wars and Poles’ participation in them provides Wajda with an opportunity to consider thorny questions around heroism and patriotism. A young nobleman partakes in the conflict, fighting for Poland’s freedom while searching for his own self. Wajda worked with a higher budget and on a much larger scale to create this visually dazzling CinemaScope drama, which examines nationhood and national identity.

Here (and above) is an extract.

Capital Celluloid 2027 — Day 37: Fri Feb 6

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Peckinpah, 1974): Prince Charles Cinema, 6pm

Chicago Reader review:
By far the most underrated of Sam Peckinpah's films, this grim 1974 tale about a minor-league piano player in Mexico (Warren Oates) who sacrifices his love (Isela Vega) when he goes after a fortune as a bounty hunter is certainly one of the director's most personal and obsessive works—even comparable in some respects to Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano in its bottomless despair and bombastic self-hatred, as well as its rather ghoulish lyricism. (Critic Tom Milne has suggestively compared the labyrinthine plot to that of a gothic novel.) Oates has perhaps never been better, and a strong secondary cast—Vega, Gig Young, Robert Webber, Kris Kristofferson, Donnie Fritts, and Emilio Fernandez—is equally effective in etching Peckinpah's dark night of the soul. 
Jonathan Rosenbaum

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2027 — Day 36: Thu Feb 5

Innocent Sorcerers (Wajda, 1960): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 8.40pm

This is part of the Andrzej Wajda season at BFI Southbank and also screens on February 20th. You can find all the details here.

Chicago Reader review:
A 22-year-old Jerzy Skolimowski coscripted this minor Andrzej Wajda feature (1960), a modish comedy about a hip young doctor who moonlights as a jazz drummer. The film serves as a fascinating document of Polish youth culture during the least repressive years of the communist era, as well as a rough draft for the freewheeling comedies Skolimowski would soon direct himself (Walkover, Identification Marks: None). Wajda, for all his talent, has never had much flair for comedy, and this feels weirdly studied for a movie about youthful exuberance. But there are passages of genuine spontaneity, especially in an extended confrontation between the hero and a young woman he's trying to bed; it recalls the famous bedroom showdown in Godard's Breathless, released earlier that same year.
Ben Sachs

Here (and above) is a montage of scenes from the film.

Capital Celluloid 2027 — Day 35: Wed Feb 4

A Fish Called Wanda (Crichton, 1988): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 6.15pm

This screening is part of the Big Screen Classics strand.

Chicago Reader review:
Charles Crichton, the veteran British director who made his biggest mark with The Lavender Hill Mob in 1950, teams up with actor, writer, and executive producer John Cleese in another madcap caper comedy (1988) that’s every bit as funny as its predecessor. Like many of the best English comedies, much of the humor here is based on character, good-natured high spirits, and fairly uninhibited vulgarity (a speech impediment and dead dogs supply the basis for some of the gags). The superlative cast includes Americans Kevin Kline and Jamie Lee Curtis (at her sexiest), as well as Michael Palin and Cleese; Crichton keeps the laughs coming with infectious energy.
Jonathan Rosenbaum

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2027 — Day 34: Tue Feb 3

Psycho II  (Franklin, 1983): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 6.10pm

This screening will be introduced by actor Reece Shearsmith.

Chicago Reader review:
Everyone involved seems somewhat confused over what a sequel to Hitchcock’s masterpiece could possibly be; if ever a film definitively ended, it was Psycho. Director Richard Franklin (Road Games) and writer Tom Holland (Class of ’84) find a tentative solution in taking Hitchcock’s psychiatric metaphors literally: for much of its length, the film is a surprisingly serious plea for the rights of the mentally ill and the legitimacy of the insanity defense. When the need to make a commercial shocker finally asserts itself, the film shifts gears with unseemly, damaging haste. Though far from a worthy successor to the original (but why make impossible demands?) the film clearly could have been much worse; there’s even some inadvertent artistic interest in the Proustian conjunction of the original actors (Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles), who have aged, and the meticulously re-created sets, which have not.
Dave Kehr

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2027 — Day 33: Mon Feb 2

Groundhog Day (Ramis, 1993): Prince Charles Cinema, 8.45pm

Remember this day last year? Then what better way to celebrate Groundhog Day than watching Groundhog Day . . . What better way to celebrate Groundhog Day than watching Groundhog Day . . . What better way to celebrate Groundhog Day than watching Groundhog Day.

New Statesman film critic, Ryan Gilbey, has written a BFI Modern Classics monograph on Groundhog Day which I can highly recommend. Here is an extract from a feature he wrote for the Observer on the film:

'[Groundhog Day] has emerged as one of the most influential films in modern cinema - and not only on other movies. Tony Blair did not refer to Jurassic Park in his sombre speech about the Northern Ireland peace process. Dispatches during the search for weapons of mass distraction made no mention of Mrs Doubtfire . And the Archbishop of Canterbury neglected to name-check Indecent Proposal when delivering the 2002 Richard Dimbleby Lecture. But Groundhog Day was invoked on each of these occasions.

The title has become a way of encapsulating those feelings of futility, repetition and boredom that are a routine part of our lives. When Groundhog Day is referred to, it is not the 2 February celebration that comes to mind, but the story of a cynical TV weatherman, Phil Connors, played by Bill Murray, who pitches up in Punxsutawney to cover the festivities. Next morning, he wakes to discover it's not the next morning at all: he is trapped in Groundhog Day. No matter what crimes he commits or how definitively he annihilates himself, he will be returned to his dismal bed-and-breakfast each morning at 5.59am  . . .'

Here (and above) all the Ned Ryerson scenes, here are all the Ned Ryerson scenes, here are all the Ned Ryerson scenes, here are all the Ned Ryerson scenes ...

Capital Celluloid 2027 — Day 32: Sun Feb 1

Sandra (Visconti, 1965): Cine Lumiere, 2pm

This film is part of the Claudia Cardinale season at Cine Lumiere. Details here.

Chicago Reader review:
The past weighs heavily on the present in this 1965 family saga by Luchino Visconti, though for much of the running time that weight is more felt than understood. Young Sandra (Claudia Cardinale) returns to her hometown in Northern Italy to dedicate a monument to her father, a Jewish scholar killed in the Holocaust. Her husband is uncomfortable with the aristocratic clan, but only near the end does Sandra’s real antagonist emerge: her stepfather, who may have betrayed the father to the Nazis and who now insinuates that Sandra and her raffish brother have a dark secret of their own. Cardinale has been criticized for her performance, which seems too emotive given the hard surfaces presented by the other players, but Visconti, shooting in black and white with cinematographer Armando Nannuzzi, subordinates all the actors to the ornate interiors of the family’s decaying mansion; as in The Leopard (1963), one senses not just the glory but the burden of wealth.
JR Jones

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2027 — Day 31: Sat Jan 31

 Les Cousins (Chabrol, 1959): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 8.30pm

This is part of the 'Filmmakers from Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague' season at BFI Southbank. Details here.

Time Out review:
The town mouse and his country cousin. Or, the story of two students, one who was very, very good, and one who was very, very bad; but the bad one passed his exams, got the girl (when he wanted her), and survived to live profitably ever after. A fine, richly detailed tableau of student life in Paris, and Chabrol's first statement (in his second film) of his sardonic view of life as a matter of the survival of the fittest. The centrepiece, as so often in the early days of the nouvelle vague, is an orgiastic party climaxed, as the guest sleeps it off next morning, by a sublimely cruel and characteristic 'joke' by the bad cousin (Jean-Claude Brialy) when he performs an eerie Wagnerian charade with candelabra and Gestapo cap to wake a Jewish student into nightmare.
Tom Milne

Here (and above) is the trailer.

 

Capital Celluloid 2027 — Day 30: Fri Jan 30

Strongroom (Sewell, 1962): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 6.20pm

This 35mm screening will be introdcued by James Bell, Senior Curator, BFI National Archive. The film is on an extended run at BFI Southbank. Details here.

BFI Southbank preview:
Taut as a drum, Vernon Sewell’s suspense thriller is an outstanding example of the lean British ‘B’ film. A carefully-planned bank heist goes awry when the robbers are interrupted by the unexpected arrival of two nattering cleaners. The gang lock the manager and his secretary in the airtight vault and make off with the cash, but soon realise that the pair will suffocate and they will face a murder rap if they can’t free them. With only 12 hours’ worth of air in the vault, the clock is ticking. Gripping to the end, the film is a real rediscovery.
James Bell

Capital Celluloid 2027 — Day 29: Thu Jan 29

Looking for Mr Goodbar (Brooks, 1977): Prince Charles Cinema, 3pm

This is a 35mm presentation.

Peter Bradshaw wrote about the film in an article he wrote for the Guardian to coincide with the release of Gaspar Noe's film Love. Here is an extract:
Diane Keaton plays a teacher: here, specifically a teacher of hearing-impaired children, a touch that accentuates her utterly respectable, in fact, laudable life. She gets involved in casual sex with men she meets in seedy bars. It ends in shocking violence. It is as if female sexuality is always a natural fit for the erotic thriller or crime thriller genre, and undoubtedly, Goodbar pathologises female sexuality to some extent, indicating that for a woman to have an interest in recreational sex is symptomatic of damage, and essentially tragic in origin and destiny. The film has been occasionally reviled and dismissed, but is arguably ripe for rediscovery as a confrontational exploitation classic from the Martin Scorsese/Paul Schrader 70s. It is not available on DVD. 

Here (and above) are the opening credits.

Capital Celluloid 2027 — Day 28: Wed Jan 28

Cinemania (Christleib/Kijak, 2002): Nickel Cinema, 6.30pm

A group of obsessive cinephiles navigate New York City in search of screenings, cataloging every film and obsessing over schedules, stars, and trivia. Their lives are consumed by cinema, blending daily routine, personal quirks, and unrelenting devotion to the art form. A charming and eccentric documentary, Cinemania celebrates obsession, fandom, and the transformative power of movies, offering an intimate glimpse into lives lived entirely through the lens of film.

Chicago Reader review:
This 2002 American-German documentary by Angela Christlieb and Stephen Kijak isn’t very popular among normal cinephiles (if such a term isn’t already an oxymoron) because it exhibits five of the most extreme and dysfunctional cinemaniacs in Manhattan, figures already somewhat legendary among patrons of the Walter Reade Theater, the Museum of Modern Art, Film Forum, and similar venues. Roberta Hill, a pack rat who saves ticket stubs and flyers, was banned from one of her haunts after assaulting an usher who tore her ticket in half, while Harvey Schwartz, who lives with his mother in the Bronx, memorizes the precise running times of everything he sees. The filmmakers aren’t exactly cruel, but they focus on compulsion rather than passion, which by implication tends to tarnish the more intellectual and scholarly members of the breed.
Joanthan Rosenbaum

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2027 — Day 27: Tue Jan 27

 Flesh for Frankenstein 3-D (Morrissey, 1973): Nickel Cinema, 8.45pm 

This is a 3-D screening.  

Criterion review:
Paul Morrissey’s Flesh for Frankenstein is one of the goriest film comedies ever made. Yet despite its schlocky sensationalism, it’s still a Paul Morrissey film. That means it has some passionately felt things to say about how we live—and mainly waste—our lives today. Specifically, it blames sexual liberty and individualistic freedom for destroying our personal and social fibre by turning people into commodities. As in his Blood for Dracula (1974) and Beethoven’s Nephew (1985), Morrissey suggests that the moral failure exposed in his contemporary films—such as the Flesh trilogy (1968–72), Mixed Blood (1984), and Spike of Bensonhurst (1988)—derives from historical romanticism. Morrissey deliberately lets his characters speak clichés for his satiric purpose. He lets them act inconsistently to suggest the vagaries of mortal whim. He goes way, way overboard, especially on the in-your-face gore in the rare 3-D version, because he considers both the horror genre and the 3-D fad to be ridiculous indulgences, romantic and commercial respectively. The film is absurd, but that’s calculated—and right in line with Morrissey’s familiar underlying moral spin.
Maurice Yacowar

Here (and above) is the trailer. 

 

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 26: Mon Jan 26

The Makioka Sisters (Ichikawa, 1983): Garden Cinema, 3pm

This film is part of the '1980s: Lost Decade of Japanese Cinema' season at the Garden Cinema. The film also screens on January 13th, with an introduction by independent curator Yuriko Hamaguchi, and on February 8th. Details here.

Time Out review:
A prestige literary adaptation (from Tanizaki's 1948 family saga Sasameyuki, sometimes known as A Light Snowfall) produced by the Toho studio to mark their 50th anniversary, becomes in Ichikawa's hands an imposing tribute to classical Japanese cinema. There's certainly a strong tinge of Ozu in this stately tale, set in 1938 and structured around a series of marriage interviews in which an aristocratic Osaka family research a suitable prospect for the youngest but one of five sisters. The legacy of past scandal, the Makiokas' diminishing status in increasingly industrialised Japan, the sniping for supremacy between the quintet of siblings, and the rumble of approaching conflict, all make for a complex narrative, micro-managed with authority by Ichikawa, who omits the the great Kobe flood that constitutes the novel's key dramatic episode, and instead draws the viewer in through the elliptical release of significant personal detail. The film's visual pleasures meanwhile (exquisite kimonos and cherry blossoms, elegant traditional interiors shimmering in low key lighting), are positively luxuriant, celebrating traditional Japanese aesthetics while recording the passing of a cossetted, gilded world. Pity about the horrid synthesizer score marking the changes. Anyone who dismisses late Ichikawa just isn't paying attention. This is masterly.
Trevor Johnston

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 25: Sun Jan 25

The Maltese Falcon (Huston, 1941): Castle Cinema, 2pm

This film is part of the monthly16mm Cine-Real events at the Castle Cinema.

Chicago Reader review:
The key film in the Bogart myth (1941). I don't want to knock it, but what John Huston does with Bogart's personality and the hard-boiled genre in general has always struck me as pale compared to the Howard Hawks films that followed (To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep). The Maltese Falcon is really a triumph of casting and wonderfully suggestive character detail; the visual style, with its exaggerated vertical compositions, is striking but not particularly expressive, and its thematics are limited to intimations of absurdism (which, when they exploded in Beat the Devil, turned out to be fairly punk). But who can argue with Bogart's glower or Mary Astor in her ratty fur?
Dave Kehr

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 24: Sat Jan 24

No 1: The Ruling Class (Medak, 1972): Garden Cinema, 2pm

Garden Cinema introduction:
For this edition of Composing Cinema, we are delighted to welcome Academy Award nominated composer John Cameron who will be joining fellow Oscar-nominee Gary Yershon to discuss his score for Peter Medak's satirical epic, The Ruling Class. John and Gary will be in conversation before the screening. Based on Peter Barnes's irreverent play, this darkly comic indictment of Britain’s class system peers behind the closed doors of English aristocracy. Insanity, sadistic sarcasm, and black comedy - with just a touch of the Hollywood musical - are all featured in this beloved cult classic directed by Peter Medak.

Criterion Collection review (in full here):
This will never be a film for purists, but its ripeness and excess, its alert self-parody and breadth of cultural reference, mark it out as one to be cherished—and also appreciated, as an avatar of the renewed interest in high-voltage performance that runs through much distinctive cinema of the '80s and '90s, from Russell and Gilliam to Greenaway and Jarman. Above all, it’s a great, disturbing black comedy, and deservedly now a cult classic.
Ian Christie

Here (and above) is the trailer.

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No 2: Prime Cut (Ritchie, 1972): Nickel Cinema, 6.15pm

Time Out review:
Michael Ritchie's inexplicably underrated second feature is a superb amalgam of pulp gangster thriller and fairytale, in which white knight/Chicago syndicate enforcer (Lee Marvin) visits recalcitrant black knight/Kansas boss (Gene Hackman), rescuing damsel in distress (Sissy Spacek, making her debut) while there. Underneath a surface that constantly juxtaposes opposites, Prime Cut concerns a curious, fundamental naiveté underlying America's corruption: that allows Hackman to give the country the dope and flesh it wants; that permits Marvin to attempt to live out his Beauty and the Beast romance; that implies, in the fairground shootout, an America totally oblivious to what is going on in front of its eyes. In his round-trip of bars, hotels, flophouses, ranches, cities and countryside, Ritchie demonstrates a truly fine handling of locations, best realised in two classic Hitchcock-like chases, through the fairground, and across a cornfield pursued by a combine harvester.
Chris Peachment

Here (and above) is the trailer.