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To call the Criterion Collection's October 2025 lineup anything less than masterful would be doing the films and the label a disservice. It's more like: wow! The official announcement is bookended by David Cronenberg: first, a 4K of A History of Violence, then, a Blu-ray of his latest, The Shrouds. The month will lead off, though, with David Lynch's Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me in 4K, which should only enhance the film's nightmarish qualities. From one classic to another, we step back to 1960 for Georges Franju's horrifying Eyes Without a Face, then race forward for Guillermo del Toro's Nightmare Alley, which is a remake in name only, going beyond the original. We can't forget Deep Crimson, from Arturo Ripstein, nor Ken Russell's Altered...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Criterion unveiled their titles for October 2025 and, true to form, their new releases in the month of October lean into the spooky and macabre. Among the new titles are a recent Guillermo del Toro classic, a Ken Russell favorite making its 4K debut and two gems from Canadian auteur David Cronenberg. Plus, we get 4K reissues of two of Criterion’s very best.

Criterion

Let’s start off with the David Cronenberg titles. First off is “A History of Violence,” from 2005, which gave him a great second wind after years spent offering up more obscure films. The feature, based on a graphic novel by John Wagner and Vince Locke, follows a small-town everyman (Viggo Mortensen) who, after a violent attack at his diner, unlocks his hidden past. Featuring memorable, suitably colorful supporting performances from Ed Harris and William Hurt, it’s one of Cronenberg’s very best. And the Criterion...

The Criterion Collection‘s October line-up is stacked with genre heavy hitters: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Eyes Without a Face, The Shrouds, A History of Violence, Altered States, Deep Crimson, and Nightmare Alley.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me will be released on 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray on October 7.

Serving a prequel to “Twin Peaks,” the 1992 psychological horror film is directed by David Lynch from a script he co-wrote with Robert Engels.

Director-approved special features:

4K digital restoration, with 7.1 surround DTS-hd Master Audio soundtrack, both supervised by director David Lynch Alternate original 2.0 surround DTS-hd Master Audio soundtrack One 4K Uhd disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features The Missing Pieces, ninety minutes of deleted and alternate takes from the film, assembled by Lynch Interview by Lynch with actors Sheryl Lee, Ray Wise, and Grace Zabriskie Interviews with Lee and composer Angelo Badalamenti...

We may have gotten to know him as a chef, but Anthony Bourdain became known and beloved as a kind of lover of life. Through shows like "No Reservations" and "Parts Unknown," Bourdain met with all manner of interesting people, shared his frank and insightful observations, and yes, ate a lot of great food.

Bourdain struck me as a guy who wanted to know a little about a lot, and he wanted to curate the best version of every experience on the table -- and that includes film. Heck, he called "Ratatouille" the best food movie ever made, so you know he's got cinematic taste.

Before every celebrity made a stop at the Criterion Closet as part of their publicity tour, Bourdain contributed a top 10 list to the Criterion Collection in 2011, listing his 10 favorite films available from the boutique home media label. Bourdain's list, like all of our favorites, is revealing of what he likes,...

“My face frightens me. My mask frightens me even more.”

Does appearance create identity or is it the other way around? How do we show our true selves to the world and what happens when that image is taken away? In short, are we still the same person when wearing a mask? On the surface, this seems like an obvious question, but Georges Franju’s 1960 film Eyes Without a Face causes us to dig a little bit deeper. What power does a face have to project identity and can we steal that identity from someone else?

Franju’s film opens in the midst of a crime. Louise (Alida Valli) is a glamorous woman with an elegant pearl choker who drags a dead body into the river. She does this at the behest of Dr. Génessier (Pierre Brasseur), a transplant and graft specialist desperate to find a new face for his...

Countless horror films rely on the inherent terror of a masked figure, and the trope is nothing new. Gaston Leroux horrified audiences with Le Fantme de lOpra, and the subsequent 1925 silent film edition was enough to make audiences faint. In 1933, the silver screen adaptation of H. G. Wells The Invisible Man glued audiences to their seats. The unsettling qualities of a mask, the thin veil between the archetypal villain and their prey, give it global appeal.

While its easy to argue that Lon Chaneys riveting performance in The Phantom of the Opera may be the catalyst for modern horrors obsession with masks, theres another French inspiration for this classic trope. Thirty-five years after Mary Philbin lifted Chaneys cloth veil, director Georges Franju released Les Yeux Sans Visage or, in English, Eyes Without a Face to an unsuspecting world. Upon release, Franjus ninety-minute horror classic was, in most respects, universally panned.

Fernando Arrabal’s Viva la Muerte is a mostly autobiographical account of the filmmaker’s youth during the Spanish Civil War that intermingles with disturbingly surreal dreams and fantasies. This alienation effect is rendered all the more unsettling since Arrabal opts to shoot the imaginal sequences on heavily color-filtered video, aligning them with Nam June Paik’s avant-garde video art. Another sort of alienation may stem from some unsimulated violence against animals, in particular a jaw-dropping scene in a slaughterhouse that combines the in-your-face verité of Georges Franju’s Blood of the Beasts with the dynamic writhing of Isadora Duncan.

Viva la Muerte opens at the end of the war, with a jeep full of fascist soldiers declaring the titular phrase and vowing to kill half of Spain’s population if that’s what it takes to cleanse the nation from the pernicious influence of atheism and communism. Young Fando (Mahdi Chaouch) looks on,...

Thea Hvistendahl’s Norwegian horror picture Handling The Undead, won the best feature prize at the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival (Nifff) in Switzerland. Known as the H.R. Giger ‘Narcisse’ award, the prize is worth 10,000 Swiss francs.

TrustNordisk is selling the film which will be handled in Switzerland by Filmcoopi Zurich.

The international competition jury also gave a special mention to German director Tilman Singer’s Neon-backed horror thriller, Cuckoo, starring Hunter Schafer and Dan Stevens. The Swiss release is handled by Praesens Film.

Among other prizes, the Rts audience award went to Irish director Damian Mc Carthy ’s paranormal horror film Oddity,...

Actor and filmmaker Asia Argento will be guest of honor at this year’s Neuchatel Int’l Fantastic Film Festival (Nifff), a choice the Nifff director sees as emblematic of the festival’s own self-image.

“Asia is an icon,” says Nifff chief Pierre-Yves Walder. “She’s someone we ourselves have grown up with, and whom we watched grow up. She’s established herself as artist who makes few concessions, who practices her profession with absolute freedom and who is always ready to take big risks. She has a punk side and never hesitates, and because of her career – which stretches back to the foundational horror films of her father [Dario Argento] towards something more contemporary – she also bridges versions of Nifff past and present.”

“She also helped spearhead the MeToo movement,” Walder continues, “which led to some very difficult moments. She has had some shadows on her journey, and those are important as well.

Every year, horror fans and aficionados attempt to take on the daunting task of watching a horror movie for each day in the month of October. Aptly named 31 Days of Horror, the challenge usually consists of viewers watching a mixture of their favorite classics, recent releases, and popular genre staples that may be new to them. In celebration of the spooky season, we at MovieWeb have curated our own suggestions for the month, providing a plethora of favorites from our contributing writers and editors. Check out our 31 Days of Horror posts every day this October, and embrace all the freaky found footage, vicious vampires, and stalking slashers you could ever hope for. Today, we kick off Day 28 with the indelible black-and-white mad scientist masterpiece, Eyes Without a Face.

Georges Franju's Eyes Without a Face, also titled Les yeux sans visage, is a French horror movie from 1960. This beautifully slow,...

Josephine Chaplin, actor and daughter of Charlie Chaplin, has died. She was 74.

Chaplin died on July 13 in Paris, according to an announcement from her family.

During her career, she starred in a number of foreign films. In 1972 she was featured in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s award-winning film “The Canterbury Tales” and Richard Balducci’s “L’odeur des fauves.” The same year, she also starred alongside Laurence Harvey in Menahem Golan’s 1972 drama “Escape to the Sun” about a group of people attempting to flee the Soviet Union.

In 1974, Chaplin starred as Martine Leduc in Georges Franju’s European crime-thriller “Shadowman” alongside Gayle Hunnicutt and Jacques Champreux. The film follows the Man Without a Face, a criminal attempting to find the elusive treasures of the Knights Templar. Chaplin then reprised her role as Martine in the subsequent French mini-series “The Man Without a Face,” an extended eight-episode version of Franju’s film.

Josephine Chaplin, the daughter of Charlie Chaplin and Oona O’Neill, who was an accomplished actress in her own right, has died at 74, according to a report in Le Figaro, which cites her children Charly, Julien and Arthur. She died on July 13 in Paris.

Chaplin got her start as an actress in one of her father’s final films, Limelight (1952), as a child who appears in the opening scene. She was one of five of the director’s children featured in the somewhat-autobiographical project. She also appeared briefly in her father’s final film, A Countess from Hong Kong (1967), with sisters Geraldine and Victoria.

Charlie Chaplin, Josephine (right) and Oona (left) at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival in 1971 (Getty Images)

Her first substantial role was for another iconic director, Pier Paolo Pasolini, in his 1972 take on The Canterbury Tales. Chaplin plays May, the adulterous wife of the elderly Sir January in “The Merchant’s Tale.

Mr. Wilder And Me author Jonathan Coe with Anne-Katrin Titze: “I love Powell and Pressburger, so I was very happy to get in a reference to them.”

With Film Forum’s Written and Directed By Billy Wilder tribute, programmed by Bruce Goldstein, starting next week in New York, Jonathan Coe’s Mr. Wilder And Me is the perfect summer read.

Jonathan Coe on Fedora: “The imagery always reminds me of that Georges Franju film Eyes Without A Face.”

In the first instalment with the author we discuss Christoph Waltz as Billy Wilder in Stephen Frears’ yet-to-be-filmed adaptation of Jonathan’s novel; meeting Volker Schlöndorff just before the Covid lockdown; the images of Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now staying with him; a connection between Georges Franju’s [film id=13604]Eyes Without A...

Max, formerly known as HBO Max, has always been a fantastic haven for horror in its lengthy lifespan. Serving up both vintage and modern classics from big studios and independent creators alike, there's a little bit of everything for everyone. Even if you get a bit squeamish at the sight of blood, you can still get those cold chills blood-free with Max's prolific horror library.

Bolstered by their TCM offerings, these are just a handful of our picks for the best of the best that Max has to offer. From killer dolls to punk rock thrillers, you may be surprised to see some titles available this June.

Barbarian

A horror film that took the internet by storm, Barbarian is one of those few films that work best when you know as little as possible going into it. It may be a bit harder to do that nowadays, but it's still a chilling experience regardless.

Nothing beats a good car chase in a movie. These wacky stunts are a hallmark of modern Hollywood blockbusters, but they've been around since silent films. Nowadays, car-centric flicks conjure images of "The Fast & Furious" and "Mad Max" franchises. However, action doesn't always have to be the focus.

Cars playing an integral part in developing a main character always hold more weight for me than a gonzo chase scene. We see a sense of isolation from society in movies like "Taxi Driver" and "Drive." Meanwhile, in John Carpenter's 1983 horror, "Christine," the auto becomes a ruthless death machine. The Stephen King adaptation makes for a clever metaphor about bullying, acceptance, and toxic masculinity in teens.

It would be unfair to say that a car movie can't be enjoyed without the profound social commentary of a Martin Scorsese film or the brooding touches of Nicolas Winding Refn. Sometimes, we crave high-octane...

Every decade — on the "twos" for some reason — Sight and Sound releases what may very well be the definitive list of the greatest movies ever made.

The organization asks film critics and filmmakers from all over the world, people who really know their stuff, to present their own lists of the ten greatest motion pictures in history. Those lists are tabulated and spun out into a mighty Top 100, giving movie lovers a chance to learn about a lot of amazing movies and consider the impact that history and cultural shifts in our collective opinions about movies have over time.

And as usual, we learned that critics and filmmakers over the world don't seem to like horror very much.

There are a handful of scary films on the Sight and Sound poll in 2022, but most are squarely in the realm of arthouse cinema, and could also be classified as dramas or...

French documentarian and co-founder of the Cinematheque Francais Georges Franju’s second fiction feature remains one of the most influential horror films of its decade, a nightmarishly poetic dreamscape that elevates a Monogram Pictures-level conceit to the realm of expressive exotica. Surgeon Pierre Brasseur’s Lugosi-like commitment to restoring his disfigured daughter’s face provides some of the more disconcerting images in the genre. Jess Franco, John Woo and Pedro Almodovar are just a few of the filmmakers whose work has reflected elements of Franju’s bizarre achievement. This is the textless French trailer.

The post Eyes Without A Face appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

Another classic-era Eurohorror title has surfaced on Blu-ray. Straight from the exploitation trenches of postwar Germany, this elusive opus jangles plenty of nerves with its tale of mad surgery and crazy transplants. Partly a girlie show — most every scene involves some form of disrobing — it’s nevertheless an intriguing horror cocktail with top production values. The capable cast is really into the melodramatic shocks — it may not be Georges Franju but it’s several cuts above other ‘severed head’ epics — an insane carnival of flesh confusion that’s technically tame but truly adults-only by 1959 standards.

Die Nackte und Der Satan (The Head)

Blu-ray

Anolis Entertainment

1959 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen; 1:33 flat full frame / 97 min. / Standard Edition Street Date September 9, 2022 / Available from Diabolik DVD / 26.99

Starring: Horst Frank, Karin Kernke, Michel Simon, Christiane Maybach, Dieter Eppler, Helmut Schmid, Barbara Valentin, Kurt Müller-Graf, Paul Dahlke, Maria Stadler.

Cinematography: Georg Krause

Production Designers: Bruno Monden,...

Story of a troubled family aims for the higher registers of horror, but for all the jump scares doesn’t quite make it

This low-budget work by British director Ben Charles Edwards is a bit all over the place, despite its restricted use of locations. It revolves around an unhappy American family in an isolated house where things go bump in the night, leaving youngest child Michael extremely worried about what’s under his bed. Unfortunately, dad Richard (Nicholas Tucci) is too busy going off on business trips to help, and Michael’s big sister Donna (Page Ruth) has her own things going on, including getting drunk and hating on frosty Coral (Camilla Rutherford), formerly the live-in nanny but now pregnant with Richard’s child and about to become Michael and Donna’s stepmother.

Coral certainly doesn’t make it easy for the kids to bond with her, given her propensity to use a creepy,...

Hello, dear readers! We’re back with a brand-new batch of horror and sci-fi home media releases that will be out this Tuesday. One of my favorite films of 2021, Lana Wachowski’s The Matrix Resurrections is being released on various formats this week, and two other great 2021 releases—Agnes and Silent—are headed to both Blu-ray and DVD as well. Dario Argento’s Phenomena is getting the 4K treatment courtesy of the fine fiends over at Synapse Films, and Full Moon is showing some love to a pair of cult films—Island of the Fishmen and Mansion of the Doomed—that fans will undoubtedly want to check out.

Other genre home media releases for March 8th include Monster From Green Hell: Special Edition, 13 Fanboy, The Legend of La Llorona, Video Psycho, Night of Doom, and the final season of The Walking Dead: World Beyond.

Agnes

Inside a quaint convent,...

That’s how things ought to work — give this reviewer Exactly the great disc he wants to see and wait for the flood of praise. This Italian-French gothic gem can hold its own in the Eurohorror Renaissance of 1960, with fine direction, an attractive cast, a seductive heroine/villainess, and lush color cinematography that turns a Flemish windmill into a young lover’s Garden of Horrors. It’s a period picture with fairy tale overtones, atrocious medical crimes and a sensual romance that leans heavily on squeamish Victorian taboos . . . yes, it’s irresistible. So is the lavish presentation, one of this disc label’s very best. Call it Holiday Horror, perhaps.

Mill of the Stone Women

Blu-ray

Arrow Video

1960 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 90, 95, 96 min. / Street Date December 14, 2021 / Available from Arrow Video / 59.95

Starring Pierre Brice, Scilla Gabel, Herbert Böhme, Wolfgang Preiss, Dany Carrel, Liana Orfei, Marco Gugliemi.

Cinematography Pier Ludovico Pavoni

Production Designer...

English-language debut is based on novel by UK sculptor and writer Brian Catling.

French director Lucile Hadzihalilovic is back at the San Sebastian International Film Festival this weekend for the European premiere of her third feature and English-language debut Earwig in Official Selection.

She has a long relationship with the festival where she won best new director in 2004 for debut feature Innocence and the special jury prize for Evolution in 2015.

Set “somewhere in Europe, mid-20th century”, Earwig stars Paul Hilton as a man called Albert, who is employed to look after a young girl, living in near solitary confinement in a labyrinthine,...

Foreseeing a relaxation of censorship on the horizon, England’s Titan Films filmed this mad surgery opus with far more gore and cruelty than was the norm in 1967-68, and their gambit paid off. Horror favorite Peter Cushing stars with Sue Lloyd, a pair nobody expected to show up in a shocker with such a high sleaze quotient. Pi’s special edition gives us three versions of the show including the continental cut with Cushing’s most lurid scene ever, and heaps of comment and analysis.

Corruption

Region B Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1968 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 91.5 min., 90.5 min. / Carnage / Street Date August 30, 2021 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / �18.99

Starring: Peter Cushing, Sue Lloyd, David Lodge, Noel Trevarthen, Anthony Booth, Kate O’Mara, Wendy Varnals, Billy Murray, Vanessa Howard, Marian Collins (or Jan Waters), Phillip Manikum, Alexandra Dane, Valerie Van Ost, Diana Ashley, Victor Baring, Shirley Stelfox, Marianne Morris.

Cinematography: Peter Newbrook

Film Editor:...

Giuseppe Tornatore’s romantic ode to the movies charmed America, convincing theater-goers that little Italian kids are the cutest in the world. Little Salvatore Cascio grows up in a projection booth under the life-tutelage of kindly Philippe Noiret. Arrow presents the theatrical version of this Best Foreign Picture Oscar winner in 4K Ultra HD. The (greatly) extended version is on a second Blu-ray — it plays like a different movie entirely.

Cinema Paradiso

4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray

Arrow Academy

1988 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 174, 155, 124 min. / Nuovo cinema Paradiso / Street Date December 8, 2020 / 49.95

Starring: Philippe Noiret, Antonella Attili, Salvatore Cascio, Marco Leonardi, Jacques Perrin, Agnese Nano, Brigitte Fossey, Pupella Maggio, Leopoldo Trieste.

Cinematography: Blasco Giurato

Film Editor: Mario Morra

Original Music: Ennio Morricone, Andrea Morricone

Produced by Mino Barbera, Franco Cristaldi, Giovanna Romagnoli

Written and Directed by Giuseppe Tornatore

Every so often there comes along a European movie that so captures American audiences, one would...

Claude Brasseur, left, in Orchestra Seats Photo: Unifrance French character actor Claude Brasseur has died, aged 84.

The star, who was famed for his tough guy roles and comic turns, featured regularly in films from the Fifties onwards, working with directors including Georges Franju (Eyes Without A Face), Jean-Luc Goddard Bande à Part) and Francois Truffaut (Such A Gorgeous Kid Like Me). More recent films included Camping and Orchestra Seats.

He starred in more than 100 films and won two Cesar awards - France's equivalent of the Oscars -  a best supporting Cesar for the 1976 comedy Un éléphant ça Trompe Enormément and then best actor for The Police War (La Guerre Des Polices). He also starred in the popular French TV series Vidocq.

Head of the Time Art agency Elisabeth Tanner said he was not a victim of Covid and died "in peace and serenity surrounded by his family".

Brasseur, whose mother was Odette Joyeux,...

While the global pandemic caused cinema theaters in France to close for the first time ever (“Even the war didn’t close down cinemas!” exclaimed Lumière Festival director Thierry Frémaux on opening night), it did mean people had more time to watch movies. Classics, in particular, enjoyed a come-back during lockdown.

Nine out of 10 people in France watch heritage films on a regular basis, according to data collected by the Cnc, the French agency responsible for the production and promotion of cinematic and audiovisual arts. After free TV, the second most popular source is videos, with more than 18,000 heritage titles on offer in France.

While video sales have suffered a decline over recent years, in line with global trends, heritage films represent a growing part of sales in France, jumping to 35% in 2019 compared to 27% 10 years ago. France’s niche market of video publishers specialized in classic films is a small but highly dynamic industry,...

Slave of the Cannibal God

Blu ray

Code Red

1978/ 99 min.

Starring Ursula Andress, Stacy Keach

Cinematography by Giancarlo Ferrando

Directed by Sergio Martino

At the same moment the Korean War was ending and Eisenhower entered the White House, illustrator Samson Pollen found his niche; illuminating the fever dreams of suburban dads for action magazines from Man’s World to Stag. He enjoyed a long career and in 1978 he was handed an assignment right up his alley, a garish montage of anacondas, he-men and nearly-naked women. But his art for Slave of the Cannibal God turned out to be far from his best work. Blandly composed and indifferently executed, Pollen’s movie poster works best as a critique of the film itself.

Directed by Sergio Martino, this travelogue-cum-horror movie stars Ursula Andress, a paragon of beauty who built her brand on a supernatural physique and a come-hither gaze that might have inspired...

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Fear is the universal language. Terror is, as we have sadly seen so often, a global phenomenon. And monsters inhabit every crevice of this small world, from the deepest recesses of the South Pacific to the most remote peaks of the North Pole. So it should hardly be a surprise that horror films are and have been a component of cinema in just about every country that embraced the art form. Along with love, fear is the most profound human emotion, and any art — especially filmmaking — is the way in which we express those feelings to the rest of the world.

While the U.S., Canada and the U.K. (along with other primarily English-language nations like Australia and New Zealand) have produced healthy shares of the world’s catalog of horror movies, there is a vast, deep, diverse library of genre output that...

Actress worked with Georges Franju, Luis Buñuel, Andrzej Zulawski, Jacques Rivette, Leo Carax, Olivier Assayas and Mia Hansen-Løve.

Tributes have been paid to French actress Edith Scob, who has died in Paris at the age of 81.

Scob made her big screen breakthrough in Georges Franju’s 1960 cult horror classic Eyes Without A Face and then worked in later years with the likes of Leo Carax and Olivier Assayas.

France’s Minister of Culture Franck Riester said Scob had a “magnetic presence that flooded every one of her films.”

French cinema promotional and export body Unifrance added on Twitter: “81 years...

French actor was famed for role as the masked protagonist in the cult classic before resurgence in films such as Holy Motors

Édith Scob, the French actor best known for her first starring role in the creepy 1960 Georges Franju horror film Eyes Without a Face, has died aged 81. Her agent confirmed the news to Afp, saying she had died on Wednesday in Paris. No cause of death was disclosed.

Scob’s role in Eyes Without a Face is one of the great breakout performances in French cinema. Playing the daughter of a surgeon who undergoes extensive skin grafts after her face is disfigured, she spends much of the film swathed in bandages or wearing a mask, only her eyes visible. Scob’s ethereal, expressive qualities made a stunning impact and the film has remained a cult favourite.

It’s expressive silent filmmaking at its best — Anthony Asquith vies with Alfred Hitchcock for direction in silent-era England. Elissa Landi and Brian Aherne meet in the Tube but become entangled in the jealous scheme of the jealous Cyril McLaglen. Restored just a few years back after being unavailable for generations, this is a beauty: the BFI gives it a full orchestral orchestra score, plus a second avant-garde ‘contextual audio’ track.

Underground

Blu-ray

Kino Classics / BFI

1928 / B&W / 1:33 silent ap. / 93 min. / Street Date April 23, 2019 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Elissa Landi, Brian Aherne, Cyril McLaglen, Norah Baring.

Cinematography: Stanley Rodwell

Art Direction: Ian Campbell-Gray

Written and Directed by Anthony Asquith

If one was asked to come up with the name of a ‘tame’ English director, the answer a while back might have been Anthony Asquith, a privileged toff whose post-grad lark was to spend a year in Hollywood, learning all...

From their "Hammer's House of Horror" screenings to their 21-movie Mario Bava spotlight, New York's Quad Cinema has been an essential source for celebrating the horror genre's past, and they will continue to do just that this October with a massive retrospective series celebrating filmmaker Jean Rollin, as well as a complementary set of screenings highlighting some of horror's most memorable female vampires.

Read on for full details on Quad Cinema's Jean Rollin Retrospective (kicking off on October 18th) and "A Woman's Bite: Cinema’s Sapphic Vampires" (beginning October 26th) and be sure to visit their official website for more information!

"Jean Rollin Retrospective + Sapphic Vampires

October 18-November 1

This October the Quad salutes the lurid eroticism of Jean Rollin with a retrospective including Fascination, Requiem for a Vampire, and Lips of Blood

Plus a survey of sapphic vampire films indebted to his aesthetic with titles including The Hunger, Lust for a Vampire,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSOn the occasion of Spike Lee's latest release, BlacKkKlansman, reports have surfaced stating that the filmmaker was paid $200,000 to "help develop a public awareness campaign that would aim to strengthen the partnership between the [New York Police Department] and the communities it serves."Wes Anderson's follow-up to the Japan-set Isle of Dogs will be a musical in post-wwii France, according to a report by French publication Charente Libre.Recommended VIEWINGThe first teaser trailer of Alfonso Cuarón's Roma, his first film since Gravity in 2013. Set in a tumultuous era of political transition in early 1970s Mexico, the semi-autobiographical film boasts lush black-and-white cinematography by Cuarón himself. Roma will have its world premiere at this year's Venice Film Festival, and will continue onto the Toronto International Film Festival and the New York Film Festival.

Foreplays is a column that explores under-known short films by renowned directors. Georges Franju's La première nuit (1958) is free to watch below.La première nuit (The First Night) began from an idea by singer, actress, and writer Marianne Oswald, who worked (with Rémo Forlani) on what would become the script of Georges Franju’s first fully fictional short film. The protagonist is a ten-year-old boy (Pierre Devis) who, every day, is diligently driven, back and forth, from home to school. One morning, through the car window, the boy sees a beautiful, blonde-haired girl (Lisbeth Persson) exiting the subway. In the evening, when the classes are over, the hero outsmarts his chauffeur and follows the girl into the metro. Her train, however, departs before he’s able to jump on. The boy starts wandering alone, traveling from station to station, until the metro closes its doors. He falls asleep and sees the girl,...

Sergio Leone’s breakthrough international sensation has returned, in a 4k restoration from Italy that’s bound to continue the controversy over odd choices of color. In every other aspect this umpteenth edition of the first murderous adventure of The Man With No Name is the best yet, with a clean image and good new extras.

A Fistful of Dollars

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1964 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 99 min. / Per un pugno di dollari; Fistful of Dollars / Street Date May 22, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Clint Eastwood, Marianne Koch, Gian Maria Volontè, Wolfgang Lukschy, Seighardt Rupp, Joe Egger, Aldo Sambrell, Mario Brega.

Cinematography: Massimo Dallamano

Art Direction: Carlo Simi

Original Music: Ennio Morricone

Written by A. Bonzzoni, Jaime Comas Gil, Victor Andrés Catena, Sergio Leone

Produced by Arrigo Colombo, Giorgio Papi

Directed by Sergio Leone (Bob Robertson)

This is a long-awaited title, not because there aren’t umpteen previous versions out there,...

Guillermo del Toro may be one of the world’s most beloved filmmakers, but he’s also one of its most avid cinephiles. The director has been making the press rounds nonstop this awards season in promotion of “The Shape of Water,” which is currently nominated for 13 Academy Awards, and he recently made a stop at the Criterion Collection to share 11 titles in the library that every fellow cinephile needs to see.

Included in del Toro’s picks are classics from the Coen brothers, Jean Cocteau, and Alfred Hitchcock. Anyone familiar with del Toro’s work shouldn’t be surprised that he recommends Cocteau’s 1946 “Beauty and the Beast” adaptation, which he has brought up several times when talking about inspirations behind “The Shape of Water.”

Visit the Criterion Collection website for del Toro’s full commentary, including video interviews on each title with “Mythbuster” host Adam Savage.

1. Jean Cocteau...

F.J. Ossang. Photo by Locarno Festival / Sailas VanettiA punk poet and musician, F.J. Ossang’s shorts and features produced since the early 1980s pull vividly from silent cinema, particularly German Expressionism, as well as American noir, to reinvent cinema's legacy for a new era. His latest movie, 9 Doigts (9 Fingers), which premiered in competition at the Locarno Festival and has now traveled to the International Film Festival Rotterdam, begins as a cryptic gangster film—shot in silken black and white 35mm—before the criminals make a break for a cargo ship, plunging the film in the kind of feverish maritime malaise found in Joseph Conrad’s The Shadow Line, Georges Franju’s 1973 TV adaptation of that novel, and pre-Code tropical hothouses like Safe in Hell (1931).But as beautiful as the setting and photography is—and as delirious as some of the cynical, doom-saying criminals are, each prone to mythopoetic threats...

By Jacob Oller

Can awful sounds offer a learning experience? t’s uncommon that video essays emulate the mood of the topic they cover. It should be more common, but often the format is traditional and unambitious. This is not true of Chloé Galibert-Laîné’s video essay in response to some writing about Georges Franju’s 1960 Eyes Without a Face. […]

The article Troubling Sounds and Cursed Images: ‘Eyes Without a Face’ appeared first on Film School Rejects.

Foreplays is a column that explores under-known short films by renowned directors. Jean-Luc Godard & Anne-Marie Miéville's Liberté et Patrie (2002) is free to watch below. Mubi's retrospective For Ever Godard is showing from November 12, 2017 - January 16, 2018 in the United States.I. One of the most beautiful essay films ever made, Liberté et Patrie (2002) turns out to also be one of the most accessible collaborations of Jean-Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Miéville. The deeply moving lyricism of this short may astonish even those spectators who arrive to it casually, without any prior knowledge of the filmmakers’s oeuvre. Contrary to other works by the couple, Liberté et Patrie is built on a recognizable narrative strong enough to easily accommodate all the unconventionalities of the piece: a digressive structure full of bursts of undefined emotion; an unpredictable rhythm punctuated by sudden pauses, swift accelerations, intermittent blackouts and staccatos; a mélange of materials where...

Your ultimate Halloween horror movie binge is here. Edgar Wright has joined forces with Mubi to list his 100 favorite horror movies, and the collection is full of classics and surprising choices that range from 1922 to 2016. The director, who himself has given the genre a classic title thanks to “Shaun of the Dead,” names recent horror hits like “Raw,” “The Witch,” and “Train to Busan,” as well as classics from horror masters James Whale and Mario Bava.

Read More:Edgar Wright’s 40 Favorite Movies Ever Made (Right Now): ‘Boogie Nights,’ ‘Suspiria’ and More

Wright wrote an introduction to his list, in which he makes it clear this is simply a list of 100 favorite titles and not his definitive list of the best horror films ever. You can read Wright’s statement below:

Here, for Halloween, is a chronological list of my favorite horror movies. It’s not in any way...

When a killer has two heads, there literally is two times the terror to watch out for, as evidenced by the titular frightening force in The Manster, and we've been provided with three Blu-ray copies of the 1962 horror film to give away to lucky Daily Dead readers.

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Prize Details: (3) Winners will receive (1) Blu-ray copy of The Manster.

How to Enter: We're giving Daily Dead readers multiple chances to enter and win:

1. Instagram: Following us on Instagram during the contest period will give you an automatic contest entry. Make sure to follow us at:

https://www.instagram.com/dailydead/

2. Email: For a chance to win via email, send an email to contest@dailydead.com with the subject “The Manster Contest”. Be sure to include your name and mailing address.

Entry Details: The contest will end at 12:01am Est on September 4th. This contest is only open to those who...

9 DoigtsThis year at the Locarno Festival I am looking for specific images, moments, techniques, qualities or scenes from films across the 70th edition's selection that grabbed me and have lingered past and beyond the next movie seen, whose characters, story and images have already begun to overwrite those that came just before.***The bracing discovery a one-act opera by Arnold Schönberg in Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet’s From Today Until Tomorrow (1996), which is playing in the festival's Pardo d’onore tribute to Straub. Encountering a film by the husband and wife duo of Straub-Huillet is always at double meeting: one, with the perspective of their filmmaking, but also with whatever source material they are transforming into cinema, whether Bach’s music, dialogues by Cesare Pavese, or in this case, a short opera from 1928 by Schönberg. Where most adaptations for the cinema smother their sources to supposedly be more optimized for the seventh art,...

Each month, the fine folks at FilmStruck and the Criterion Collection spend countless hours crafting their channels to highlight the many different types of films that they have in their streaming library. This July will feature an exciting assortment of films, as noted below.

To sign up for a free two-week trial here.

Saturday, July 1 Changing Faces

What does a face tell us even when it’s disguised or disfigured? And what does it conceal? Guest curator Imogen Sara Smith, a critic and author of the book In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City, assembles a series of films that revolve around enigmatic faces transformed by masks, scars, and surgery, including Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face (1960) and Hiroshi Teshigahara’s The Face of Another (1966).

Tuesday, July 4 Tuesday’s Short + Feature: Premature* and Ten*

Come hitch a ride with Norwegian director Gunhild Enger and the late Iranian master...

An influential but often overlooked originator of French surrealism would be genre stalwart Georges Franju, still best remembered for his 1960 masterpiece, Eyes without a Face.

Continue reading...

The uncanny Georges Franju strikes again, in an Agatha Christie-like thriller imbued with his special mood, the eerie music of Maurice Jarre and some great actors including Jean-Marie Trintignant, Pierre Brasseur, Dany Saval, Marianne Koch and Pascale Audret. If mood is the key, then Franju has found an ideal setting, a beautifully preserved castle in Brittany.

Spotlight on a Murderer

Blu-ray + DVD

Arrow Academy USA

1961 / Color / 1:37 full frame (1:66 widescreen?) / 92 min. / Street Date May 30, 2017 / Available from Arrow Video.

Starring: Pierre Brasseur, Pascale Audret, Marianne Koch, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Dany Saval, Jean Babilée,

Georges Rollin, Gérard Buhr, Maryse Martin, Serge Marquand, Philippe Leroy.

Cinematography: Marcel Fredetal

Film Editor: Gilbert Natot

Original Music: Maurice Jarre

Written by Pierre Boileau, Thomas Narcejac, Georges Franju, Robert Thomas

Produced by Jules Borkon

Directed by Georges Franju

Until a few years ago most U.S. fans knew of Georges Franju solely through the great...

Georges Franju’ Spotlight On A Murderer (Pleins feux sur l’assassin – 1961) will be available on Blu-ray May 30th from Arrow Academy.

When the terminally ill Count Herve de Kerloquen (Pierre Brasseur, Goto, Isle of Love) vanishes without trace, his heirs are told that they have to wait five years before he can be declared legally dead, forcing them to devise ways of paying for the upkeep of the vast family chateau in the meantime. While they set about transforming the place into an elaborate son et lumiere tourist attraction, they are beset by a series of tragic accidents if that s really what they are…

The little-known third feature by the great French maverick Georges Franju (Eyes Without a Face, Judex) is a delightfully playful romp through Agatha Christie territory, whose script (written by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac of Les Diaboliques and Vertigo fame) is mischievously aware of the...

Jacqueline Bisset’s in a heck of a fix. Her hubby Alan Alda has been seduced by promises of fame and fortune from creepy concert genius Curt Jurgens, and is responding to weird overtures from Curt’s daughter Barbara Parkins. The pianist’s mansion is stuffed with occult books, and he displays an unhealthy interest in Alda’s piano-ready hands. Do you think the innocent young couple could be in a diabolical tight spot? Nah, nothing to worry about here.

The Mephisto Waltz

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1971 / Color /1:85 widescreen / 115 min. / Street Date April 18, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Alan Alda, Jacqueline Bisset, Barbara Parkins, Brad(ford) Dillman, William Windom, Kathleen Widdoes, Pamelyn Ferdin, Curt Jurgens, Curt Lowens, Kiegh Diegh, Berry Kroeger, Walter Brooke, Frank Campanella.

Cinematography: William W. Spencer

Film Editor: Richard Brockway

Original Music: Jerry Goldsmith

Written by Ben Maddow from a novel by Fred Mustard Stewart

Produced...

Sometimes a movie is simply too good for just one special edition… Savant reached out to nab a British Region B import of Georges Franju’s horror masterpiece, to sample its enticing extras. And this also gives me the chance to ramble on with more thoughts about this 1959 show that inspired a score of copycats.

Eyes Without a Face (Bfi — U.K.)

Region B Blu-ray + Pal DVD

Bfi

1959 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 90 min. / The Horror Chamber of

Dr. Faustus, House of Dr. Rasanoff, Occhi senza volto / Street Date August 24, 2015 / presently £10.99

Starring: Pierre Brasseur, Edith Scob, Alida Valli, Francois Guérin,

Béatrice Altariba, Juliette Mayniel

Cinematography: Eugen Schüfftan

Production Designer: Auguste Capelier

Special Effects: Charles-Henri Assola

Film Editor: Gilbert Natot

Original Music: Maurice Jarre

Written by Pierre Boileau, Thomas Narcejac, Pierre Gascar, Claude Sautet from a novel by Jean Redon

Produced by Jules Borkon

Directed by Georges Franju

Savant has reviewed Eyes Without a Face twice,...

The Ninth Annual Robert Classic French Film Festival — co-presented by Cinema St. Louis and the Webster University Film Series started last Friday and continues the next two weekends — The Classic French Film Festival celebrates St. Louis’ Gallic heritage and France’s cinematic legacy. The featured films span the decades from the 1920s through the mid-1990s, offering a revealing overview of French cinema.

All films are screened at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (470 East Lockwood).

The fest is annually highlighted by significant restorations, which this year includes films by two New Wave masters: Jacques Rivette’s first feature, “Paris Belongs to Us,” and François Truffaut’s cinephilic love letter, “Day for Night.” The fest also provides one of the few opportunities available in St. Louis to see films projected the old-school, time-honored way, with both Alain Resnais’ “Last Year at Marienbad” and Robert Bresson’s “Au hasard Balthazar” screening from 35mm prints.

Giuseppe Tornatore’s ode to the Italian love of movies was a major hit here in 1990, despite being severely cut by Miramax. In 2002 the director reworked his long version into an almost three-hour sentimental epic that enlarges the film’s scope and deepens its sentiments.

Cinema Paradiso

Region B Blu-ray

Arrow Academy

1988 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / Special Edition / 174, 155, 124 min. /

Nuovo cinema Paradiso / Street Date March 21, 2017 / 39.95

Starring: Philippe Noiret, Antonella Attili, Salvatore Cascio, Marco Leonardi, Jacques Perrin, Agnese Nano, Brigitte Fossey, Pupella Maggio, Leopoldo Trieste

Cinematography: Blasco Giurato

Production Designer: Andrea Crisanti

Film Editor: Mario Morra

Original Music: Ennio and Andrea Morricone

Produced by Mino Barbera, Franco Cristaldi, Giovanna Romagnoli

Written and Directed by Giuseppe Tornatore

Your average foreign import movie, it seems, makes a brief splash around Oscar time and then disappears as if down a rabbit hole. A few years back I saw a fantastic Argentine movie called The Secret in Their Eyes.