Life during wartime gets rather deadly for a group of British doctors and nurses stalked by a serial killer in this delightfully daft WWII-era comedy-thriller. Amidst frequent air-raids and enough romantic entanglements to power a season’s worth of soap opera plotlines, the murders pile up, and no one is above suspicion in the eyes of bomb-shy Inspector Cockrill (played to perfection by the incomparable Alastair Sim). Loaded with delicious period details, sharp, dark humor, and a bomb shelter’s worth of twists and turns, Green for Danger is a crackerjack entertainment, featuring crisp black and white cinematography and stylish direction from Sidney Gilliat. (BR)

In an Italian-American neighborhood in the Bronx, Donna and Michael (remarkable breakout performances from Sciorra and Eldard) are about to get married, but Michael would much rather be hanging out with his friends than settling down with Donna. With echoes of early Scorsese and Barry Levinson, this clear-eyed, utterly charming, yet totally unsentimental comedy-drama ushered in the American-Indie boom of the 1990s. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 1989 Sundance Film Festival, director Nancy Savoca’s feature debut is a fresh-faced, foul-mouthed slice of life. 35mm print courtesy of the Sundance Collection at the UCLA Film & Television Archive. (BR)

This marvelously entertaining essay/memoir film by Emmy-winning television and film director Richard Shepard chronicles his youthful obsession with moviegoing in New York City of the 1970s and 1980s at beloved, now-vanished theaters. Constructed from over 200 film clips, including Shepard's early Super 8mm creations, Shepard’s story of his development as a cinephile and cineaste is interwoven with a poignant exploration of his enigmatic father. Shepard will appear in person to introduce Film Geek and participate in a post-screening discussion.

One of the most acclaimed Chinese films of all time spans 50 years from the beginning of the 20th Century to the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. At the Peking Opera Academy Cheng Dieyi (Leslie Cheung) and Duan Xiaolou (Zhang Fengyi) endure harsh training, developing complementary talents as they mature, with Dieyi playing female roles and Xiaolou playing male warlords. Dieyi's unreciprocated love for Xiaolou, who marries a courtesan named Juxian (Gong Li), creates a perilous, jealousy-filled romantic triangle. This recently restored version brings back 20 minutes never before seen by North American movie audiences. Presented with the support of the Center for East Asian Studies at UW-Madison.

San Francisco, 1963. About to be shipped off to Vietnam, Eddie Birdlace (Phoenix) participates in a cruel game with his fellow marines: whoever brings the “ugliest date” to a party on their final night of liberty wins. Birdlace settles on Rose (Taylor), a sensitive aspiring poet and folk singer, and while their time together begins unpleasantly, the evening eventually leads to a genuine and tender connection between the young couple. In director Nancy Savoca’s first movie for a major studio, “The jolt is in the intricate expressivity Savoca brings to the story, with a repertoire of precise and painterly images that highlight performances of assertive yet graceful physicality” (Richard Brody, The New Yorker).

In mid-90s Beverly Hills, rich and popular Cher (Silverstone) rules her high school. When she gives klutzy new student Tai (Brittany Murphy) a makeover, Tai becomes more popular. Funny, stylish, and driven by its own memorable vernacular, this box-office hit was Heckerling’s second successful tour of California teendom after Fast Times at Ridgemont High. “Still the best Jane Austen adaptation” (Jane Hu, The Ringer), Clueless is loosely based on Austen’s 1815 novel, Emma.

Deep in the heart of Italo-American NYC, butcher Joseph Santangelo (D’Onofrio) brings home his wife Catherine (Ullman) after “winning” her in a pinochle game, only to be confronted by his mother's religiously superstitious objections. Years later, Joe and Catherine’s daughter Teresa (Taylor), dedicatedly dreams of serving God. The third feature from co-writer/director Nancy Savoca was adapted from a novel by Francine Prose into a movie that is “Transcendent...without a second that isn't blessed by the grace of its special humor and tenderness" (Roger Ebert). Savoca will appear in person for a special introduction and a post-screening discussion!

In this irreverent black comedy that’s frequently compared to The Ladykillers, the inimitable Sim plays Hawkins, a timid watchmaker and professional assassin, whose target, a pompous Member of Parliament, is accidentally protected by a bumbling vacuum cleaner salesman (Cole). The farcical action leads to a tense and hilarious climax at a dilapidated seaside hotel called…The Green Man.

16-year-old Hayoung (Ji-young Yoo, star of Amazon Prime Video’s Expats) seeks distraction from her complicated family life by trying to fit in with her more affluent cram school peers. With the delicate exploration of generational conflict, class, and the model minority myth in LA’s Korean American community, it is clear why writer-director So Young Shelly Yo earned the Tribeca Festival’s Untold Stories award to finance this feature debut. Presented as part of the 2024 Asian American Spotlight, with the support of Asian American Studies at UW-Madison. (ZF)

Roxy Music member; ambient music pioneer; producer of iconic records by David Bowie, Talking Heads, Devo, and more; composer of the Windows startup tone: Brian Eno’s resume rivals anyone in contemporary music. Drawing on Eno’s personal archives and conversations with the man himself, Gary Hustwit’s innovative profile emulates the artist’s forward-thinking creativity by using software to generate a different version of the movie every time it’s shown—the Eno screened at the Cinematheque will never be seen again. “There’s a pure joy to this documentary, a sense that creativity is miraculous and we ought to be grateful that we get to participate in it” (The New York Times). (MK)

Still considered the finest movie adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s tale of horror, Mamoulian’s version features an Oscar-winning Fredric March in the title roles of a kindly doctor transformed by experimental drugs into his alter ego: a sadistic and amoral beast. Hopkins’ sexually-charged performance as bar singer Ivy is just one of many aspects of this production that demonstrate the freedoms Hollywood enjoyed in the era before the Production Code was enforced.  A recently restored 4K DCP of the uncensored, original release version will be shown.

Bresson’s spare, visionary take on the Arthurian legend centers on Lancelot's adulterous affair with Guinevere during the decline of Camelot. Unmistakably Bressonian, especially in its depiction of violent battles and a dramatic jousting tournament, Bresson's minimalist style and elliptical imagery create a haunting tapestry of love, betrayal, and spiritual conflict. A new 4K DCP will be screened.

In rural China in the 1990s, a woman’s body washes ashore on a riverbank. Setting up shop in an abandoned cinema, the chief of police begins an investigation that only grows more mysterious with each suspect, clue—and additional body. Drenched in thick neo noir atmosphere and shot on tactile 16mm, this enveloping procedural justly earned comparisons to Bong Joon-ho’s classic Memories of Murder, and became one of China’s highest grossing independent films. (MK)

In 1962, teenage boys in a small, Midwestern farm town compete to defeat Sawtooth Jack, a deadly, candy-filled demon who annually rises from a corn patch on Halloween to wreak havoc. But the parents know more about this creepy tradition than they’re letting on and it’s up to rebellious teens Richie and Kelly to uncover the truth. Adapting a novel by Norman Partridge, director Slade (30 Days of Night, Hard Candy) and screenwriter Michael Gilio (Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves) have conjured up an imaginative, allegorical horror tale that combines elements of Halloween III: Season of the Witch and Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery.” “Buckets of gore and exceptional creature design - Dark Harvest delivers October ickiness with a crooked smile” (Matt Donato, Paste Magazine). Michael Gilio will be on hand to introduce and talk about Dark Harvest after the screening.

Based on a story by co-screenwriter Yusanari Kawabata, this silent film milestone has been hailed as the Japanese equivalent of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. A Page of Madness focuses on a husband struggling to connect with his insane wife amidst the harrowing asylum where she lives and he works as a janitor. Disturbing and daring, the film was considered lost for over 40 years until director Kinugasa discovered a single 35mm print hidden in his home. The digital version that will be shown features a score by the Alloy Orchestra.

Told as a flashback from a news account of a young man’s suicide, the great Bresson’s penultimate feature is a rigorous depiction of a modern world that’s not fit to live in. Centered around a group of youths (all played, in Bresson’s inimitable style, by nonactors), the story eventually focuses on Charles (Monnier), who finds little happiness in chasing women, pursuing religion, furthering his education, and taking drugs. When psychoanalysis fails and some environmental documentary footage deepens his despair, everything seems pointless to Charles. “Even though Bresson has painted a dark picture of wasted youth and beauty, one comes out of the film with a sense of exultation. When a civilization can produce a work of art as perfectly achieved as this, it is hard to believe that there is no hope for it” (Richard Roud).

In a mystical forest, a cycle of insatiable consumption begins to change the ecology of the wooded area. A visionary, dark masterpiece of stop-motion animation, The Garden Sees Fire (2024, 15 min.) is the latest work from the gifted filmmaker Kiera Faber. The artist will join us in person for the World Premiere of The Garden Sees Fire and offer a retrospective that begins with her experimental short films man-i-fest (2005, 3 min.), Children of God (2006, 4 min.), Evils (2006, 6 min.), T is for Turnip (2015, 3 min.), and her other highly accomplished stop-motion gems Living Organics (2009, 10 min.) and Obscurer (2018, 19 min.).

The surprising link between American jazz and the fate of the Congo is brought to light in this riveting essay film. In the early 1960s, the US sent well-intentioned legends like Louis Armstrong to Africa as diplomatic ambassadors—and to act as a smokescreen for the coup against Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba. Soon after, drummer Max Roach crashed the United Nations assembly in protest. Propelled by a killer jazz soundtrack, this invigorating montage will open both your eyes and ears. “Crackling with energy, ideas, and formal daring. Political history has never felt so energizing and dynamically alive as it does here.” (Screen Daily). (MK)

In a gender-bending version of Hecht and MacArthur’s comedy The Front Page, Russell plays a whiz of a reporter determined to give up her typewriter for a wedding ring from Bellamy. But her editor and ex-husband Grant makes it hard for her to leave. The breathlessly delivered gags and dialogue are a signature of master comedy director Hawks. David Bordwell’s personal 35mm print will be screened, courtesy of the Wisconsin Center for Film & Theater Research. Of His Girl Friday, Bordwell wrote, “I fell in love with its heedless energy. It seemed to me a perfect example of what Hollywood could do.”

After a century in France, 26 royal treasures plundered from the Kingdom of Dahomey return to their African home in present-day Benin. Atlantics director Mati Diop’s visionary documentary considers this act of repatriation from myriad perspectives, including, in a surreal touch, that of the statues themselves. Dahomey’s captivating centerpiece is a wide-ranging debate among Beninese university students about whether the return of a handful of thousands of stolen artifacts constitutes progress or an insult. Diop’s uniquely inquisitive and instructive film won the Golden Bear at the 2024 Berlin Film Festival. (MK)

Fiorentino gives the performance of her career as one of the cinema’s most memorably merciless femme fatales in this devilishly twisty neo noir. Wrapping every man in sight around her finger and playing them against one another, she stops at nothing in her quest to be rich and rid of them. Director Dahl’s followup to his cult favorite Red Rock West is another wicked blast. “Four stars. Not only ingenious and entertaining, but liberating, because we can sense the story isn't going to be twisted into conformity with some stupid formula” (Roger Ebert). 35mm print courtesy of the Sundance Collection at the UCLA Film & Television Archive.

In the most British of the cinematic Carols, the power of Sim compels as Charles Dickens’ iconic miser, Ebenezer Scrooge. Prodded to rediscover his humanity during a harrowing series of ghostly visits on Christmas Eve, Scrooge must find out if he still has the capacity for love and generosity, or if it is, in fact, too late. With less emphasis on Tiny Tim and more on Scrooge’s relentless rise through the world of business, this version is perhaps darker, more adult than most, nonetheless it is a first-rate holiday entertainment. Featuring excellent support from Mervyn Johns as the long-suffering Bob Cratchit. 35mm print from the Chicago Film Society collection at the University of Chicago Film Studies Center. (BR)

After experiencing a tragedy on December 31, Broadway actress Sheila Page (Leslie) is magically allowed to relive the previous year of her life, but will she be able to avoid the fateful mistakes that led to the disastrous New Year’s Eve? Repeat Performance was singled out by David Bordwell as “one of the few time-travel dramas of the forties” and part of a cycle of movies that “become fascinating, surprising variants of changes that were rippling through Hollywood cinema.” 35mm print Preserved by UCLA Film & Television Archive. Preservation funding provided by the Film Noir Foundation and the Packard Humanities Institute.