Luis Buñuel’s Magnificent Weapon
July 7–November 19, 2023
From the eye slice in his revolutionary collaboration with Salvador Dalí, Un chien Andalou, to the explosive finale of his last film, That Obscure Object of Desire, this retrospective offers the opportunity to see films from throughout Luis Buñuel’s career.
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Mexican Bus Ride
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Illusion Travels by Streetcar
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Él
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Nazarín
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Belle de jour
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The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
- Upcoming
Films - Past
Films - Past
Events
Past Films
Viridiana
Luis Buñuel
Spain, Mexico, 1961Friday, July 7 7 PMView DetailsKindly Viridiana (Silvia Pinal) dreams of becoming a nun until the attentions of her lecherous uncle change her path in Luis Buñuel’s notorious satire of religion and desire. Winner of both the Cannes Palme d’Or and the Vatican’s condemnation.
The Exterminating Angel
Luis Buñuel
Mexico, 1962Saturday, July 8 7 PMView DetailsA bourgeois dinner turns to chaos when the guests realize they cannot leave in Luis Buñuel’s daring, Surrealist, darkly comic assault on the hypocrisy of the ruling class and organized religion. “The most distinctly and completely Surrealist film since L’age d’or” (Francisco Aranda).
Diary of a Chambermaid
Luis Buñuel
France, Italy, 1964Friday, July 14 7 PMView DetailsJeanne Moreau is a chambermaid in a household of perfectly ordinary bourgeois perverts in this darkly funny update of a Gustave Mirbeau novel, the first film in the long collaboration between Luis Buñuel and screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière.
Simon of the Desert
Luis Buñuel
Mexico, 1965Thursday, July 20 7 PMView DetailsThe devil takes many guises to tempt Saint Simon Stylites from his pedestal in Luis Buñuel’s wicked satire of religion and hypocrisy. With Cinéastes de notre temps: Luis Buñuel.
Belle de jour
Luis Buñuel
France, 1967Saturday, July 22 7 PMView DetailsIn Luis Buñuel’s subversive erotic classic, Catherine Deneuve is a frigid housewife who indulges her masochistic desires by working in a Paris brothel. “A landmark not only of Buñuel’s career, but of the history of motion pictures” (Paul Schrader).
The Milky Way
Luis Buñuel
France, Italy, 1969Wednesday, July 26 7 PMView DetailsTwo derelicts make an impious pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, with many detours in time and space along the way. Part theological fantasy, part shaggy dog story, the film makes manifest Luis Buñuel’s famous motto: “Thank God I’m an atheist!”
Tristana
Luis Buñuel
Spain, Italy, France, 1970Friday, July 28 7 PMView DetailsCatherine Deneuve and Fernando Rey star in Luis Buñuel’s tale of amour fou involving a virginal young orphan, a well-to-do older man, and a younger painter. “Extremely funny, bluntly fast-paced, and very, very beautiful” (Vincent Canby).
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
Luis Buñuel
France, 1972Friday, August 4 7 PMView DetailsThis account of six wealthy people’s thwarted attempts to sit down to dinner is the comedy of manners to end all comedies of manners. “A deeply funny movie. . . . [Luis] Buñuel’s art is as insolent now as ever” (David Denby).
The Phantom of Liberty
Luis Buñuel
France, 1974Saturday, August 5 7:30 PMView DetailsCasual blasphemies and waking dreams, bourgeois improprieties and Surrealist sight gags are strung together in this slippery chain of abortive comic vignettes, loosely coiled around themes of enslavement and the fear of freedom.
That Obscure Object of Desire
Luis Buñuel
France, 1977Saturday, August 12 7:30 PMView DetailsA seemingly well-heeled elderly man narrates the tale of his obsession with a much younger woman (played by two actresses) in Luis Buñuel’s final treatise on passion, perversion, and the irrationality of human desire.
Los olvidados
Luis Buñuel
Mexico, 1950BAMPFA Collection Print
Friday, September 1 7 PMView DetailsLuis Buñuel’s unsentimental portrait of slum kids in Mexico City. “Its matter-of-fact brilliance continues to astonish” (BBC).
L’age d’or
Luis Buñuel
France, 1930New Digital Restorations
Wednesday, September 6 7 PMView DetailsLuis Buñuel partnered with legendary artist Salvador Dalí for two incendiary Surrealist films that both scandalized audiences. Decades later, they still shock. With Un chien Andalou.
Susana
Luis Buñuel
Mexico, 1951Sunday, September 10 7 PMView DetailsAn extremely loose young woman spreads consternation throughout the hacienda of an ultra-bourgeois family in Luis Buñuel’s over-the-top Mexican melodrama, which takes every cliché and exaggerates it even more.
A Woman Without Love
Luis Buñuel
Mexico, 1952Saturday, September 16 7 PMView DetailsLies and insults, passion and heartbreak flow like wine in another of Luis Buñuel’s giddy Mexican melodramas, which follows the lifetime of intrigue that occurs when a young wife’s extramarital dalliance results in the birth of an illegitimate son.
Land Without Bread
Luis Buñuel
France, Spain, 1933Sunday, September 24 7 PMView DetailsLuis Buñuel’s only documentary showed the deprivation suffered by the inhabitants of the Las Hurdes region of Spain with the intention of jolting viewers out of complacency and into revolutionary action. Screening with Buñuel’s Prisoners, Ramón Gieling’s 2000 account of the lasting effects of the film on its subjects and their descendants.
Mexican Bus Ride
Luis Buñuel
Mexico, 1951Saturday, September 30 7 PMView DetailsAn about-to-be-married peasant takes a very long and often-detoured bus ride to visit his dying mother in this surprisingly carefree social comedy, which shows off Luis Buñuel’s more light-hearted, but still biting side.
El bruto
Luis Buñuel
Mexico, 1953Saturday, October 21 5 PMView DetailsA handsome, hulking slaughterhouse worker takes a side job strong-arming an unscrupulous landlord’s tenants, but he winds up involved with the landlord’s sexually frustrated wife in Luis Buñuel’s heaving study of machismo, brutality, and class awakening. Mexican icon Pedro Armendáriz and Katy Jurado star.
Él
Luis Buñuel
Mexico, 1953New Digital Restoration
Friday, October 27 7 PMView DetailsArturo de Córdova plays a middle-aged landowner, devout Catholic, and virgin whose marriage to a much-younger woman winds up destroyed by his own jealousy. One of Luis Buñuel’s most outrageous subversions of the traditional commercial melodrama.
The River and Death
Luis Buñuel
Mexico, 1954Sunday, October 29 7 PMView DetailsLuis Buñuel’s handling of the story of a doctor who returns to his rancorous hometown, his adoring mother, and a life-threatening blood feud was informed by the director’s ongoing fascination with Mexican machismo and the “ease with which certain people can kill others.”
Illusion Travels by Streetcar
Luis Buñuel
Mexico, 1954Saturday, November 4 7 PMView DetailsWhen their beloved streetcar is decommissioned, two tipsy transit workers decide to take it out for one last late-night spin. “Gorgeously photographed by Raúl Martínez Solares, Illusion Travels by Streetcar is in many ways Luis Buñuel’s most visually intoxicating creation” (Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine).
Wuthering Heights
Luis Buñuel
Mexico, 1954Sunday, November 5 7 PMView DetailsLuis Buñuel’s adaptation of Emily Brontë’s novel adds “a touch of the inferno” (Tom Milne) to the otherwise stuffy literary drama. “A blatant hacienda melodrama that camps out on poverty row before blasting triumphantly into the stratosphere” (J. Hoberman).
The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz
Luis Buñuel
Mexico, 1955Saturday, November 11 7 PMView DetailsA childhood incident has blurred the line between death and desire for mild-mannered, kind, definitely insane Archibaldo—with predictably perverse results. “Light-hearted, benign, and extremely funny” (New York Times).
Nazarín
Luis Buñuel
Mexico, 1959Friday, November 17 7 PMView DetailsA turn-of-the-century wandering cleric sheds his priestly garments to aid the rural poor directly, but material reality and human cruelty have other plans. Magnificently photographed by the great Gabriel Figueroa.
The Young One
Luis Buñuel
Mexico, 1960Archival 35mm Print
Sunday, November 19 4:30 PMView DetailsLuis Buñuel’s sole English-language film, which follows a Black jazz performer running from false rape charges in the Deep South, is a peculiar portrait of American Southern racism that at first resembles a Hollywood effort; by the end, it’s pure Buñuel. “One of his most sensual, sheerly physical works” (Jonathan Rosenbaum).
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