Rialto Pictures Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Salute

September 2–November 29, 2023

It would not be possible for BAMPFA to showcase many essential films from the history of cinema without the stellar work of Rialto Pictures, a boutique distributor based in New York. This salute features digital restorations of many landmark films, including two by Jean-Luc Godard, Contempt and Alphaville; two French thrillers, Army of Shadows and Le cercle rouge, directed by Jean-Pierre Melville; two Italian classics starring Alberto Sordi, Federico Fellini’s The White Sheik and Dino Risi’s Una vita difficile; Carol Reed’s exceptional The Third Man; a masterpiece from postrevolutionary Iran, The Runner; and Akira Kurosawa’s stunning film adaption of King Lear, the monumental Ran.

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  • Contempt, Courtesy: Rialto Pictures

  • The Runner, Courtesy: Rialto Pictures

  • Alphaville, Courtesy: Chaumiane/Film Studio/Kobal/Art Resource/Georges Pierre

  • Ran, Courtesy: Rialto Pictures

  • The Third Man, Courtesy: Rialto Pictures / Studiocanal

  • Una vita difficile, Courtesy: Rialto Pictures / Studiocanal

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Past Films

  • Contempt

    Jean-Luc Godard
    France, 1963

    4K Digital Restoration

    Saturday, September 2 7 PM

    Jean-Luc Godard’s Homeric homage to Fritz Lang, “one of the defining moments of modernist filmmaking” (Film Comment).

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  • Alphaville

    Jean-Luc Godard
    France, 1965

    4K Digital Restoration

    Friday, September 8 7 PM

    “[Jean-Luc] Godard’s conceptual masterpiece is a hardboiled, Pop Art, sci-fi gloss on [Jean] Cocteau’s Orpheus and [George] Orwell’s 1984” (Village Voice).

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  • The Runner

    Amir Naderi
    Iran, 1984

    4K Digital Restoration

    Saturday, September 9 5 PM
    Madjid Niroumand in Person on October 6

    Amiro, an illiterate eleven-year-old orphan living alone in an abandoned tanker in the Iranian port city of Abadan, survives by shining shoes, selling water, and diving for deposit bottles, while being bullied by both adults and competing older kids. But he finds solace by dreaming about departing cargo ships and airplanes and by running . . . seemingly to nowhere.

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  • Army of Shadows

    Jean-Pierre Melville
    France, 1969

    Digital Restoration

    Saturday, September 9 7 PM

    Jean-Pierre Melville’s drama of the French Resistance, starring Lino Ventura and Simone Signoret, “grips tighter than a Gestapo handcuff. . . . A film of noirish compositions and fantastic cool” (Independent).

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  • Contempt

    Jean-Luc Godard
    France, 1963

    4K Digital Restoration

    Friday, September 22 7 PM

    Jean-Luc Godard’s Homeric homage to Fritz Lang, “one of the defining moments of modernist filmmaking” (Film Comment).

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  • Alphaville

    Jean-Luc Godard
    France, 1965

    4K Digital Restoration

    Saturday, September 23 7 PM

    “[Jean-Luc] Godard’s conceptual masterpiece is a hardboiled, Pop Art, sci-fi gloss on [Jean] Cocteau’s Orpheus and [George] Orwell’s 1984” (Village Voice).

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  • The Runner

    Amir Naderi
    Iran, 1984

    4K Digital Restoration

    Friday, October 6 7 PM
    Madjid Niroumand in Person on October 6

    Amiro, an illiterate eleven-year-old orphan living alone in an abandoned tanker in the Iranian port city of Abadan, survives by shining shoes, selling water, and diving for deposit bottles, while being bullied by both adults and competing older kids. But he finds solace by dreaming about departing cargo ships and airplanes and by running . . . seemingly to nowhere.

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  • The White Sheik

    Federico Fellini
    Italy, 1952

    4K Digital Restoration

    Friday, November 3 6:30 PM

    Provincial newlyweds arriving in Rome get sidetracked by the wife’s obsession with a fumetto photo-comic star in Federico Fellini’s solo directorial debut. “A funny, sardonic, and clever satire on popular heroes and ordinary people’s illusions” (Chicago Reader).

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  • Una vita difficile

    Dino Risi
    Italy, 1961

    4K Digital Restoration

    Saturday, November 4 4:30 PM

    “Alberto Sordi’s pungent embodiment of a left-wing pamphleteer who can’t prosper in a capitalist republic propels [Dino] Risi’s deft seriocomic panorama from Mussolini’s fall to the rise of the postwar Roman oligarchy. . . . The closest America has come to Alberto Sordi is Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau in their prime, rolled into one” (Michael Sragow, Air Mail).

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  • The Third Man

    Carol Reed
    United Kingdom, 1949

    4K Digital Restoration

    Saturday, November 18 4:30 PM

    Joseph Cotten pursues Orson Welles through postwar Vienna in Graham Greene and Carol Reed’s cynical masterpiece. “Seeing it on the big screen is like watching it for the first time” (New York Times).

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  • Le cercle rouge

    Jean-Pierre Melville
    France, 1970

    4K Digital Restoration

    Saturday, November 18 7 PM

    Alain Delon and Yves Montand star in Jean-Pierre Melville’s “dazzling epic of love, guns, gangsters, and cigarettes” (Los Angeles Times).

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  • The White Sheik

    Federico Fellini
    Italy, 1952

    4K Digital Restoration

    Sunday, November 19 2:30 PM

    Provincial newlyweds arriving in Rome get sidetracked by the wife’s obsession with a fumetto photo-comic star in Federico Fellini’s solo directorial debut. “A funny, sardonic, and clever satire on popular heroes and ordinary people’s illusions” (Chicago Reader).

    View Details

  • Una vita difficile

    Dino Risi
    Italy, 1961

    4K Digital Restoration

    Friday, November 24 6:30 PM

    “Alberto Sordi’s pungent embodiment of a left-wing pamphleteer who can’t prosper in a capitalist republic propels [Dino] Risi’s deft seriocomic panorama from Mussolini’s fall to the rise of the postwar Roman oligarchy. . . . The closest America has come to Alberto Sordi is Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau in their prime, rolled into one” (Michael Sragow, Air Mail).

    View Details

  • Army of Shadows

    Jean-Pierre Melville
    France, 1969

    Digital Restoration

    Saturday, November 25 6:30 PM

    Jean-Pierre Melville’s drama of the French Resistance, starring Lino Ventura and Simone Signoret, “grips tighter than a Gestapo handcuff. . . . A film of noirish compositions and fantastic cool” (Independent).

    View Details

  • Ran

    Akira Kurosawa
    Japan, France, 1985

    4K Digital Restoration

    Sunday, November 26 1:30 PM

    King Lear in feudal Japan, with Tatsuya Nakadai as the lord who divides his kingdom among his three sons, with disastrous results. “A majestic piece of filmmaking” (Village Voice).

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  • The Third Man

    Carol Reed
    United Kingdom, 1949

    4K Digital Restoration

    Sunday, November 26 5 PM

    Joseph Cotten pursues Orson Welles through postwar Vienna in Graham Greene and Carol Reed’s cynical masterpiece. “Seeing it on the big screen is like watching it for the first time” (New York Times).

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  • Le cercle rouge

    Jean-Pierre Melville
    France, 1970

    4K Digital Restoration

    Wednesday, November 29 7 PM

    Alain Delon and Yves Montand star in Jean-Pierre Melville’s “dazzling epic of love, guns, gangsters, and cigarettes” (Los Angeles Times).

    View Details