Essential Big Screen 2023
Screening Dates
New Restoration

Almost incontestably the most gorgeously photographed film ever made.”

Michael Atkinson, Village Voice

Terrence Malick, American cinema’s great philosopher-poet, confirmed his place in the pantheon with this ravishing masterwork, his follow-up to debut Badlands (1973). Set in the 1910s, it stars Richard Gere as Bill, a Chicago steelworker who accidentally kills his foreman then goes on the lam with his sweetheart Abby (Brooke Adams) and teenage sister (Linda Manz), the film’s narrator. Finding refuge in the Elysian wheat fields of the Texas Panhandle, they are hired as seasonal harvesters by an ailing farmer (Sam Shepard), who falls in love with Abby, believing her to be Bill’s sister. Malick motifs abound: hushed, dreamy voiceover; endless magic hour; the indivisibility of man, nature, and God (biblical locusts literally appear). Néstor Almendros’s impressionistic, Oscar-winning cinematography remains a benchmark of the art form. Malick’s visionary prowess won him Best Director at Cannes. This pristine restoration, supervised by Malick, premiered at Venice Classics in September.

Building perfection from chaos, Terrence Malick’s 1978 masterpiece is more than the last cinematic word in aching pictorial romanticism—it’s practically an act of magic.”

Bilge Ebiri, Time Out
Media

Upcoming in this Series

  • Days Of Heaven 1
  • Days of Heaven
  • USA1978
  • Terrence Malick
  • 94 DCP
  • PG
  • Essential Big Screen 2023
  • Fireworks 2
  • Hana-bi
  • Fireworks)
    (はなび
  • Japan1997
  • Kitano Takeshi
  • 103 DCP
  • NR
  • Essential Big Screen 2023
  • Raining In Mountain 1
  • Raining in the Mountain
  • 空山靈雨
  • Taiwan/Hong Kong1979
  • King Hu
  • 120 DCP
  • PG
  • Essential Big Screen 2023
  • Sunday Bloody Sunday 1 1971 Vectia Films Ltd All Rights Reserved
  • Sunday Bloody Sunday
  • United Kingdom1971
  • John Schlesinger
  • 110 DCP
  • PG
  • Essential Big Screen 2023
  • Diary Of A Country Priest 1
  • Diary of a Country Priest
  • Journal d’un curé de campagne
  • France1950
  • Robert Bresson
  • 115 DCP
  • PG
  • Essential Big Screen 2023
  • All That Heaven Allows 1
  • All That Heaven Allows
  • USA1955
  • Douglas Sirk
  • 89 DCP
  • G
  • Essential Big Screen 2023
  • An Autumn Afternoon 1
  • An Autumn Afternoon
  • 秋刀魚の味
  • Japan1962
  • Ozu Yasujiro
  • 113 DCP
  • G
  • Essential Big Screen 2023