The Cinematheque

“A legendary noir … I just fell in love with it and thought, people don’t make ​’em like this anymore. I want to see my darkness and my doomed characters on screen!”

John Carpenter

Fred MacMurray, as gravely wounded insurance salesman Walter Neff, staggers into a dark office, picks up a dictaphone, and offers up a startling confession of murder. So begins Billy Wilder’s sordid, superlative Double Indemnity, one of film noir’s defining works. Barbara Stanwyck sizzles as Phyllis Dietrichson, the double-crossing dame who seduces Neff into a plot to bump off her husband and collect big on his life-insurance policy. Edward G. Robinson co-stars as insurance investigator Keyes, Neff’s friend and colleague. Co-written by Wilder and Raymond Chandler from James M. Cain’s novella,​“this shrewd, tawdry thriller is one of the high points of 1940s films … Stanwyck’s Phyllis Dietrichson is perhaps the best acted and most fixating of all the cold-blooded femmes fatale of film noir” (Pauline Kael). Double Indemnity returns to our lineup in a scintillating restoration sourced from a 35mm nitrate composite.

“The gold standard of ​’40s noir, straight down the line.”

Jessica Winter, Time Out

“The spiffy, suave James M. Cain-based mega noir that spawned a billion scheming-bitch thrillers … Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray become unforgettable, delicious clichés the minute they cock their eyebrows at one another in and around Billy Wilder’s shadowy LA interiors.”

Michael Atkinson, Village Voice