Cat People

We’re leaning into our fears this October with a selection of haunting masterpieces by producer Val Lewton, goretastic cult favorites from Herschell Gordon Lewis, Byron Haskin’s pulpy sci-fi and film noir classics, and other spooky-surrealist picks from David Lynch, Ana Lily Amirpour, Guillermo del Toro, and more. Plus: a tribute to independent film icon Shirley Clarke, the groundbreaking documentaries of Errol Morris, Gillo Pontecorvo’s revolutionary cinema, and a trip to Tuscon in the latest episode of Art-House America. If you haven’t signed up yet, head to CriterionChannel.com and get a 14-day free trial! Now, get into the spirits with our October programming!

* indicates programming available only in the U.S.



TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1

Short + Feature: American Gothic

Möbius and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

Featuring an introduction by Möbius director Sam Kuhn

The kids aren’t all right in these two surreal mysteries set in the misty environs of the Pacific Northwest.



WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2

Directed by Shirley Clarke

Featuring Rome Is Burning, a 1970 profile of Clarke with appearances by Yoko Ono and Jacques Rivette

Radical counter-cinema landmarks from a true visionary who synthesized jazz, modern dance, and abstract expressionism into a dynamic vérité style that put her at the forefront of the American independent film scene of the fifties and sixties. Features include: The Connection (1961), Robert Frost: A Lover’s Quarrel with the World (1963), Portrait of Jason (1967), Ornette: Made in America (1985). Shorts include: Dance in the Sun (1953), In Paris Parks (1954), Bullfight (1955), A Moment in Love (1956), Brussels Film Loops/Gestures/World Kitchen (Shirley Clarke and D. A. Pennebaker, 1957), Bridges-Go-Round 1 (1958), Bridges-Go-Round 2 (1958), Skyscraper (Shirley Clarke and Willard Van Dyke, 1960), A Scary Time (Shirley Clarke and Robert Hughes, 1960), Christopher and Me (Richard Leacock, 1960), Butterfly (1967), 24 Frames Per Second (1977), Four Journeys into Mystic Time: Initiation (1978), Four Journeys into Mystic Time: Trans (1978), Four Journeys into Mystic Time: One-Two-Three (1978), Four Journeys into Mystic Time: Mysterium (1978), Savage/Love (1981), Tongues (1982)



THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3

From the Archive: Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Featuring a laserdisc commentary by film scholar Maurice Yacowar

Cold War paranoia gives birth to a powerfully allegoric and still-chilling science-fiction classic.



FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4

Double Feature: Bad Kitty!

Cat People and The Living Idol

Killer hellcats are on the prowl in a landmark of psychological terror and a pop-surrealist oddity.



SATURDAY, OCTOBER 5

Saturday Matinee: The Adventures of Prince Achmed

A world of enchantment flickers to life through breathtaking shadow play in this animation milestone.



SUNDAY, OCTOBER 6

Val Lewton Presents

Featuring Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows, a 2007 documentary by Kent Jones

Terror lives in the shadows in the moody masterpieces of maverick producer Val Lewton, who turned our fears of the unseen and the unknown into haunting excursions into existential dread. Featuring: Cat People (Jacques Tourneur, 1942), I Walked with a Zombie (Jacques Tourneur, 1943), The Ghost Ship (Mark Robson, 1943), The Seventh Victim (Mark Robson, 1943), The Leopard Man (Jacques Tourneur, 1943), The Curse of the Cat People (Gunther von Frisch and Robert Wise, 1944), Isle of the Dead (Mark Robson, 1945), The Body Snatcher (Robert Wise, 1945), Bedlam (Mark Robson, 1946)



MONDAY, OCTOBER 7

Detour (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1945)

Criterion Collection Edition #966

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8

Short + Feature: Look What the Cat Dragged In

Call of Cuteness and House

Feline frights abound in these two films that turn cats into the stuff of nightmares.



WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 9

Persepolis

Featuring a program on the making of the film

Marjane Satrapi’s defiant, irreverent, supremely moving vision of growing up in a changing Iran.



THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10

Three by Byron Haskin

A master termite-art technician, Byron Haskin brought a prodigious visual imagination and keen intelligence to pulp classics of both science fiction and film noir. Featuring: I Walk Alone (1947), The War of the Worlds (1953), Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964)



FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11

Double Feature: The Deviant and the Divine

Freaks and Multiple Maniacs

Totally twisted shockers from two masters of the perverse, Tod Browning and John Waters.



SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12

Saturday Matinee: Animation Celebration

A dazzling array of animation techniques are on display in this eyeball-whirling selection of bite-size wonders, featuring stop-motion monkeys, mischievous chairs, a cosmic reverie, and more!



SUNDAY, OCTOBER 13

Art-House America: The Loft Cinema, Tucson, AZ

The latest installment of our ongoing tour of America’s art houses pays a visit to the Loft Cinema in Tucson, Arizona, a vibrant nonprofit theater that has been serving the local community since 1972.



MONDAY, OCTOBER 14

Judex (Georges Franju, 1963)

Criterion Collection Edition #710



Three by Jacques Tourneur

A master craftsman whose shadowy visual palette and staunch humanism shone through B-movie trappings and across genres. Featuring: Cat People (1942), Out of the Past (1947), Stars in My Crown (1950)



TUESDAY, OCTOBER 15

Short + Feature: Bizarre Love Triangles

Bad at Dancing and Jules and Jim

With a new introduction by Bad at Dancing director Joanna Arnow

Three’s a crowd for a millennial throuple and a French New Wave ménage à trois.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16

La Ciénaga (Lucrecia Martel, 2001)

Criterion Collection Edition #743

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17

Following (Christopher Nolan, 1999)

Criterion Collection Edition #638

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18

Double Feature: Bad Habits

Black Narcissus and The Devils

Sexual frenzy shakes the convents in these hothouse tales of nuns gone mad.



SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19

Saturday Matinee: The Blob

Steve McQueen plays a rebel teen who tries to warn his small-town neighbors about an outer-space invader in this cult classic of gooey greatness.



SUNDAY, OCTOBER 20

Directed by Errol Morris

Featuring a selection of archival interviews with Morris

Singular films from the director-detective who redefined the possibilities of nonfiction filmmaking through his idiosyncratic perspective and philosophical insight into the human condition and the elusive nature of truth. Featuring: Gates of Heaven (1978), Vernon, Florida (1981), The Thin Blue Line (1988), A Brief History of Time (1991), Fast, Cheap & Out of Control (1997), The Fog of War (2003), Tabloid (2010)



MONDAY, OCTOBER 21

The 39 Steps (Alfred Hitchcock, 1935)

Criterion Collection Edition #56

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22

Short + Feature: Far-Out Fantasies

Les escargots and Fantastic Planet

Science-fiction marvels of surrealist invention and psychedelic wonder from director René Laloux and writer-animator Roland Topor.



WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23

Frida

Featuring a new interview with director Julie Taymor

The bold visions of two singular artists—Frida Kahlo and director Julie Taymor—collide with dazzling results in this vibrant account of the iconic Mexican painter’s turbulent life and awe-inspiring work.



THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24

Three by Gillo Pontecorvo

Featuring Gillo Pontecorvo: The Dictatorship of Truth, a 1992 documentary narrated by literary critic Edward Said

The explosive, fiercely leftist cinema of the Italian firebrand weds revolutionary politics with an equally radical visual style. Featuring: Kapò (1959), The Battle of Algiers (1966), Burn! (1969)



FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25

Double Feature: Critical Massey

The Old Dark House and Arsenic and Old Lace

The inimitable Raymond Massey lends his formidable presence to two macabre classics.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26

Saturday Matinee: Godzilla

The roaring granddaddy of all monster movies, also a surprisingly humane and melancholy drama, first introduced the beloved international icon of destruction.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 27

Meet the Filmmakers: Herschell Gordon Lewis

In a 2009 conversation with filmmaker Sean Baker, the late Godfather of Gore proves to be as entertaining and unpretentious as his own movies, dishing on everything from his filmmaking philosophy to perfecting the look of onscreen blood. This latest entry in the Criterion Channel’s Meet the Filmmakers series is accompanied by a goretastic selection of Lewis’s films, featuring: Carving Magic (1959), Blood Feast (1963), Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964), Color Me Blood Red (1965), The Gruesome Twosome (1967), The Wizard of Gore (1970), The Gore Gore Girls (1972), Herschell Gordon Lewis: The Godfather of Gore (Frank Henenlotter and Jimmy Maslon, 2010)

MONDAY, OCTOBER 28

Observations of Film Art #32: Withholding and Revealing in An Angel at My Table

Professor Kristin Thompson explores how Jane Campion uses a strategy of concealment and carefully orchestrated reveals to create curiosity, tension, and surprise.



TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29

Short + Feature: Baseball and Broomsticks

The Beaning and Häxan

With a new introduction by The Beaning director Sean McCoy

Something witchy this way comes in these sinister brews of satanism, black magic, and pseudodocumentary.



WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

Ana Lily Amirpour’s mesmerizing debut feature blends the influences of spaghetti westerns, graphic novels, horror films, the Iranian New Wave, and Jim Jarmusch into a truly original blast of shoegazey, black-and-white cool.



THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31

The Devil’s Backbone (Guillermo del Toro, 2001)*

Criterion Collection Edition #666