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A private investigator uncovers a conspiracy that reaches from municipal planning to the very foundations of power in Los Angeles. Widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, Chinatown is a defining statement on corruption—where truth is elusive, justice is compromised, and power always wins. Chinatown was nominated for 11 Academy Awards at the 47th Academy Awards (1975), tying for the most nominations that year but won only Best Original Screenplay for screenwriter Robert Towne.
The Power, Corruption and Lies on Screen Season is a themed run of films exploring how power can be misused, how corruption develops, and how truth can be manipulated.
Commissioner Jules Maigret investigates the murder of a former ambassador, navigating uncooperative high-society families and a tight-lipped housekeeper to uncover a long-hidden secret.
Writer/director Pascal Bonitzer brings his unique perspective and panache to Simenon’s cherished Parisian detective – a French counterpart to Agatha Christie’s Poirot – as he attempts to solve the murder of a diplomat with a long-held secret.
Inspector Maigret (four-time César nominee Denis Podalydès) is urgently summoned to the Quai d’Orsay: a former ambassador has been found shot dead by his long-serving housekeeper (Anne Alvaro, The Taste of Others). But rather than contact the police, she has followed diplomatic protocols by first informing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Forewarned that he will find a series of salacious letters – and cautioned to be discreet – Maigret heads to the victim’s opulent apartment. He finds no forensic evidence at the crime scene, but certainly, the letters prove startling – secret, decades-spanning correspondence between the ambassador and the Princess of Vuynes, whose own husband, by strange coincidence, has also just died… In French with English Subtitles
"Bonitzer presents a masterful contemporary update of one of the great sleuths while capturing the character’s essence." - New York Lincoln Centre
A leading member of the French New Wave, who came to be regarded as the 'French Hitchcock', for many years Claude Chabrol's classic thrillers have been missing from UK screens. Chabrol’s most celebrated and sinister film sees a tender friendship between a schoolteacher and local butcher darken as a series of murders unsettles life in their village. In French with English subtitles.
Le Boucher is part of the Power, Corruption and Lies on Screen Season, a themed run of films exploring how power can be misused, how corruption develops, and how truth can be manipulated. Alongside classics like The Big Sleep and All the President's Men the season brings together three of Chabrol’s most disturbing works, from 1969's La Femme infidèle and 1995's La Cérémonie (based on Ruth Rendell's novel A Judgement in Stone), these are thrillers which explore moral, rather than political, corruption and where polite society and dark secrets entwine to murderous effect.
Directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor: We made this film out of a sense of obligation to use our position as Israelis to examine the systems behind the mass killing of Palestinian civilians for which our country is responsible. While filming over the past three years, we found ourselves asking the very questions that were asked by our grandparents’ generation and throughout the 20th century:
how does one group of people allow the total dehumanisation of another? What do the inner workings of such a system look like? Many of the revelations in the film were published almost immediately as we learned of them, in the months following the October 7th attacks, by The Guardian (one of NAZA's producers), in collaboration with reporting partners +972 Magazine and Local Call. The film lets us explore something deeper than we could in our investigative journalism alone: not only the words being said but also those that are not said, the silence. It is up to all of us to break that silence.
Please note - there will be a post-film discussion following the screening on Saturday 21 November.
The 5-star critically acclaimed Tony Award nominated and Olivier Award-winning play starring John Lithgow (Killers of the Flower Moon, The Crown) as Roald Dahl, GIANT comes to the big screen. With a stellar cast including Aya Cash, Elliot Levey and Rachael Stirling, the play was filmed live in London’s West End ahead of its sold-out Broadway run.
A world-famous children’s author under threat. A battle of wills in the wake of scandal. And one chance to make amends…It’s the summer of 1983, The Witches is about to hit the shelves and Roald Dahl is making last-minute edits. But the outcry at his recent, explicitly antisemitic article won’t die down. Across a single afternoon at his family home, and rocked by an unexpectedly explosive confrontation, Dahl is forced to choose: make a public apology or risk his name and reputation. Inspired by real events, GIANT explores with dark humour the difference between considered opinion and dangerous rhetoric offering a complicated portrait of a fiendishly charismatic icon.
This title will be recorded in advance of its release and will be filmed in front of a live audience.
On the outskirts of a village by the sea, lives a Fisherwoman (Olivia Colman); smelly, single and perpetually ridiculed. One day, fed up with her stuffy, small-minded neighbours, she commissions herself a husband to be made from wicker. In an otherwise conservative town, this unconventional romance sparks outrage, jealousy and chaos.
“Bouncing all the way to a truly perfect ending, “Wicker” is funny and freaky and sweetly romantic.“ - New York Times
War reduced Japan to zero, and Godzilla plunged it into minus.
Two years have passed since then, and the country has faced agonizing struggles to achieve recovery and finally reclaim its daily life. Just as humanity managed to cling to a hard-won peace, a new threat strikes, crushing hope in an instant.
There is no third time. Everything ends here.
In Japanese with English subtitles.
“Taking everything that made Godzilla Minus One work and giving us more, both in terms of spectacle and emotion, Godzilla Minus Zero is a perfect sequel.“ 10/10 COLLIDER
Cemetery caretaker Violette's routine of offering comfort to visitors is upended when a police officer's arrival forces her to confront her own tragic and mysterious past.
Amélie director Jean-Pierre Jeunet has adapted Valérie Perrin’s international best-seller with a stellar cast among them Leila Bekhti, Melvil Poupaud and Anouk Grinberg.
Co-written by Jeunet and Guillaume Laurant, Bekhti plays Violette Toussaint, a beloved cemetery caretaker whose peaceful life – filled by conversations with quirky workers and the many visitors who share their stories of love, loss, and life – is thrown off course when a mysterious stranger shows up on her doorstep compelling her to confront her troubled past filled with hidden truths. Violette comes to understand that the truth behind long-buried mysteries in her past must be uncovered if she wants to take another chance on life and, against all odds, love. The film marks Jeunet’s return to cinema after a gap of 13 years since The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet. In French with English subtitles.
"The film stays true to the book’s emotional core, blending present-day storytelling with flashbacks." - Sortir à Paris
A righteous Vichy civil servant and a humanitarian priest exploit bureaucratic loopholes to rescue over 100 Jewish children from a deportation camp in 1942 Lyon.
Actor and director Daniel Auteuil tells the story of a relatively unknown chapter in the German Occupation of France: the rescue of Jewish children from Vénissieux in August 1942.The narrative follows Gilbert Lesage, a young civil servant at the Service Social des Étrangers, played by Antoine Reinartz, who is appointed to chair a committee tasked with deciding which Jews will be permitted to leave the internment camp in Vénissieux. A directive from the Vichy regime changes everything. It stipulates that non-accompanied children must not be deported. Certain committee members including Father Glasberg, played by Auteuil, then attempt to save as many children as possible before their deportation.
While other French films this year concentrated on such celebrated figures as De Gaulle or Jean Moulin, Auteuil (on his sixth directorial outing) chooses to tell the story of the unsung heroes. These men and women took incredibly brave action, with no weapons and no desire for glory, simply because they refused to accept the unacceptable. At a time when the last remaining Holocaust victims are disappearing, the film serves as an important reminder of our duty to remember. In French with English subtitles.
"Robust moral thriller, both intellectually chewy and emotionally finely calibrated." - ScreenDaily
In 1972 France, a fearless lawyer takes on the landmark Bobigny trial to defend a teenage girl prosecuted for having an illegal abortion.
A landmark trial shakes France in 1972 as young Marie-Claire is prosecuted for having an illegal abortion with the help of her mother and two other defendants. In a courtroom governed by men, the verdict seems inevitable: prison for the women, while the rapist goes unpunished.
Their last hope lies with Gisèle Halimi (played by Charlotte Gainsbourg), a fearless lawyer known for openly challenging patriarchy and confronting the system that condemns victims and lets perpetrators walk free. Alongside the accused, Gisèle will not only change their fate, but, against all odds, transform the condition of women forever. Three years later, it led to the Veil Act of 1975, which officially decriminalised abortion in France. In French with English subtitles.
"Powerful testament to the resilience of women through the generations." - Cineuropa
In the run-up to the 1972 elections, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward covers what seems to be a minor break-in at the Democratic Party National headquarters. He is surprised to find top lawyers already on the defense case, and the discovery of names and addresses of Republican fund organizers on the accused further arouses his suspicions. The editor of the Post is prepared to run with the story and assigns Woodward and Carl Bernstein to it. They find the trail leading higher and higher in the Republican Party, and eventually into the White House itself. The brand-new 4K restoration of Alan J. Pakula's timely political thriller is back in cinemas for its 50th anniversary.
All the President's Men is also part of our Power, Corruption and Lies on Screen Season, a themed run of films exploring how power can be misused, how corruption develops, and how truth can be manipulated. You can see two more of director Alan J. Pakula's 70s thrillers in Klute and The Parallax View as well as rereleases of thrillers by legendary French director Claude Chabrol.
Emmy and Tony winner Christine Baranski makes her West End debut alongside Academy Award-nominated stage and screen legend Richard E. Grant in Noël Coward’s irresistible comedy.
Judith Bliss retired from her life-on-stage and she misses the applause. Idling away at their country home, the rest of the family are too self-involved to be a good audience. So, Judith invites a young fan as her guest for the weekend. But unbeknownst to her, each of the Blisses has a guest of their own arriving at the very same time.
Filmed live from the West End, Emily Burns directs this stinging new production.
The Motive and the Cue
by Jack Thorne
directed by Sam Mendes
The fierce and funny five-star play returns to the big screen. Sam Mendes (The Lehman Trilogy) directs Mark Gatiss in an Olivier Award-winning performance as John Gielgud.
1964: Richard Burton (Johnny Flynn), newly married to Elizabeth Taylor (Tuppence Middleton), is set to play the title role in an experimental new Broadway production of Hamlet under Gielgud’s exacting direction. But as rehearsals progress, two ages of theatre collide and the collaboration between actor and director soon threatens to unravel.
From multi-award-winning writer Jack Thorne (Adolescence), this acclaimed production was filmed live during its sold-out London run in 2023.
