Family Weekend

A pulse-pounding political thriller, Greek expatriate director Costa-Gavras’s Z was one of the cinematic sensations of the late sixties, and remains among the most vital dispatches from that hallowed era of filmmaking. This Academy Award winner—loosely based on the 1963 assassination of Greek left-wing activist Gregoris Lambrakis—stars Yves Montand as a prominent politician and doctor whose public murder amid a violent demonstration is covered up by military and government officials; Jean-Louis Trintignant is the tenacious magistrate who’s determined not to let them get away with it. Featuring kinetic, rhythmic editing, Raoul Coutard’s expressive vérité photography, and Mikis Theodorakis’s unforgettable, propulsive score, "Z" is a technically audacious and emotionally gripping masterpiece. — Synopsis courtesy of the Criterion Collection Costa-Gavras's "Z" screens in conjunction with the documentary "The Laughing Boy" on Thursday, October 24. Tickets are required and are available in advance via our online ticketing platform or in-person at the Cornell Cinema box office on the day of the screening.

In October of 1994 three student filmmakers travelled to Burkittsville, Maryland, to shoot a documentary about a local urban legend, The Blair Witch. They went into the woods planning for a two-day hike and never returned. A year later their footage was found and complied into a film: "The Blair Witch Project." This low-budget, found footage horror film directed by Eduardo Sanchez was a game-changer for the horror genre and among the first to harness the internet to publicize the film and generate communities of impassioned fans who became convinced that film was documenting real events. "The Blair Witch Project" screens as part of our "Party Like It's 1999" series. Tickets are required and are available in advance via our online ticketing platform or in-person at the Cornell Cinema box office on the day of the screening.

The quintessential flapper, Clara Bow, is captured at the height of her charm in the definitive Jazz Age romantic comedy: "It". Inspired by a story by Elinor Glyn, who used the simple pronoun to encapsulate the spirit of the sexually-liberated youth of Prohibition-era America, a saucy lingerie salesgirl sets her sights on the handsome owner (Antonio Moreno) of the department store in which she works. Leading him on a romantic chase from the Hotel Ritz to the whirling attractions of Coney Island, Betty Lou (Clara Bow) decides to crash a high-society yacht party in a last-ditch effort to get her man. Unlike the sexless starlets or cool beauties who generally appeared on screen, Bow was prone to playing the sexual aggressor in her films, a daring deviation from female passivity that revolutionized the role of women not only in cinema, but in society as well. With It, Bow's gregarious personality and striking beauty are brilliantly showcased, making it easy to understand how she became Hollywood's most popular leading lady of the late 1920s. The film screens with a recently-rediscovered Clara Bow film: "The Pill Pounder" (1923, dir. Gregory La Cava, 14 min.), courtesy of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. In one of those serendipitous man-makes-astonishing-discovery-by-accident stories, filmmaker Gary Huggins came across a cartoon he was looking for among a stack of film cans in an Omaha parking lot. But to get the cartoon, he had to buy the whole stack. Going through the footage later, he realized one of the titles, "The Pill Pounder," featured a 17-year-old Clara Bow. Author David Stenn — who wrote the definitive biography "Clara Bow: Runnin’ Wild" — had given up hope of finding this obscure, independent, Queens-made short. And it was not even a sure bet that Bow was in the film until Huggins unspooled the title in his living room! "The Pill Pounder" was produced by All-Star Comedies and distributed in the United States by W.W. Hodkinson. The short film stars comedian Charles Murray as a druggist (a.k.a. pill pounder) who is running a secret poker game in the backroom of his pharmacy. The short two-reel comedy was released on 22 April 1923 at a length of approximately 2,000 ft. (600 m.). The only known surviving copy is an abridged 35mm print with a length of 1,161 ft. (354 m.) from which the original titles and an unquantified number of pictorial shots were removed. This restoration was completed in April 2024 by San Francisco Silent Film Festival. Acclaimed musician Philip Carli will provide live musical accompaniment for the two films. Philip Carli is one of the world’s leading silent film accompanists. He brings both prodigious musical talent and a committed scholarly outlook to his lifelong passion for the music and culture of the turn of the last century. He discovered silent film at the age of five and began his accompaniment career at thirteen, with a performance for Lon Chaney’s 1923 version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. While at college he programmed and accompanied an annual series of silent films, and also organized and conducted a 50-piece student orchestra using 19th-century performance practice. Since then, he has continued his studies of the film, music and culture of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, earning a doctorate from the Eastman School of Music. He has at the same time toured extensively as a film accompanist throughout North America and Europe, performing on keyboard and with orchestra at such venues as Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Gallery in Washington, DC, the Cinémathèque Québécoise in Montreal, the National Film Theatre in London, and the Berlin International Film Festival. He is the staff accompanist for the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York, and performs annually at several film festivals in the United States as well as at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto in Italy. This special event features as part of our series "(You Look Like) Clara Bow" in honor of Silent Movie Month in Ithaca and is presented in collaboration with the Wharton Studio Museum. Tickets are required and available in advance via our online ticketing platform or in-person at the Cornell Cinema box office on the day of the screening.

After the fanatical General Jack D. Ripper initiates a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union, a war room full of politicians, generals and a Russian diplomat all frantically try to stop the nuclear strike. One of Stanley Kubrick’s best and most famous films, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is a dark parody of the Cold War paranoia that feels continuously relevant in contemporary geopolitics. Dr. Strangelove screens as part of our "Cornell Cinema Goes to Washington" series. Tickets are required and are available in advance via our online ticketing platform or in-person at the Cornell Cinema box office on the day of the screening.

In this 1980s classic, a young teenager named Mikey Walsh finds an old treasure map in his father's attic. Mikey and his friends Data Wang, Chunk Cohen, and Mouth Devereaux follow the map, embarking on a quest into an underground cavern in search of lost treasure — which they hope can help them stop the property developing company which plans to destroy their homes to build a country club. This fun-filled, fast-paced adventure based on a story by Steven Spielberg and directed by Richard Donner is a perennial favorite. "The Goonies" screens as part of our "Away We Go" series. Tickets are required and are available in advance via our online ticketing platform or in-person at the Cornell Cinema box office on the day of the screening.

Academy Award-winner Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall star in this disturbing adaptation of Stephen King's blockbuster horror novel. When writer Jack Torrance—who has a history of alcoholism and child abuse—takes a job as winter caretaker for a hotel high in the Rocky Mountains, he, his wife and their psychic young son will be isolated until spring. But once the first blizzard closes the road out, the accumulated power of evil deeds committed at the hotel begins to drive Jack mad. Now there may be no escape for his wife and son in this haunting madness, memory and family violence... Directed by the legendary Stanley Kubrick, "The Shining" remains one of the most celebrated and terrifying horror films of all time. Our Cornell Cinema screening is presented in memory of the actress Shelley Duvall who sadly passed away earlier this year at the age of 75. "The Shining" screens as part of our "Worth a Watch" series. Tickets are required and are available in advance via our online ticketing platform or in-person at the Cornell Cinema box office on the day of the screening.