Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni • 1960 • France, Italy
Starring Gabriele Ferzetti, Monica Vitti
Michelangelo Antonioni invented a new film grammar with this masterwork. An iconic piece of challenging 1960s cinema and a gripping narrative on its own terms, L’AVVENTURA concerns the enigmatic disappearance of a young woman during a yachting trip off the coast of Sicily, and the search taken up by her disaffected lover (Gabriele Ferzetti) and best friend (Monica Vitti, in her breakout role). Antonioni’s controversial international sensation is a gorgeously shot tale of modern ennui and spiritual isolation.
Up Next in Sight and Sound Directors’ Poll: Greatest Films of All Time
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PlayTime
Directed by Jacques Tati • 1967 • France
Starring Jacques Tati, Barbara Dennek, Georges MontantJacques Tati’s gloriously choreographed, nearly wordless comedies about confusion in an age of high technology reached their apotheosis with PLAYTIME. For this monumental achievement, a nearly three-y...
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The Night of the Hunter
Directed by Charles Laughton • 1955 • United States
Starring Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian GishTHE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER—incredibly, the only film the great actor Charles Laughton ever directed—is truly a stand-alone masterwork. A horror movie with qualities of a Grimm fairy tale, i...
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A Man Escaped
Directed by Robert Bresson • 1956 • France
Starring François Leterrier, Charles Le Clainche, Maurice BeerblockWith the simplest of concepts and sparest of techniques, Robert Bresson made one of the most suspenseful jailbreak films of all time in A MAN ESCAPED. Based on the account of an impriso...
