This film is currently unavailable
Touch of Evil
Orson Welles’ final Hollywood film and the last great Film Noir, a sweat-drenched Mexican border saga with one of cinema’s most celebrated openings.
Director: Orson Welles
Overview
The last great Film Noir and the final film Orson Welles would direct in Hollywood, Touch of Evil is a sweat-drenched saga of corruption and intrigue on the US/Mexico border.
Beginning with one of the most celebrated tracking shots in cinema history, a bravura three-minute take following a bomb planted in a car as it crosses the US border, Welles crafts baroque, highly stylised masterpiece from inauspiciously pulpy source origins. A prestigious cast including Charlton Heston and Marlene Dietrich reinforces Welles’ playful mixture of A and B-movie tropes, but it’s Welles’ own turn as the leering, groteseque Hank Quinlan that steals the film. Seen in many different versions over the years, the film is here presented in Walter Murch's 1998 restoration, based on Orson Welles' 1957 memo to the head of Universal.
Related
Breathless [À bout de souffle] Breathless [À bout de souffle]
Film noir 1960 90 mins Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard’s extraordinary debut feature, an insouciant and iconoclastic crime film that paved the way for the French New Wave.
Reservoir Dogs Reservoir Dogs
Film noir 1991 99 mins Director: Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino explodes onto the screen with his debut feature following a jewellery heist gone horribly, violently wrong.
Our Mothers Our Mothers
Drama 2019 77 mins Director: César Díaz
As Guatemala confronts its violent past, a forensic anthropologist is tasked with identifying the dead, in this affecting Cannes prize-winning drama.
Red Herring Red Herring
Documentary 2023 94 mins Director: Kitson Vincent
Following his terminal diagnosis, young filmmaker Kit Vincent sets out to document an intimate and darkly humorous journey in this BIFA nominated documentary.
Robot Dreams Robot Dreams
Animation & Artists Moving Image 2023 103 mins Director: Pablo Berger
Spanish director Pablo Berger delivers a rich and emotionally engaging dialogue-free animation about friendship, set in a bustling 1980s New York City.
Stephen Stephen
Drama-documentary 2023 78 mins Director: Melanie Manchot
Artist Melanie Manchot’s debut feature is a visually striking film-within-a-film, exploring mental health and addiction.
Red Island Red Island
Drama 2023 117 mins Director: Robin Campillo
French writer-director Robin Campillo offers a searching exploration of memory and politics, in this boldly conceived story of boyhood in 1970s Madagascar.
Drift Drift
Drama 2023 93 mins Director: Anthony Chen
Cynthia Erivo delivers a captivating performance as a young refugee, who after fleeing war-torn Liberia finds hope when she meets a fellow lost soul.