Oscar favourite for Best Film. This is a visually arresting drama that tells the story of ambition, art and survival in the aftermath of World War II, exploring the life of a visionary architect as he seeks to leave his mark on postwar America.

László Toth (Adrien Brody) is a Hungarian architect who emigrates to America with his wife Erzsébet (Marion Cotillard), in search of a fresh start and creative freedom. As Toth’s career takes off, he faces the dark intersections of art and politics, grappling with personal sacrifice and ethical compromises. With stunning cinematography that mirrors the stark and monumental style of brutalist architecture, ‘The Brutalist’ is both a character study and a meditation on art’s power and cost. Corbet’s ambitious storytelling and the film’s haunting aesthetic make this an unforgettable cinematic experience.

USA/Hungary 2024 Brady Corbet 205m

A bittersweet memoir of a melancholic woman called Grace Pudel - a hoarder of snails, romance novels and guinea pigs.

In 1970s Australia, Grace's (Sarah Snook) life is troubled by misfortune and loss. After their mother dies during pregnancy, she and her twin brother, Gilbert (Mason Litsos), are raised by their paraplegic-alcoholic former juggler father, Percy (Dominique Pignon). After Percy passes away in his sleep, the siblings are forcibly separated and thrust into separate homes. Gilbert finds himself in the care of a cruel evangelical family, while Grace, grappling with intense loneliness, gradually withdraws into her shell, much like the snails she adopts. As the years pass, and despite new disappointments and sorrows, a glimmer of hope emerges when she strikes up an enduring friendship with an elderly eccentric woman called Pinky (Jacki Weaver). Adam Elliott - Australia’s answer to Aardman’s Nick Park – has created a beautiful film with a distinctive kind of lovability and an instinct for the underdog and outsider.

Australia 2024 Adam Elliot 95m

Bake-neko Anzu-chan

This award-winning animation is what you get when you combine the fantasy of ‘My Neighbour Totoro’ with the deadpan humour and reality of everyday life.

When a temple's chief priest finds a kitten crying, he names it Anzu and decides to look after it. 30 years later, it turns out that the cat is no ordinary cat, it can now speak and live like a human. Anzu (voiced by Moriyama Mirai) travels around on a moped and works part-time as a masseuse. One day, the head priest's son (Aoki Munetaka), a long-estranged and shifty widower with huge debts, returns to the temple with his 11-year-old daughter Karin (Goto Noa). Anzu the cat reluctantly accepts his request to look after the emotionally-drained girl. This is an incredibly charming French-Japanese co-production brings together two directors from different mediums to create this irreverent fable about bridging the human world and the afterlife. Audience Award winner for Best Animated Feature at the Fantasia International Film Festival 2024. (Subtitles)

Japan 2024 Kuno Yoko & Yamashita Nobuhiro 97m

Pamela Anderson is a revelation in this poignant Vegas-set drama that sees a seasoned showgirl having to plan for her future when her long-running show abruptly closes.

A poignant film of resilience, rhinestones and feathers, stars Anderson as Shelley, a glamorous showgirl who must plan for her future when her show closes after a 30-year run. She has not just lost a job she adored, at an age when she is unlikely to get another like it; she has lost her very identity. Gia Coppola's (granddaughter of Francis Ford Coppola) latest is an atmospheric and sympathetic drama about the showgirls on the Vegas strip, featuring sharply drawn characters and outstanding performances from Jamie Lee Curtis as Shelley’s friend Annette, and Pamela Anderson, who both play their roles with a lack of vanity that gives the film its enthralling power.

USA 2024 Gia Coppola 84m

We screen this Stanley Kubrick classic as an accompaniment to the NT Live performance later this week. An unhinged American general orders a bombing attack on the Soviet Union, triggering a path to nuclear holocaust that a war room full of politicians and generals frantically tries to stop.

Starring Peter Sellers at the peak of his powers, this is a film about what could happen if the wrong person pushed the wrong button. U.S. Air Force General Jack Ripper (Sterling Hayden) goes completely insane, and sends his bombers to destroy the U.S.S.R. He thinks that the communists are conspiring to pollute the water supply of the American people. Sellers plays stiff-upper-lipped RAF officer Lionel Mandrake and also the insidiously bland President Merkin Muffley, and, most shockingly of all, the ex-Nazi wheelchair-bound scientist Doctor Strangelove. The result of Kubrick’s work is scary, hilarious and nightmarishly beautiful, far more effective in its portrait of insanity and call for disarmament than any number of worthy documentaries.

USA 1964 Stanley Kubrick 95m

Exhibition on Screen

The Impressionists are the most popular group in art history – millions flock every year to marvel at their masterpieces. But, to begin with, they were scorned, penniless outsiders. 1874 was the year that changed everything; the first Impressionists, “hungry for independence”, broke the mould by holding their own exhibition outside official channels. Impressionism was born and the art world was changed forever.

What led to that first groundbreaking show 150 years ago? Who were the maverick personalities that wielded their brushes in such a radical and provocative way? The spectacular Musée d’Orsay exhibition brings fresh eyes to this extraordinary tale of passion and rebellion. The story is told not by historians and curators but in the words of those who witnessed the dawn of Impressionism: the artists, press and people of Paris, 1874. Made in close collaboration with the Musée d’Orsay and National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

90m

We are delighted to welcome producer Phil Grabsky to introduce and Q&A the Apr 14 screening.

Suyoocheon

In this campus-life comedy/drama, a lecturer persuades her uncle to direct her school's theatrical skit due to his past experience. While sketching near a stream, a scandalous incident involving students occurs, implicating both of them.

In the wake of a scandal involving several of her students, Jeonim (Kim Minhee), an artist and lecturer at a women's university, asks her uncle Chu Sieon (Kwon Haehyo) to step in and direct a short play for the skit festival put on by her department. Her uncle is an actor-director, recently blacklisted after a scandal of his own. He decides to direct the short play because of a similar experience directing a play at the same university 40 years earlier. It doesn't take long before Sieon develops feelings for Jeonim's colleague, Professor Jeong (Cho Yunhee), a textile professor. This is a very enjoyable celebration of the creative process, and more specifically, of artists following their impulses when it comes to idea generation and collaboration. (Subtitles)

S. Korea 2024 Hong Sang-soo 111m

NT Live

Steve Coogan plays four roles in the world premiere stage adaptation of Stanley Kubrick’s comedy masterpiece.

Thu 27 Mar 19:30

Sat 28 Mar 15:15

Quand Vient l'Automne

Michelle, a retiree in Burgundy, is expecting her grandson, but a mistake ruins her plans. When her friend Marie-Claude's son is released from prison, Michelle's purpose is revived.

Michelle (Hélène Vincent) is enjoying a peaceful retirement in a Burgundy village, close to her longtime friend Marie-Claude (Josiane Balasko). When her Parisian daughter Valérie (Ludivine Sagnier) drops off her son Lucas (Garlan Erlos) to spend school vacation with his grandma, Michelle, stressed out by her daughter, serves her toxic mushrooms for lunch. Valérie quickly recovers, but forbids her mother from seeing her grandson anymore. Feeling lonely and guilty, Michelle falls into a depression... until Marie-Claude's son Vincent (Pierre Lottin) gets out of prison. This film is a gift of a showcase for Hélène Vincent - she is magnetic. But nobody is exactly who they appear in Ozon’s nimble, perceptive film. When winter and mortality are beckoning, the past only counts for so much. (Subtitles)

France 2024 François Ozon 102m

A true story that follows seasoned deep-sea divers as they battle the raging elements to rescue their crew mate trapped hundreds of feet below the ocean's surface.

This tense and emotionally powerful action thriller tells the remarkable true story of a commercial diver (Finn Cole of ‘Peaky Blinders’ fame) stranded at the bottom of the North Sea with only five minutes of oxygen and no chance of rescue. A story of one man’s impossible fight for survival and a crew (includes Woody Harrelson and MyAnna Buring) doing everything they can to bring him home alive. Director Alex Parkinson had previously created a documentary on this amazing rescue story, so was the only correct choice to helm this production.

USA 2025 Alex Parkinson 93m

When an intelligence agent is suspected of betraying the nation, her husband - also a legendary agent - faces the ultimate test of whether to be loyal to his marriage, or his country.

A gripping spy drama about legendary intelligence agents George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) and his beloved wife Kathryn (Cate Blanchett). When she is suspected of betraying the nation, George faces the ultimate test – loyalty to his marriage or his country.

Steven Soderbergh (‘Traffic’, ‘Erin Brockovich’) directs a brilliant cast that also includes Pierce Brosnan, Tom Burke and Naomie Harris.

USA 2025 Steven Soderbergh 93m

A documentary by Sadie Frost looking at the life of the greatest it-girl of all time - UK model and cultural icon Twiggy, real name Lesley Lawson.

An intimate, star-studded dive into the birth of an icon, and everything that followed. Featuring contributions from Dustin Hoffman, Paul McCartney, Charlotte Tilbury, Joanna Lumley and many more, this is an exploration of the model's upbringing, career, relationships and everything else that has made her the woman she is today, and the first time the icon has told her story first-hand. Frost, this film’s director, is carving out a niche for docs about fashion icons. ‘Twiggy’ is her second, after the playful and very successful ‘Quant’ (2021).

UK 2025 Sadie Frost 97m

The Way Things Seem and the Way They Are

With a restoration of ’Picnic at Hanging Rock’ in the cinema this season, this talk will look back at the career of its astonishingly versatile director.

Sat 29 Mar 10:30 (Auditorium)

Returning to the big screen this February to celebrate its 50th anniversary in a dazzling 4K restoration, Peter Weir’s adaptation of Joan Lindsay’s novel has lost none of its mystique or mesmerising power.

In the early 1900s, Miranda (Anne Lambert) attends a girl’s boarding school in Australia. One Valentine's Day, the school's typically strict headmistress (Rachel Roberts) treats the girls to a picnic field trip to an unusual but scenic volcanic formation called Hanging Rock. Despite rules against it, Miranda and several other girls venture off. It's not until the end of the day that the faculty realizes the girls and one of the teachers (Vivean Gray) have disappeared mysteriously. A significant influence on the work of Sofia Coppola, ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’ has become a landmark for its dreamlike exploration of the intensely romantic, yet profoundly unsettling, experience of girlhood and burgeoning sexuality.

Australia 1975 Peter Weir 107m

Screening to complement our Tudor Women on Film Talk (22 Mar) as well as the Richard Burton films (from 11 Apr). King Henry VIII of England discards one wife, Catharine of Aragon, who has failed to produce a male heir, in favour of the young and beautiful Anne Boleyn.

This film adaption of a Broadway play is based on the historical events surrounding the founding of the Church of England. Catherine of Aragon (Irene Papas), empowered wife of King Henry VIII (Richard Burton), has yet to give birth to an heir. King Henry's wandering eyes fall on the devout and nubile Anne Boleyn (Geneviève Bujold), who refuses his sexual advances. Henry eventually convinces Anne to marry him, but to move forward, the king must face a church that believes divorce is a sin. This is a stunningly acted, sumptuous, grand-scale drama of the royal bed chamber and political intrigues that created the Church of England.

UK 1969 Charles Jarrott 145m

The Musical

Elton John's 'Billy Elliot' musical – based on Stephen Daldry's 2000 film – beamed into cinemas, shot live in HD at Victoria Palace Theatre in London's West End.

Sun 30 Mar 14:15

Wed 2 Apr 19:45