Beware of Dario Argento: A 20-Film Retrospective is heading to New York

Film at Lincoln Center and Cinecittà present Beware of Dario Argento: A 20-Film Retrospective, a retrospective of the iconic Italian horror director’s influential feature films, 17 of them premiering in brand-new 4K restorations, with the director in person for select screenings. Presented in collaboration with Italian Cultural Institute.

Ever since his heart-stopping directorial debut in 1970, Dario Argento has been redrawing the boundaries of cinematic horror with flamboyant violence, feverish plotting, and deliriously stylized compositions. Initially associated with giallo, the pulpy Italian subgenre he helped formalize and would later take to unprecedented heights with his international breakthrough, Deep Red (1975), Argento embraces a gamut of fantastical influences—from sublime Gothic art and penny dreadfuls to Murnau, Hitchcock, and Disney—with his distinctively baroque style of disorientating cinematography, stained-glass colorwork, and elaborate musical scores (often composed by his own rotating house group, Goblin).

The retrospective will pay homage to Argento’s singular voice in horror cinema, from his seminal debut feature The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, widely regarded with popularizing gialli internationally, and other unforgettable contributions to the subgenre including: Deep Red, Tenebrae, and Opera; to his masterful paranormal-tinged Phenomena, and supernatural “Three Mothers Trilogy”: the wildly influential Suspiria, 35mm screenings of Inferno, and Mother of Tears; to underscreened gems like Trauma, The Stendhal Syndrome, The Black Cat, and Dracula 3D, as well as his made-for-television feature Do You Like Hitchcock?. The lineup also will host the North American Premiere of Dark Glasses, his first film in 10 years.