coming soon
Direction: Ken Russell
with Oliver Reed, Vanessa Redgrave
UK 1971, 114', English with German subtitles, FSK 16
from 30.10.2026
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The Devils
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Just in time for Halloween, Ken Russell’s scandalous 1971 film The Devils is returning to the big screen as an uncut director’s cut in a digitally restored 4K version! For over 50 years, the film—starring Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave—was considered censored or banned due to its provocative religious and sex scenes.
A dramatized historical account of the rise and fall of Urbain Grandier, a 17th-century Roman Catholic priest accused of witchcraft following the supposed possessions in Loudun, France; it also focuses on Sister Jeanne des Anges, a sexually repressed nun who inadvertently incites the accusations.
Using Aldous Huxley’s non-fiction 'The Devils of Loudun' as a conduit, Russell breaks down the hypocritical structures of organized religion, brick by brick. That’s really what makes 'The Devils' an incendiary masterpiece. - Katie Rifes, Letterboxd Journal
Russell was an iconoclast, to say the least, and he made a film that lives perennially in the now: an impassioned plea against totalitarian systems and the eternal playbook they use to divide us all, either by vaudevillian sentiment or spiritual blackmail. Through the years I have come to study and even memorise the film, but I was absolutely unprepared for the exquisite, devoted and pristine restoration and remixing of the film. Seeing that, I discovered I had, in fact, never seen 'The Devils' the way it was intended. Prepare yourself for a full-frontal punch in the mouth. - Guillermo del Toro, Sight and Sound