Things to Come

1936, dir William Cameron Menzies w/Raymond Massey, Cedric Hardwicke, Margaretta Scott, Ralph Richardson, 97 min, Digital

A landmark collaboration between writer H. G. Wells, producer Alexander Korda, and designer and director William Cameron Menzies, THINGS TO COME is a science fiction film like no other, a prescient political work that predicts a century of turmoil and progress. Skipping through time, THINGS TO COME bears witness to world war, disease, dictatorship, and, finally, utopia. Conceived, written, and overseen by Wells himself as an adaptation of his own work, this megabudget production, the most ambitious ever from Korda’s London Films, is a triumph of imagination and technical audacity. – Janus Films

Screens with A TRIP TO THE MOON

1902, dir Georges Méliès, 13 min, DCP

It may not quite be the first science fiction film – it is preceded by several curiosity and trick-camera shorts that present everything from clockwork men to mechanical horses to automatic sausage makers to giant bedbugs – but Georges Méliès’ masterpiece is certainly the first significant one. Directly inspired by H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, A TRIP TO THE MOON features a group of astronauts traveling to the moon and encountering all manner of strangeness before crashing back into the Earth’s ocean.