Capote in 35mm

Donald “Sully” Sullivan is a charming but unreliable working man in the depressed town of North Bath, New York, who finds himself with unexpected family responsibilities in this faithful film adaptation of the novel by Pulitzer Prize–winner Richard Russo. Paul Newman is the ideal screen incarnation of Russo’s wayward hero and earned his final Best Actor nomination for the role. Writer-director Robert Benton was also nominated for his screenplay. The remarkable supporting cast includes Jessica Tandy, Melanie Griffith, Bruce Willis, and memorable early screen roles for Margo Martindale and Philip Seymour Hoffman, whose character—hapless small-town cop Doug Raymer—was the protagonist of Russo’s 2016 sequel novel Everybody’s Fool.

Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson’s Altman-esque multicharacter epic focuses on the intersecting lives of several Angelenos in one eventful 24-hour period, culminating in an inexplicable, Biblical weather event. The film earned nominations for Anderson’s original screenplay, Aimee Mann’s original song “Save Me,” and Tom Cruise’s energetic performance as a men’s rights speaker. The massive cast includes several alumni from Anderson’s Boogie Nights (1997), including Philip Baker Hall, Ricky Jay, William H. Macy, Alfred Molina, Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly, and Philip Seymour Hoffman in a warm and sensitive performance as nurse Phil Parma.

The second film from writer-director Tamara Jenkins (Slums of Beverly Hills) tells the seriocomic story of Wendy and Jon Savage, two adult siblings whose already-difficult lives are complicated when they have to find a home for their father (Broadway legend Philip Bosco) who is declining mentally. Hoffman brought humor and empathy to his portrayal of Jon, a depressed theater professor, and was eager to work with Jenkins, whose original screenplay earned an Oscar nomination. Hoffman told Collider’s Steven Weintraub, “She was very connected to it in a deep way, and so I knew that I was with someone who was going to do everything they could to make sure that it was the best film they could make.” Laura Linney was also nominated for her witty performance as the brittle Wendy.

Director Cameron Crowe’s Oscar-winning original screenplay was inspired by his teenage years as a music journalist traveling with a rock band in 1973, with Patrick Fugit making his film debut as a young Crowe. The film received nominations for Joe Hutshing and Saar Klein’s film editing and the supporting performances of Kate Hudson as groupie Penny Lane and Frances McDormand as Fugit’s strong-willed mother. Philp Seymour Hoffman gives a witty performance as real-life rock journalist Lester Bangs.

Double Feature. In-person: John Ortiz and Gordy Hoffman

Dan Mahowny is a respected banker secretly embezzling a fortune from his employers to finance his gambling addiction in this gripping character study directed by Richard Kwietniowski (Love and Death on Long Island). The screenplay was based on Gary Stephen Ross’s nonfiction book Stung: The Incredible Obsession of Brian Molony. Ross was especially impressed by Philip Seymour Hoffman’s portrayal of the embezzler, telling his publisher: “Philip somehow managed to assimilate the psychic essence of Molony—a yawning emptiness that nothing except gambling was able to fill.”

Double Feature

The final feature directed by Oscar-winner Mike Nichols is a witty political docudrama about Texas congressman Charles Wilson’s attempts to fund Afghan rebels against their Soviet invaders in the 1980s. Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts brought the full wattage of their movie star charisma to their performances as Wilson and socialite Joanne Herring. Philip Seymour Hoffman earned the film’s only nomination for his hilariously volatile supporting performance as real-life CIA operative Gust Avrakotos. Oscar-winner Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network) adapted his script from the 2003 nonfiction book by George Crile.

John Patrick Shanley directed this film adaptation of his 2004 play set at a Catholic parish school in 1964 in the Bronx. Shanley received a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award for his original play and an Oscar nomination for his adapted screenplay. He drew insightful, Oscar-nominated performances from his four principal actors: Meryl Streep as the imposing school principal, Amy Adams as a sensitive young nun, Viola Davis as the mother of a boy who may have been the victim of inappropriate behavior, and Philip Seymour Hoffman in a commanding and appropriately ambiguous portrayal of the suspected priest.

Oscar-winning screenwriter Charlie Kaufman made his directorial debut with this wildly original, one-of-a-kind comedy-drama about a director who uses a MacArthur Fellowship to create an insanely ambitious theater piece as large in scale and duration as life itself. Philip Seymour Hoffman gives a heartbreaking performance in what he described to an interviewer as “one of the best scripts I’ve ever read,” and the massive supporting cast includes a galaxy of Oscar winners and nominees including Samantha Morton, Michelle Williams, Catherine Keener, Emily Watson, Dianne Wiest, and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s ambitious and daring film tells the story of Freddie Quell, an emotionally troubled World War II veteran who falls under the spell of a religious leader, Lancaster Dodd, resulting in a strange dependency between the two men. With epic 70mm cinematography by Mihai Malamaire Jr., The Master is anchored by its vivid, Oscar-nominated lead performances—Joaquin Phoenix’s achingly vulnerable Freddie, Amy Adams’s strong-willed Peggy Dodd, and Philip Seymour Hoffman’s charismatic, complex Lancaster. The outstanding supporting cast includes Oscar winners Laura Dern and Rami Malek and Oscar nominee Jesse Plemons as Dodd’s son.

Philip Seymour Hoffman’s final lead role was in this smart, complex film adaptation of espionage master John le Carré’s 2008 bestseller, about a Chechen refugee in Germany who becomes the target of several countries’ intelligence forces. Director Anton Corbijn (Control) was especially impressed with Hoffman’s subtle, lived-in performance as a German spymaster, telling Esquire’s Simon Abrams, “Philip’s nuances, whether it’s his fingers or his face, are so beautiful for me to watch. I can get lost in them.”