Jackie Chan's Police Story (NYFF '87) screens today at 6:15pm. Image courtesy of the Kobal Colleciton.

We're halfway there! Tonight we begin celebrating the last 25 years of our 50 Years of the New York Film Festival retrospective. Tonight, we'll reveal what happens when two cinematic tough guys step behind the camera and show what they're capable of. Spoiler alert: it's some incredible stuff!

Calling a Jackie Chan film “action-packed” seems a bit redundant, but Police Story (NYFF '87) really puts his other work to shame. He directed, starred in, and did his own stunts for this heart-pounding adventure flick that contains some of cinema's greatest action sequences. Film Society has shown thousands of films over the years at the New York Film Festival, but there has never been anything quite like Police Story, before or since. Chan himself considers this his favorite film of his 40-year, 100-plus-film career.


See Forest Whitaker in Clint Eastwood's Bird (NYFF '88) at 8:30pm. Image courtesy of the Kobal Collection.

Speaking of long careers, screen icon Clint Eastwood represents NYFF '88 with Bird. This biopic cast Forest Whitaker as the legendary sax-slinger Charlie “Yardbird” Parker, which earned him a best actor win at Cannes and brilliantly captured the mood of the old jazz clubs. It was Eastwood's first directorial feature to be selected for the New York Film Festival. Eastwood was nominated for the Palme d'Or at Cannes and took home the Best Director Golden Globe. For a career that had already spanned 30 years, this was a work that got him major international notice.

Both of these films are fantastic choices to represent not only their individual years in the festival, but NYFF as a whole. Greatness in cinema, regardless of genre, expectation, celebrity, pretention, etc., is what Film Society strives to share with audiences. Help us celebrate a half-century of excellence tonight and stay tuned for announcements on upcoming 50 Years of the New York Film Festival screenings.

Below is a list of the films that played alongside Police Story at NYFF '87:

Dark Eyes
Nikita Mikhalkov, Italy, 1987
Shown with The First 25 Years, Wendy Keys, Doug Wyles, USA

A Taxing Woman (Marusa No Onna)
Juzo Itami , Japan, 1987

Diary For My Loved Ones (Naplo Szerelmeimnek)
Márta Mézáros, Hungary, 1987

Radium City
Carole Langer, USA, 1987

Police Story
Jackie Chan, Hong Kong, 1985
Shown with Pas de Deux, Norman McLaren, Canada

A Month In The Country
Pat O’Connor, Great Britain, 1987
Shown with Begone Dull Care, Norman McLaren, Canada

The Manchurian Candidate
John Frankenheimer , USA, 1962 (NYFF Retrospective)

Theme (Tema)
Gleb Panfilov, U.S.S.R., 1986

Bad Blood (Mauvais sang)
Léos Carax, France, 1987

Barfly
Barbet Schroeder, USA, 1987
Shown with Arena Brains,  Robert Longo, USA

The Belly of an Architect
Great Britain/Italy, 1987
Shown with Blinkity Blank, Norman McLaren, Canada
Also, Finger Wave, Gyula Nagy, Hungary

Babette’s Feast (Babette’s Gaestebud)
Gabriel Axel, Denmark, 1987
Shown with Fiddle De Dee, Norman McLaren, Canada

Anna
Yurek Bogayevicz, USA, 1986
Shown with When I Grow Too Old to Dream, Priscilla Olson, USA

Under Satan’s Sun (Sous le soleil de Satan)
Maurice Pialat, France, 1987
Shown with Stars and Stripes, Norman McLaren, Canada

Anita – Dances Of Vice (Anita – Tänze des lasters)
Rosa von Praunheim, West Germany, 1987
Shown with Imagine, Zbigniew Rybcyncki, USA
Also, Academy Leader Variations, USA/Switzerland/Poland/China

Chuck Berry Hail! Hail! Rock’n’Roll
USA, 1987

Mélo
Alain Resnais, France, 1986
Shown with Conrapuntus, Laura Companeitz, USA

Joan Of Arc at the Stake (Giovanna d’Arco al rogo)
Roberto Rossellini, Italy, 1954
Shown with The Human Voice, (La Voce Humana), Roberto Rossellini, Italy (NYFF Retrospective)

Horowitz Plays Mozart
Albert Maysles, Susan Froemke, and Charlotte Zwerin, USA, 1976
Shown with One Art, Anita Thacher, USA 
Also, Young at Heart, Sue Marx,Pat Conn, USA

Brightness (Yeelen)
Souleymane Cissé, Mali, 1987

My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend (L’ammi de mon amie)
Eric Rohmer, France, 1987
Shown with This Is Just to Say, Maureen Selwood, USA

Hope and Glory
John Boorman, Great Britain, 1987

Fire From The Mountain
Deborah Shaffer, USA, 1987
Shown with The Centerfielder, Ramiro Lacayo Deshon, Nicaragua

House Of Games
David Mamet, USA, 1987

Below is a list of the films that played alongside Bird at NYFF '88:

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios)
Pedro Almodóvar, Spain, 1988
Shown with Night of the Living Duck, Greg Ford, Terry Lennon, USA

Felix
Helma Sanders-Brahms, Helke Sander, Margarethe von Trotta and Christel Buschmann, West Germany, 1987
Shown with Chet’s Romance, Bertrand Fevre, France

Asya’s Happiness (Asino Shaste)
Andrei Konchalovsky, U.S.S.R., 1967

Mapantsula
Oliver Schmitz, South Africa, 1988
Shown with Utter, Henion Han, South Africa

High Hopes
Mike Leigh, Great Britain, 1988
Shown with Treacle, Peter Chelsom, Great Britain

La Maschera
Fiorella Infascelli, Italy, 1988
Shown with Sarah, Edgardo Cozarinsky, France

Bird
Clint Eastwood, USA, 1988
Shown with Koko, George Griffin, USA

The Man with Three Coffins (Nageuneneun Gilesoda Shujianneunda)
Lee Chang-Ho, South Korea, 1987
Shown with Souvenir, Adele Friedman, USA

The Last of England
Derek Jarman, Great Britain, 1987
Shown with Cause and Effect, John Sanborn, Mary Perillo, USA

Distant Voices, Still Lives
Terence Davies, Great Britain, 1988
Shown with The Short and the Curlies, Mike Leigh, Great Britain

Ashik Kerib
Sergei Paradjanov, U.S.S.R., 1988

Daughter of the Nile, (Nilouhe Nuer),
Hou Hsiao-hsien, Taiwan, 1987
Shown with Astronomy, Susan Rogers, USA

Pelle the Conquerer (Pelle Erobreren)
Bille August, Denmark, 1987
Shown with Junior, Gus van Sant, USA

Avant-Garde Voices
USA, 1986-88
I….Dreaming and Marilyn’s Window, Stan Brakhage. 
Lived in Quotes, Laurie Dunphy. 
Honor and Obey, Warren Sonbert. 
Fake Fruit Factory, Chick Strand. 

Opening Night
John Cassavetes, USA, 1978
Shown with Central Park in the Dark, Rudy Burckhardt, Christopher Sweet, USA

A Winter Tan
Jackie Burroughs, Louise Clark, John Frizzell, John Walker and Aerlyn Weissman, Canada, 1987
Shown with Ray’s Male Heterosexual Dance Hall, Bryan Gordon, USA

Jacob
Mircea Daneliuc, Rumania, 1988
Shown with The Zip, Joann Kaplan, Great Britain

36 Fillette
Catherine Breillat, France, 1988

Golub
Jerry Blumenthal and Gordon Quinn, USA, 1988
Shown with Falkenau, The Impossible (Samuel Fuller Bears Witness), Emil Weiss, France

Hard Times (Tempos Difticeis)
João Botelho, Portugal, 1988 
Shown with April 16th, David Byrne, USA

Hotel Terminus – The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie
Marcel Ophuls, USA, 1988

Salaam Bombay
Mira Nair, India, 1987

The Onset of an Unknown Age (Nachalo Nebedomogo Veka)
U.S.S.R., 1967
Part l: Angel, Andrei Smirnov
Part 2: Homeland of Electricity (Rodina Elektrichestva), Larissa Shepitko (NYFF Retrospective)

Red Sorghum (Hong Gao Liang)
Zhang Yimou, People’s Republic of China, 1987
Shown with Words, Chuck Workman, USA