Positioning absurd Monty Python–esque sketches amid a post-apocalyptic landscape, The Bed Sitting Room was Lester’s greatest professional setback but now stands as perhaps his most audacious experiment.

A decade after George Roy Hill’s classic Western comedy Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Lester helmed this underrated prequel, which chronicles the wild youths and historic meeting of cinema’s most genial outlaws.

A classic love triangle in the Casablanca vein, Cuba charts the intersecting fortunes of a British mercenary (a magnetic Sean Connery), his old flame (Brooke Adams), and her husband (Chris Sarandon) as revolution ferments.

Tracing the second half of Alexandre Dumas’s novel, The Four Musketeers pits the quartet against the scheming Milady de Winter (Faye Dunaway). Michael York, Richard Chamberlain, Oliver Reed, and Frank Finlay remain unsurpassed as the chivalrous swordsmen—roles at one time earmarked for The Beatles!

Zero Mostel handpicked Lester to re-create his stage triumph, a frenetic farce set in ancient Rome, featuring a quorum of scene-stealers extraordinaire that includes the director’s idol, Buster Keaton, in a farewell turn.

Called “the Citizen Kane of jukebox musicals” by Andrew Sarris, The Beatles’ debut feature is madcap fun incarnate, integrating an array of techniques and indulging the Fab Four’s anarchic humor. Screening with: The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film (Richard Lester & Peter Sellers, 11m).

Rarely screened, this wacky, surreal vehicle for The Beatles draws inspiration from Lester’s background in advertising, with clever, colorful gags in rapid succession.

Lester’s first foray into social satire channels his early irreverence into a pointed critique of the British military mindset and class snobbery, featuring a can’t-miss turn by John Lennon as cynical Cockney gunner Gripweed.

A tighter and generally superior addition to the ’70s all-star disaster cycle, Juggernaut tracks the efforts of a bomb-defusing team and Scotland Yard to prevent the sinking of a luxury ocean liner. With Richard Harris, Anthony Hopkins, Omar Sharif, and Ian Holm.

An exuberant romp about a shy schoolteacher’s quest to learn how to score with women, The Knack… and How to Get It is a virtual panoply of Lester’s stylistic hallmarks that won him the Palme d’Or at Cannes. Featuring Michael Crawford, Ray Brooks, Rita Tushingham, and the screen debuts of Charlotte Rampling, Jacqueline Bisset, and Jane Birkin.

This stinging portrait of late-1960s America, where trends and mores change faster than people can adjust to them, marries Lester’s cinematic techniques with a study of discontent worthy of Antonioni, dazzlingly shot by Nicolas Roeg.

Returning to the well of inspiration, Lester picks up the legend of D’Artagnan and company two decades later as the Musketeers must surmount internal conflicts and the daughter of an old nemesis to save their beloved Queen. Not available on DVD! U.S. Premiere

Perhaps the richest of Lester’s revisionist fables, Robin and Marian mines the Robin Hood mythology for poignant reflections on the place of heroism in a pragmatic world. With Sean Connery in one of his most seasoned performances and Audrey Hepburn in her last great role.

A rakish soldier (Malcolm McDowell) is forced to impersonate a Danish prince and marry a duchess in the only adaptation to date of George MacDonald Fraser’s satiric Flashman novels.

Lester revived his reputation with this spirited hybrid of slapstick and satire, marked by rousing adventure, meticulous design, and an impeccable cast (including Charlton Heston, Faye Dunaway, Michael York, and Raquel Welch in the role of her career).