One of the year’s most acclaimed and provocative films, Bertrand Bonello’s Nocturama doesn’t just confirm its director’s astonishing command of his medium and his willingness to take audacious risks to explore and understand our endlessly complicated present—it is also unmistakably the work of a consummate, learned cinephile. To lend cinematic context to Nocturama on the occasion of its current theatrical run at the Film Society, Bonello has selected an assortment of works that were on his mind while crafting his masterful new film. Including such titles as Howard Hawks’s Rio Bravo, Robert Bresson’s The Devil, Probably, John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13, and David Cronenberg’s The Brood, this series illuminates the rich lineages to which Nocturama belongs: metaphysical masterpieces, hangout films, politically charged genre pictures, works that induce chills and profound reflection in equal measure.

Listen to our discussion of Nocturama and Bonello’s influences, as well as a talk with the director, on The Close-Up: