Thelma & Louise

New 35mm print!

Having begun his career by making a woman the central figure of a science-fiction action movie (Alien), Ridley Scott cemented his feminist credentials with this bracingly smart, funny and touching portrait of female friendship and solidarity. When put-upon housewife Thelma (Geena Davis) and her waitress gal-pal Louise (Susan Sarandon) set off on a weekend getaway in the latter’s 1966 Ford T-bird, a drunken altercation in the parking lot of a seedy cowboy bar turns these vacationers into fugitives from justice. Soon, they’re blazing a trail across Monument Valley with befuddled boyfriends, FBI agents, a surprisingly sympathetic detective (Harvey Keitel) and Brad Pitt’s six-pack in pursuit, moving ever further away from their humdrum lives and towards an existential void as wide as…well, the Grand Canyon. A mid-career triumph for Scott, Thelma & Louise won a Best Original Screenplay for Callie Khouri’s script and five additional nominations including Best Director, Actress (for Davis and Sarandon) and cinematography (by the late, great Adrian Biddle).

“It reveals the previously untapped talent of Mr. Scott for exuberant comedy, and for vibrant American imagery, notwithstanding his English roots. It reimagines the buddy film with such freshness and vigor that the genre seems positively new. It discovers unexpected resources in both its stars, Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis, who are perfectly teamed as the spirited and original title characters.” 
 —Janet Maslin, The New York Times

“[Ridley Scott’s] best picture since Blade Runner, and Sarandon and Davis bring a lot of unpredictable verve and nuance to their parts. Classic genre movies are a scarce commodity nowadays, and this gutsy crime thriller and female buddy movie qualifies in spades.”
 —Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader