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Film Forum will present a 36-film retrospective honoring filmmaker, historian, and preservationist Kevin Brownlow from October 24 to November 6 in New York.

The two-week series will feature works Brownlow directed, films he helped restore, and silent classics that influenced him. Highlights include the first New York screening since 1981 of Abel Gance’s 1927 epic Napoleon in its full 5½-hour version, Brownlow and Andrew Mollo’s WWII drama It Happened Here (1964), Winstanley (1975), and the documentary Unknown Chaplin (1983). Screenings of silent landmarks such as The Thief of Bagdad (1924), Intolerance (1916), Safety Last (1923), and The Phantom of the Opera (1925) will feature scores by the late composer Carl Davis, with select titles accompanied live on piano by Steve Sterner.

The retrospective will also include Victor Sjöström’s The Wind (1928) in a restored 35mm print, opening night introductions from filmmakers and authors including Diane Baker and Daniel Kehlmann, and a special daylong presentation of Napoleon.

Brownlow, who received an Academy Honorary Award in 2010 and TCM’s Robert Osborne Award in 2019, is recognized as one of the most influential voices in film history and preservation. His books, including The Parade’s Gone By, and documentaries such as Hollywood and Cinema Europe have been credited with reshaping the way silent cinema is viewed and valued.

Film Forum’s tribute is supported by the Robert Jolin Osborne Trust and the Ira M. Resnick Foundation.

Film Forum in New York will present Screen Deco, a festival showcasing more than 25 films from the 1920s and 1930s that exemplify the style later dubbed Art Deco. Running from September 8, 2025, through January 1, 2026, the series commemorates the 100th anniversary of the 1925 Exposition des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, which helped introduce the movement to the world.

Highlights include silent-era landmarks such as Our Dancing Daughters with Joan Crawford, A Woman of Affairs with Greta Garbo, Pandora’s Box with Louise Brooks, and the French production L’Inhumaine. Pre-Code features include Michael Curtiz’s Female, Edgar G. Ulmer’s The Black Cat with Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, William Wyler’s Counsellor at Law with John Barrymore, Ernst Lubitsch’s Trouble in Paradise, and Busby Berkeley’s Footlight Parade. Musicals such as Top Hat with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers also feature in the lineup.
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