Robert Bresson’s late masterwork THE DEVIL, PROBABLY (1977), a blistering indictment of post-May ‘68 France, will run in a new 4K restoration at Film Forum from Friday, September 20 through Thursday, September 26.

Constructed as a flashback and based off of a newspaper story, THE DEVIL, PROBABLY centers on four disaffected youth, disillusioned with the reality inflicted upon them by their elders, as they drift through Paris, politics, religion, and psychoanalysis, witnesses to a society in moral and physical decline. “I hate life. I hate death. My sickness is that I see things clearly,” confides student Antoine Monnier to his shrink – but, even as he promises marriage to his two girlfriends, he also arranges his own… suicide?

“Bresson’s chilling visions of daily life—includes a brilliant sequence aboard a bus that depicts the mechanical world as a horror—suggesting its hostility to the passions of youth… These children of the revolution tremble with uncertainty, and their loose gestures and shambling ways conflict with his precise images. Both the world and Bresson’s cinema are in disarray, and the signs of his inner conflict are deeply troubling and tremendously moving.” – Richard Brody, The New Yorker

Shot by Oscar-winning Italian cinematographer Pasqualino De Santis, who worked with Bresson (Lancelot du Lac, L’Argent), Visconti (L’Innocente, Death in Venice), De Sica (Amanti), and more, THE DEVIL PROBABLY is Bresson’s most controversial film (French under-18s weren’t allowed in). It caused a furor at the Berlin Film Festival where critic Derek Malcolm (“a masterpiece that history will vindicate”) and R.W. Fassbinder threatened to walk off the jury if their support wasn’t made public.

Bresson’s LANCELOT DU LAC (1974) will run in a new 4K restoration at Film Forum from Friday, September 27 through Thursday, October 3.