“The gold standard of reissue distributors” — Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
"Rialto has made—and continues to make—a tremendous contribution to film culture in the United States." — David Schwartz, Chief Curator, Museum of the Moving Image, New York
Rialto was founded in 1997 by Bruce Goldstein, who was joined a year later by partner Adrienne Halpern. In 2002, Eric Di Bernardo became the company’s National Sales Director.
Rialto’s past releases include Renoir’s Grand Illusion; Carol Reed’s The Third Man; Fellini's Nights of Cabiria (for the first time in its "director's cut"); Jules Dassin's Rififi; Godard’s Breathless, Contempt, Band of Outsiders, Masculine Feminine, Le Petit Soldat, Alphaville, and the U.S. premiere of Made in U.S.A.; Joseph Losey's critically acclaimed Mr. Klein; Kurosawa’s Ran; Buñuel’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie; Jacques Becker’s Touchez pas au Grisbi; Bresson’s Au Hasard Balthazar and Diary of a Country Priest; Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad and Hiroshima Mon Amour; Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers; Clouzot's Quai des Orfèvres and Le Corbeau; the U.S. premiere of the original, uncut Japanese version of Godzilla; the U.S. premiere of the complete, uncut version of Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Cercle Rouge; the U.S. premiere of Melville’s Army of Shadows, which became the most critically-acclaimed film of 2006; the U.S. premiere of Claude Sautet's Max et les Ferrailleurs; and the U.S. premiere of the complete, uncut version of Francesco Rosi's Christ Stopped at Eboli.
Breathless
Recent releases include new 4K restorations of Jacques Deray's La Piscine; The White Sheik and Nights of Cabiria for the Fellini centennial; the Ealing classics The Ladykillers and Kind Hearts and Coronets; Melville's Le Cercle Rouge; Joe Dante's The Howling; and Godard's Breathless, restored for its 60th anniversary.
In 1999, Rialto received a special Heritage Award from the National Society of Film Critics, and in 2000 a special award from the New York Film Critics Circle, presented to Goldstein and Halpern by Jeanne Moreau. The two co-presidents have each received the French Order of Chevalier of Arts and Letters.
Most recently, Rialto recieved the 2019 Film Heritage Award from the National Society of Film Critics "for distributing 4K restorations of beloved classics like Kind Hearts and Coronets and for presenting neglected work by international masters, such as Fellini's The White Sheik, and, for the first time, the uncut version of Rosi's Christ Stopped at Eboli, with restored prints and upgraded subtitles."
The Graduate
In 2013, Goldstein became the first person to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award for Film from George Eastman House. He has also received career awards from Anthology Film Archive and the San Francisco Film Festival (Mel Novikoff Award).
Goldstein and Halpern take an active part in the subtitling of Rialto's foreign language films, working alongside such collaborators as Lenny Borger, Jerry Rudes, and Michael F. Moore. Goldstein has lectured on "The Art of Subtitling" and created a 20-minute film on the subject for the Criterion/Rialto blu-ray release of Panique.
For its 10th anniversary in 2007, Rialto was honored with a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Arts in New York, and similar tributes were held at George Eastman House in Rochester, the AFI Silver Theater in Washington, and the SIFF Theater in Seattle. The Criterion Collection also issued a special gift box set. Rialto's 15th anniversary was observed in 2012 with a Film Society of Lincoln Center series entitled "15 For 15: Celebrating Rialto Pictures." Rialto celebrated its 20th anniversary at the Museum of the Moving Image and the American Cinematheque with a selection of its reissues.
Since 2012, Rialto has been the main U.S. theatrical and non-theatrical representative of the Studiocanal library of 6,500 international titles, one of the world's most important film catalogues.
Bruce Goldstein is the founder of Rialto Pictures. Among his many awards are those from the New York Film Critics Circle, National Board of Review, San Francisco Film Festival, the French government (Order of “Chevalier”), and the first Lifetime Achievement Award in Film ever given by George Eastman House.
Adrienne became Co-President of Rialto Pictures in 1998 after a career as an entertainment lawyer, first at ICM and then as Senior Counsel at Loeb and Loeb, where she represented producers, distributors, talent, and lenders and was Secretary of The Cousteau Society. She graduated from Yale College and NYU School of Law. She is a Trustee of FACE Foundation, supporting French-American Cultural Exchange, and has received the French Order of Chevalier of Arts and Letters.
Eric joined Rialto in 2002. He previously worked for Paramount Pictures and Orion Pictures and was involved in the release of eight Best Picture Academy Award winners. He has the distinction of distributing both the original Breathless (50th anniversary) and its 1983 remake.
Dave joined Rialto Pictures in 2012. He received his B.A. in Cinema & Media Studies from the University of Chicago and his M.A. in Cinema Studies from New York University. Dave's previous work in the film industry includes positions at Sony Pictures Classics, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and the Museum of the Moving Image.
