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"Rialto Pictures has enriched American film culture by both reviving a significant number of classic films not seen in theaters since their original runs and premiering extraordinary films never before distributed in America."
– The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Described as “the gold standard
of reissue distributors” by Los Angeles
Times/NPR film critic Kenneth Turan,
Rialto
Pictures was founded in 1997 by Bruce Goldstein.
A year later, Adrienne Halpern joined him as
partner. In 2002, Eric Di Bernardo became the
company’s National Sales Director.
Rialto’s past releases have included
Renoir’s Grand Illusion; Carol Reed’s The Third Man; Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria; Jules Dassin’s Rififi; De Sica’s Umberto D;
Godard’s Contempt, Band of Outsiders,
Masculine Feminine and A Woman is a Woman;
Julien Duvivier’s Pépé
le Moko; Buñuel’s Discreet
Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Diary of a Chambermaid,
The Phantom of Liberty, The Milky Way and That
Obscure Object of Desire; John Schlesinger’s Billy Liar; Clouzot’s Quai
des Orfèvres; Mike Nichols’
The Graduate; The Maysles’ Grey
Gardens; Mel Brooks’ The Producers;
Jacques Becker’s Touchez Pas Au
Grisbi; Bresson’s Au Hasard Balthazar;
Franju’s Eyes Without A Face;
and Jean-Pierre Melville’s Bob
le Flambeur and Le Cercle Rouge, the latter
released for the first time in its uncut European
version.
In 2002, the company released the critically-acclaimed
first-run film Murderous Maids,
the chilling true story of two homicidal sisters,
starring Sylvie Testud.
Rialto celebrated a record-breaking 2004 with the previously unreleased, original 1954
Japanese version of Ishiro Honda’s Godzilla;
and
Gillo Pontecorvo’s groundbreaking The
Battle of Algiers, which became one of
the year’s top-grossing foreign films.
In 2006, Rialto released Melville’s
1969 epic masterpiece Army of Shadows
for the very first time in the United States.
Army of Shadows became the most critically
acclaimed film of last year, topping many Ten
Best lists, including those in The New York
Times and Premiere, and was named
Best Foreign Film of 2006 by the New York Film
Critics Circle, in addition to receiving
special awards from both the Los Angeles
and National Society of Film Critics.
Rialto’s re-release of Alberto Lattuada’s Mafioso, a dark comedy from 1962 starring Alberto Sordi, was the unqualified highlight of the 2006 New York Film Festival.
2007 re-releases included Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Doulos, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo, and Jean-Jacques Beineix's "second wave" thriller Diva.
In 2008, the company had phenomenal success with Alain Resnais's 1962 arthouse classic Last Year at Marienbad. Rialto has also released Robert Hamer's rediscovered masterwork of "
Brit Noir," It Always Rains on Sunday, and undertook their second hugely successful reissue of Godard's Contempt. Another successful re-release was Max Ophüls' legendary film Lola Montès in
a definitive new 35mm restoration, which was showcased to enormous acclaim at the Cannes and Telluride Film Festivals and was the spotlight retrospective of the 2008 New York Film Festival.
Rialto's 2009 releases included the U.S. premiere of Godard's Made in U.S.A., the 40th anniversary re-release of Costa-Gavras' Academy Award-winning political thriller Z,
starring Yves Montand and Jean-Louis Trintignant, Jean-Pierre Melville's legendary wartime drama Léon Morin, Priest, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo, and John Boulting's Brighton Rock, a British Film Noir masterpiece
starring Richard Attenborough and based on the novel by Graham Greene.
Rialto began 2010 with the 25th anniversary release of Ran in celebration of Akira Kurosawa's centennial and followed it with the release of the 50th anniversary restoration of Godard's Breathless.
Breathless is the company's 50th release since its founding.
2011 releases included Bresson’s masterpiece Diary of a Country Priest, Cavalcanti’s Went the Day Well?, Martin Scorsese’s portrait of humorist Fran Lebowitz Public Speaking, and Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth, starring David Bowie.
Rialto’s 2012 line up includes The Graduate, the 75th anniversary restoration of Grand Illusion, The Battle of Algiers, Total Recall, Claude Sautet’s Max et les Ferrailleurs, the restoration of Marcel Carné’s Port of Shadows, Alexander Mackendrick’s The Man in the White Suit, and Sergio Corbucci’s Django.
For its 10th anniversary in 2007, Rialto’s was honored with a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Similar tributes were held at George Eastman House in Rochester, New York; the AFI Silver Theater in Washington, D.C.; and the SIFF Theater in Seattle;
and The Criterion Collection issued a special gift box set, 10 Years of Rialto Pictures, containing ten films displaying the breadth of Rialto’s collection. In May 2009, the San Francisco International Film Festival presented Goldstein with its prestigious Mel Novikoff Award.
The company’s 15th anniversary was celebrated this March by The Film Society of Lincoln Center with a series entitled “15 For 15: Celebrating Rialto Pictures”.
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