Doubt in 35mm

Director Cameron Crowe’s Oscar-winning original screenplay was inspired by his teenage years as a music journalist traveling with a rock band in 1973, with Patrick Fugit making his film debut as a young Crowe. The film received nominations for Joe Hutshing and Saar Klein’s film editing and the supporting performances of Kate Hudson as groupie Penny Lane and Frances McDormand as Fugit’s strong-willed mother. Philp Seymour Hoffman gives a witty performance as real-life rock journalist Lester Bangs.

Double Feature. In-person: John Ortiz, Gordy Hoffman, and Todd Louiso.

Dan Mahowny is a respected banker secretly embezzling a fortune from his employers to finance his gambling addiction in this gripping character study directed by Richard Kwietniowski (Love and Death on Long Island). The screenplay was based on Gary Stephen Ross’s nonfiction book Stung: The Incredible Obsession of Brian Molony. Ross was especially impressed by Philip Seymour Hoffman’s portrayal of the embezzler, telling his publisher: “Philip somehow managed to assimilate the psychic essence of Molony—a yawning emptiness that nothing except gambling was able to fill.”

Double Feature

The final feature directed by Oscar-winner Mike Nichols is a witty political docudrama about Texas congressman Charles Wilson’s attempts to fund Afghan rebels against their Soviet invaders in the 1980s. Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts brought the full wattage of their movie star charisma to their performances as Wilson and socialite Joanne Herring. Philip Seymour Hoffman earned the film’s only nomination for his hilariously volatile supporting performance as real-life CIA operative Gust Avrakotos. Oscar-winner Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network) adapted his script from the 2003 nonfiction book by George Crile.

In person: Spike Jonze

Paul Thomas Anderson’s ambitious and daring film tells the story of Freddie Quell, an emotionally troubled World War II veteran who falls under the spell of a religious leader, Lancaster Dodd, resulting in a strange dependency between the two men. With epic 70mm cinematography by Mihai Malamaire Jr., The Master is anchored by its vivid, Oscar-nominated lead performances—Joaquin Phoenix’s achingly vulnerable Freddie, Amy Adams’s strong-willed Peggy Dodd, and Philip Seymour Hoffman’s charismatic, complex Lancaster. The outstanding supporting cast includes Oscar winners Laura Dern and Rami Malek and Oscar nominee Jesse Plemons as Dodd’s son.

Philip Seymour Hoffman’s final lead role was in this smart, complex film adaptation of espionage master John le Carré’s 2008 bestseller, about a Chechen refugee in Germany who becomes the target of several countries’ intelligence forces. Director Anton Corbijn (Control) was especially impressed with Hoffman’s subtle, lived-in performance as a German spymaster, telling Esquire’s Simon Abrams, “Philip’s nuances, whether it’s his fingers or his face, are so beautiful for me to watch. I can get lost in them.”