Seniors Film Festival 2023

It's time for murder, mid-century style, as we shine a spotlight on films adapted from novelist Patricia Highsmith’s written word.

With a new, highly-anticipated Tom Ripley series coming to a streaming platform near you, there's no better time to reacquaint oneself with the dangerous and murderous world of American novelist Patricia Highsmith.

With a lifelong career dedicated to fiction writing, Highsmith's creative output has been undeniably tethered to cinema from the beginning. Her debut novel Strangers on a Train was swiftly adapted for the screen by Raymond Chandler, materialising as an Alfred Hitchcock-directed film noir a year later. On the flip side, her second novel, the landmark queer work The Price of Salt, would take over sixty years to arrive on screen as director Todd Haynes' Carol.

These works respectfully aside, it is the cultural cut-through of her murderous character Tom Ripley that best represents the lasting legacy of her work onscreen. The character has already been played by Matt Damon, John Malkovich, Alain Delon and Dennis Hopper. Andrew Scott (Fleabag, Spectre) will be the next in line to take the sociopathic baton and run with it.

Join us in the cinemas this October as we celebrate it all: the murders, the double-crosses, the glamour, and especially the grit.

– Reece Goodwin (Curator, Film & TV)