Film Forum

U.K, 1960
Directed by Michael Powell
Starring Carl Boehm, Anna Massey, Moira Shearer
Approx. 101 min. DCP.

Shy movie studio hand Carl Boehm moonlights as a photographer of scantily clad women, while obsessively working on his own perverse movie with the world’s most lethal tripod. An uncharacteristic thriller-slash-horror movie by the co-director of THE RED SHOES (whose prima ballerina, Moira Shearer, is featured here) that was critically savaged on first release, effectively ending Powell’s career. Today it’s relished by cinephiles for its unsettling mayhem, blackly playful variations on “seeing” and identity, jangling piano-and-bongo score, and garish color design. “A consciously nightmarish inspiration for a new generation of American filmmakers.” – Andrew Sarris “[A] film of many layers and masks… creates a magic space for its fiction somewhere between the camera’s lens and the projector’s beam of light.” – Laura Mulvey

Read about the new restoration of PEEPING TOM

Restored by The Film Foundation and BFI National Archive in association with STUDIOCANAL.

Funding provided by The Film Foundation. Special thanks to Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker for their consultation.

A RIALTO PICTURES RELEASE

Reviews

“POWELL’S MASTERPIECE… A SEDUCTIVE, BRIGHTLY COLORED THRILLER ABOUT THE SUB-ROSA FASCINATION OF THE CINEMA.”
– Dave Kehr

 “PEEPING TOM AND 8 1/2 SAY EVERYTHING THAT CAN BE SAID ABOUT FILMMAKING.”
– Martin Scorsese