Cult 101: American Psycho (2000) 4K Restoration
Director: Mary Harron Run Time: 102 min. Release Year: 2000
Starring: Christian Bale, Jared Leto, Josh Lucas, Samantha Mathis, Willem Dafoe
Country: United States, Canada
Language: English
Cult 101 at Gateway Film Center
A celebration of the best cult films of all time.
See more Cult 101About the film:
Premiere at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival
In New York City in 1987, a handsome, young urban professional, Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale), lives a second life as a gruesome serial killer by night. The cast is filled by the detective (Willem Dafoe), the fiance (Reese Witherspoon), the mistress (Samantha Mathis), the coworker (Jared Leto), and the secretary (Chloë Sevigny). This is a biting, wry comedy examining the elements that make a man a monster.
“The movie has the feverish intensity of a bad dream, leavened with a subversive sense of humor that is both sophisticated and cracked.”
—Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald
About the filmmaker:
Mary Harron is a Canadian film director and screenwriter known for her explorations of darker themes and controversial issues. Her films have been selected at top festivals around the world, including Cannes, Sundance, Toronto, Berlin, and Venice. Her directorial debut I Shot Andy Warhol (1996) earned her an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best First Feature. She followed up with violent cult classic American Psycho (2000), pinup model biographical drama The Notorious Bettie Page (2005), gothic horror The Moth Diaries (2011), the Manson Family cult drama Charlie Says (2018), and, most recently, Dalíland (2023).
Her work in television includes directing the miniseries Alias Grace (2017), written by Sarah Polley from the novel by Margaret Atwood, and The Expecting (2020), created and written by Ben Ketai. Harron also directed episodes of acclaimed series such as The Following (2015), Graceland (2015), Constantine (2015), Big Love (2006), Six Feet Under (2005), and The L Word (2004), among others. Before she went into filmmaking, Harron wrote for Punk magazine and worked as a producer for the PBS series Edge (1991).
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