The Devils (1971) 4K Restoration
Director: Ken Russell Run Time: 112 min. Rating: NC-17 Release Year: 1971
Starring: Dudley Sutton, Gemma Jones, Max Adrian, Oliver Reed, Vanessa Redgrave
Country: United Kingdom
Language: English
About the film:
“by far the hottest and hardest ticket at this year’s Cannes… [The Devils] has become infamous, nearly a thing of myth among cinephiles”
—Chris O’Falt for IndieWire
An enduring masterpiece of cinema starring Academy Award-winner Vanessa Redgrave and Oliver Reed, The Devils is a prescient epic of obsession and corruption — and a defining work of art from seminal filmmaker Ken Russell. Based on historical events in seventeenth-century France, the film explores the mass hysteria, political manipulation, religious fanaticism, and sexual repression surrounding the supposed demonic possession of a group of Ursuline nuns.
At its original release, the film received an X rating for highly violent and sexual content and was censored for over half a century. This new 4K restoration was assembled from the original camera negative and presents Russell’s definitive vision by referencing an edit he privately constructed in 2004. The new restoration premiered at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival.
About the filmmaker:
Ken Russell was one of British cinema’s most provocative and visually audacious filmmakers. He is best known for directing the Academy Award-winning romantic drama Women in Love (1969), his most notorious and controversial work The Devils (1971), the award-winning Tommy (1975) based on the Who’s 1969 rock opera album, and the experimental surrealist sci-fi horror film Altered States (1980). Russell also directed a series of outrageous and inventive biographical films about classical composers, which includes Elgar (1962), Delius: Song of Summer (1968), The Music Lovers (1971), Mahler (1974) and Lisztomania (1975).
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