Red Riding: 1974

This entry in the ambitious, dark, and thrilling Red Riding film trilogy comes first chronologically in the three films based on the “Yorkshire Ripper,” a serial killer who terrorized northwest England in the 1970s and 1980s. The films’ intertwining storylines follow characters touched by the horror wrought by the Ripper.

Each of the three films tells a compelling stand-alone story but gains additional power when the trilogy is seen as a whole (it originally screened as a Channel 4 series in Britain). Red Riding: 1974 centers on a rookie journalist, Eddie Dunford (Andrew Garfield of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus), whose investigation of a series of child abductions and murders leads him to suspect that there’s a terrifying connection between the perpetrators and the upper echelons of Yorkshire power. Director Julian Jarrold also crafted the visually rich 2008 version of Brideshead Revisited and the story of the young Jane Austen in 2007’s Becoming Jane. Sean Bean (Lord of the Rings) and Rebecca Hall (Vicky Cristina Barcelona) are also in the stellar cast. (105 mins., 35mm)

One of the cinematic events of the year, the Red Riding trilogy offers a mesmerizing neo-noir epic based on actual events and adapted from an electrifying quartet of novels by David Peace. An official selection of the Telluride, New York, Chicago, and AFI Festivals, the trilogy has been acclaimed by critics as a remarkable accomplishment: David Thomson calls it “better than The Godfather.” According to the Hollywood Reporter, the films are “Riveting. A gripping display of modern noir at its finest.” Frieze notes that the trilogy is “Extraordinary. The most striking dramas of this decade.… Exceeds practically anything British cinema has achieved in the past 30 years.”

Don’t miss the other two films in the Red Riding trilogy, which are also playing this week only at Gateway Film Center. Red Riding: 1980 is directed by Oscar-winner James Marsh (Man on Wire) and features Paddy Considine (In America) and David Morrisey (the BBC series State of Play).

Anand Tucker (Hilary and Jackie, Shopgirl) directed Red Riding: 1983, which stars Peter Mullan (Trainspotting), playing a clergyman who has appeared throughout the trilogy, along with David Morrisey.

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Trilogy official trailer:


1974 trailer: