The road of return is studded with adventure, discovery, and surprise in these tales of epic quests that draw on one of literature’s most enduring narrative archetypes: the journey back home. Whether traversing the hardscrabble highways of Depression-era America (SULLIVAN’S TRAVEL, O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?), the surreal labyrinth of New York City after dark (AFTER HOURS), or the elemental wilderness of the frontier (THE SEARCHERS, WALKABOUT), these by turns tragic, comic, mythic, and deeply personal tales of wanderers and seekers tap into the fundamental human yearning to find our way back to where we belong.

SULLIVAN’S TRAVELS (Preston Sturges, 1941)
THE SEARCHERS (John Ford, 1956)
WALKABOUT (Nicolas Roeg, 1971)
AFTER HOURS (Martin Scorsese, 1985)
THE STRAIGHT STORY (David Lynch, 1999)
O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? (Joel Coen, 2000)
THE DARJEELING LIMITED (Wes Anderson, 2007)

Coprogrammed by Sean Fennessey