Tessa Thompson’s Adventures in Moviegoing

Tessa Thompson’s Adventures in Moviegoing

14 Episodes

Anchoring both high-profile blockbusters like the CREED and THOR franchises and acclaimed, adventurous indies like SORRY TO BOTHER YOU and PASSING, actor and producer Tessa Thompson has emerged as one of the most intriguing and versatile performers of her generation. In this edition of Adventures in Moviegoing, Thompson sits down with Criterion curatorial director Ashley Clark to discuss acting legends like Angela Bassett and Al Pacino, as well as the films that have had a lasting impact on her understanding of the art. Encompassing the ravishing bossa nova beauty of Marcel Camus’s BLACK ORPHEUS, the wildly unrestrained sensuality of Jean-Jacques Beineix’s BETTY BLUE, and the jagged surrealist comedy of Janicza Bravo’s LEMON, her selections offer a menu of bold, transportive, and immersive moviegoing experiences.

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Tessa Thompson’s Adventures in Moviegoing
  • Tessa Thompson’s Adventures in Moviegoing Teaser

    Episode 1

  • Tessa Thompson in Conversation

    Episode 2

  • Tessa Thompson on BLACK ORPHEUS

    Episode 3

  • Black Orpheus

    Episode 4

    Directed by Marcel Camus • 1959 • Brazil, France
    Starring Breno Mello, Marpessa Dawn, Lourdes de Oliveira

    Winner of both the Academy Award for best foreign-language film and the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or, Marcel Camus’ BLACK ORPHEUS (ORFEU NEGRO) brings the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus ...

  • Tessa Thompson on CLÉO FROM 5 TO 7

    Episode 5

  • Cléo from 5 to 7

    Episode 6

    Directed by Agnès Varda • 1962 • France
    Starring Corinne Marchand, Antoine Bourseiller, Dominique Davray

    Agnès Varda eloquently captures Paris in the sixties with this real-time portrait of a singer (Corinne Marchand) set adrift in the city as she awaits test results of a biopsy. A chronicle of ...

  • Tessa Thompson on BLACK GIRL

    Episode 7

  • Black Girl

    Episode 8

    Directed by Ousmane Sembène • 1966 • Senegal
    Starring M’Bissine Thérèse Diop

    Ousmane Sembène was one of the greatest and most groundbreaking filmmakers who ever lived, as well as the most renowned African director of the twentieth century—and yet his name still deserves to be better known in ...

  • Tessa Thompson on TOUKI BOUKI

    Episode 9

  • Touki bouki

    Episode 10

    Directed by Djibril Diop Mambéty • 1973 • Senegal

    With a stunning mix of the surreal and the naturalistic, Djibril Diop Mambéty paints a vivid, fractured portrait of Senegal in the early 1970s. In this French New Wave-influenced fantasy-drama, two young lovers long to leave Dakar for the glamour...

  • Tessa Thompson on TAMPOPO

    Episode 11

  • Tampopo

    Episode 12

    Directed by Juzo Itami • 1985 • Japan

    The tale of an eccentric band of culinary ronin who guide the widow of a noodle-shop owner on her quest for the perfect recipe, this rapturous "ramen western" by Japanese director Juzo Itami is an entertaining, genre-bending adventure underpinned by a deft...

  • Tessa Thompson on BETTY BLUE

    Episode 13

  • Betty Blue

    Episode 14

    Directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix • 1986 • France
    Starring Jean-Hugues Anglade, Béatrice Dalle, Gérard Darmon

    When the easygoing would-be novelist Zorg (Jean-Hugues Anglade) meets the tempestuous Betty (Béatrice Dalle, in a magnetic breakout performance) in a sunbaked French beach town, it’s the ...