Forest Whitaker hasn’t played too many lead roles in his career, but when he does — as in Clint Eastwood’s Bird, for example — he absolutely holds the screen in the palm of his hand. Jim Jarmusch wrote Ghost Dog with the actor in mind, and exploring interests like Asian philosophy, samurai culture, hiphop, post bop jazz and the decline of the mafia crime families in New York City — “but always with Forest at the centre.” Ghost Dog is a professional assassin for the mob, but he’s also an existential loner who adheres to his personal code (like Alain Delon in Melville’s film Le Samourai). And he’s a bit of an intellectual. Someone engaged by art and ideas. Despite the thriller trappings, this is really a lampoon of that genre, and a melancholy reverie for the cultural melting pot that we call home.
Ghost Dog has retained all of the cool, the quirk, the profundity it captured in a bottle in 1999…
Ed Travis, Cinapse
Less a pastiche than a mastermix from a cinematic DJ at the height of his formalist powers.
Glenn Kenny, Premiere
Media Partner
Jim Jarmusch
Forest Whitaker, John Tormey, Cliff Gorman, Henry Silva, Victor Argo
USA
1999
In English and French with English subtitles
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Producer
Richard Guay, Jim Jarmusch
Screenwriter
Jim Jarmusch
Cinematography
Robby Müller
Editor
Jay Rabinowitz
Original Music
RZA
Production Design
Ted Berner
90s, Baby!
Ten years. 11 weeks. 90 films from the 1990s. This summer, 90’s Baby! takes a deep dive into a defining decade of cinema.
Lessons of Darkness
Werner Herzog's unforgettable documentary reveals the unfolding disaster of the Kuwaitian oil fields in flames in 1991 as a sweeping inferno of mesmerizing power.
Beau Travail
Inspired by Herman Melville's Billy Budd, Claire Denis' transfixing Beau Travail is set in East Africa. Sgt Galoup (Denis Lavant) reflects on his time in the French Foreign Legion, and the impact of the handsome Sentain (Gregoire Colin).
Three Kings
George Clooney headlines David O Russell's bold, brazen attempt to get to grips with the immediate aftermath of Operation Desert Storm, as 4 US soldiers try to liberate a missing shipment of gold amidst the chaos and carnage.
But I'm a Cheerleader
Megan (Natasha Lyonne) is the perfect All-American Girl, or so she thinks. That is until she’s shipped off to conversion therapy. This pitch black comedy is wrapped in a saccharine bow, featuring the icon herself, RuPaul, as a conversion counsellor.
Magnolia
This deeply personal 1999 California opus is ripe for rediscovery. Mapping the emotional traumas of half-a-dozen major characters as they crisscross the San Fernando Valley in search of either recognition or reconciliation, it's PTA's riskiest gamble.
Election
Tracy Flick (Reece Witherspoon) is running for Student President, but Mr. McAllister (Matthew Broderick) has other ideas... This remarkably sour millennial comedy from Alexander Payne (The Holdovers; Sideways; The Descendents) hits twice as hard today.
Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai
Ghost Dog (Forest Whitaker) is an assassin, but he's also an existential loner who adheres to his personal code. Despite the thriller trappings, this is really a lampoon of that genre, and a melancholy reverie for the cultural melting pot we call home.
The Straight Story
David Lynch goes a different direction in this linear Midwestern about a septuagenarian (Richard Farnsworth) who drives nearly 400km on a lawnmower to visit his ailing brother (Harry Dean Stanton).
90s Surprise Film
The 90s movie we have all been missing... Join us for a celebratory wake for this year's 90s, Baby series! What you will be seeing is top secret (no, not Top Secret!, that was 1984) but it will be at least 26 years old and it will be new to this series.
The Wind Will Carry Us
Kiarostami's dry comic masterpiece follows a Tehrani film team's thwarted attempts to document a traditional Kurdish funeral... Trouble being, there's no one to bury, and, worse, virtually no cell service...
Fight Club
1999 was a very good year for movies, but nothing captured millennial angst quite so vividly as David Fincher's bruising black comedy about what it means to be a man today. This modern classic does everything short of rattling your seat to get a reaction.