2 for the Show

Celebrating adaptation is at the heart of the Refocus Film Festival in Iowa City. But this year, another unifying theme emerged: art as a form of revolution. From regional premieres to newly restored classics, the four-day festival featured many movies that inspired conversation around social change.

When Robert Redford visited Iowa City for the 1976 Refocus Festival at the University of Iowa, he made quite the impression on one student, who had the honor of hosting him for dinner. Decades later, and a month after his death, she remembers what it was like to sit across the table from the Hollywood star.

Director Paul Thomas Anderson delivers a timely and timeless masterpiece with One Battle After Another, a new political thriller starring Leonardo DiCaprio and based on the Thomas Pynchon novel Vineland.

From his golden hair and blue eyes to his striking smile and charming nature, actor Robert Redford was a Hollywood heartthrob. He was also an award-winning director, a producer, an industry leader and a political activist. Although his career and life have come to a close, he left us with decades of great films to revisit and discover. If you haven’t had the chance to fall in love with Redford yet, here’s where to start.

Iconic filmmaker Spike Lee injects plenty of New York City attitude — and a bit of elder statesman wisdom — in Highest 2 Lowest, his exhilarating remake of the classic Japanese film High and Low.

After probing the dark depths of the human psyche in films like The Wrestler and Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky shows us a different side — a fun side — in the new crime thriller Caught Stealing.

On a summer night in 1955, one of the most acclaimed films of all time made its world premiere in Des Moines. It was one of the most monumental film events in the city’s history, and yet today that first screening of The Night of the Hunter remains largely overlooked. The Varsity Cinema is looking to fix that by screening the movie for its 70th anniversary.

As Darren Aronofsky's new crime thriller Caught Stealing opens in theaters this weekend, we're taking a look back at the director's previous film — a deeply moving chamber drama written by an Iowa Playwright Workshop alum.

Iowa City's fourth annual Refocus Film Festival will open with Train Dreams, directed by the Academy Award-nominated writer Clint Bentley. Following in the festival's theme of adaptation, the film is based on the award-winning novella of the same name, written by Iowa Writers' Workshop alumnus Denis Johnson.

Ethan Coen's latest solo directorial outing, Honey Don’t!, is a sexy, breezy and often hilarious neo-noir starring Margaret Qualley. Co-written with Coen's wife Tricia Cooke, the film is the second in what the pair describe as a “lesbian B-movie trilogy.”