Hold everything. One of the most talked-about films in British cinema history is finally coming back, and you have exactly one week to catch it.
Warner Bros. Clockwork opens the definitive 4K restoration of Ken Russell’s The Devils in select North American theaters on October 16, 2026, for an exclusive one-week engagement. The film is an official selection in Cannes Classics at the 79th Cannes Film Festival, and this is billed as the first publicly released version as Russell intended it. Fifty-five years after its first release in 1971, the legend gets its proper premiere at last.
That wait is the whole story here. Most revivals feel like a nice bonus for fans. This one feels like a rescue mission completed in public, with a clock ticking from day one.
A 55-Year Wait Ends on October 16
Produced by Warner Bros. and first released in 1971, The Devils won Best Director honors for Russell at the 33rd Venice International Film Festival and from the US National Board of Review. The trophies were only the start. For decades the film has been championed by filmmakers and historians including Guillermo del Toro and Mark Kermode, with Kermode closely involved in its long road back to the screen.
Now that road ends in a cinema near you – if you move fast. One week is not a marketing tease. Repertory calendars for a title with this kind of following fill up quickly, and some venues are adding special 35mm screenings alongside the new 4K presentation. Booking ahead is not cautious. It is essential.
Fans of big comeback screen moments will get the rush. It is the same thrill we felt covering the Venice ovation for John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell and Parker Posey – a room full of people who know they are watching something they may not get to see this way again.
Reed and Redgrave, Larger Than Life
At the center are two performances people still talk about in hushed, excited tones. Oliver Reed plays Father Grandier with swagger, charm and real heart. He struts and preaches one minute, then lets the bravado slip to show something tender and human the next. It is Reed at full power, the kind of star turn you cannot fake and cannot forget.
Opposite him, Vanessa Redgrave is extraordinary as Sister Jeanne, the convent’s Mother Superior. Her work here has been praised for half a century for its longing and intensity, and on a big screen in 4K it lands with fresh force. Put Reed and Redgrave in the same frame and the film crackles.
The supporting company is pure class: Gemma Jones, Dudley Sutton, Max Adrian, Murray Melvin, Michael Gothard, Georgina Hale, Christopher Logue and Graham Armitage. Nobody phones it in. Everybody commits, which is exactly what a Russell film demands.
The story itself, in brief, comes from Aldous Huxley’s 1952 book The Devils of Loudun and John Whiting’s stage play. Set in the fortified French town of Loudun in the 1630s, it follows Grandier as accusation and power politics close in around him and figures linked to Cardinal Richelieu move to take control of his city. That is enough to know going in. The rest is scale, sound and sheer filmmaking nerve, best discovered in the dark with an audience.
The Craft That Still Looks Startling
Look past the stars and the craft team is a dream lineup. Cinematographer David Watkin, an Academy Award winner for Out of Africa and Chariots of Fire, lights the stone streets of Loudun with stark, sculpted clarity. Editor Michael Bradsell keeps a huge story moving with real rhythm. Peter Maxwell Davies composed and conducted the score, and Robert H. Solo produced alongside Russell.
And those towering white sets that still look startlingly modern? They marked the feature film debut of visual artist Derek Jarman as production designer. In 4K, Jarman’s designs do not just hold up. They look architectural, almost new.
That love of a bold visual world connects this revival to our recent coverage of Lily Sullivan stealing Huluween with a robot romance that breaks your heart – different era, different genre, same lesson: commit fully to the world on screen and audiences will follow you anywhere.
Inside the Restoration Everyone Waited For
Here is why this version matters so much. The 4K restoration was built from the film’s original camera negative at WB Water Tower Color, with sound restored from the original composite 35mm magnetic film at WB Sound. Reconstruction work was undertaken by Lucida Productions in London, assembling the cut Russell and Bradsell pieced together in 2004.
The finished version carries an NC-17 rating from the MPA – the first such rating in the studio’s long history. Read that as a badge of intent. Warner Bros. Clockwork has stood behind presenting the film whole, as its director shaped it, and the Cannes Classics slot confirms how seriously the film world is taking the result.
Warner Bros. Clockwork is releasing the film in theaters globally this fall, in partnership with the British Film Institute in the UK, with international dates to be announced. North America goes first on October 16. After that single week, there is no promise of when this cut will play this way again.
Why You Should Book Today
Three reasons, plain and simple. First, the performances: Reed and Redgrave at their peak, restored so every flicker of expression reads across a cinema. Second, the look: Watkin’s photography and Jarman’s sets were made for the largest screen you can find. Third, the moment itself: a film championed for 55 years by the likes of del Toro and Kermode, finally shown as intended, will draw crowds who have waited a lifetime for this week.
If you love a star-driven night out, pair your planning with our story on Parker Posey running the scariest sleepover in town and make October a proper movie month. Start with The Devils, though. It has waited long enough, and its week will not wait for anyone.
Verdict from this desk: run, do not walk. Grand, strange and completely absorbing, The Devils restored is essential viewing for anyone who loves cinema history with a pulse. Catch it from October 16, catch it big, and catch it before that one short week is gone.
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