The Tenant

Director: Roman Polanski

1976 / 126min / 35mm

Hell is other people—specifically, one’s neighbors—in Polanski’s aria of urban anomie and psychological persecution, starring the director himself as a Polish-born file clerk who takes over a Paris apartment following the suicide of its previous owner, only to find himself running a gauntlet of abuse provided by the building’s elderly residents, including landlord Melvyn Douglas, concierge Shelley Winters, and archly intolerant fellow tenant Jo Van Fleet. A chilly, claustrophobic nightmare of a film that presents Paris, shot by frequent Bergman cinematographer Sven Nykvist, as a bleak and barren purgatory.

Part of Also Starring... Jo Van Fleet