Misery has always loved company, but it took the brilliant programmers at the American Cinematheque to turn communal wallowing at the movies into an annual must-see event. Now in its fifth year, Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair returns to Los Angeles from June 1 to 7 with another eclectic summer lineup that lets film fans treat bad vibes on the big screen like a refreshing dip in their local pool.
Across the Egyptian Theatre, Aero Theatre, and Los Feliz 3, more than 45 films will explore the universal themes of human suffering and existential dread in the latest edition of the event in its flagship city. Since launching in Los Angeles in 2021, Bleak Week has consistently supported the notion that well-rendered, artistic tales of devastation play best to rooms full of people who are already primed for heartbreak.
“We were reopening theaters here after the pandemic and getting a lot of comments like, ‘Show comedies! Uplift the community!’” said Chris LeMaire, Bleak Week creator and the Cinematheque’s director of programming. “But instead, we thought, ‘What if we did the exact opposite and faced it all head-on — with even more despair?’”
That surprise pivot birthed a bizarre viewing ritual that, ironically, now relies on drawing an enthusiastic crowd, one that continues to fuel the festival’s rapidly growing global reach. What began as a niche repertory experiment now spans nearly 100 theaters across 73 cities and eight countries, suggesting the Cinematheque’s gleefully nihilistic concept has tapped into a seriously underfed audience.
“I think it’s comforting to not pacify ourselves with exclusively feel-good art,” said LeMaire. “There’s something quite powerful about seeing challenging works on the big screen with an audience. I wouldn’t recommend doing a week of watching these films at home.”
Even as Bleak Week expands, Hollywood remains the festival’s main stage, and this year’s festivities in Los Angeles are stacked. French icon Isabelle Huppert headlines as the festival’s guest of honor with multiple appearances — including at Michael Haneke’s “The Piano Teacher” and Michael Cimino’s “Heaven’s Gate.” The actress will also be at a Claude Chabrol double feature, showing “Violette Nozière” and “La Cérémonie,” as well as a 10th anniversary screening of Paul Verhoeven’s “Elle.”
A nightmare blunt rotation — in the most complimentary sense — the rest of Bleak Week’s guest roster in Los Angeles doesn’t lighten the mood much. Genre revolutionary Ari Aster will present “Hereditary,” his cut of “Midsommar,” and “Beau Is Afraid.” Denis Villeneuve will also appear for “Incendies,” and Werner Herzog presents “Heart of Glass” for its 50th anniversary. Plus, Haley Joel Osment is set to attend the 25th anniversary screening of “A.I. Artificial Intelligence,” from Steven Spielberg.
Then there are the restorations, a major throughline for Bleak Week’s core philosophy this year. Gregg Araki’s “Mysterious Skin” has a new restoration and showcase with the filmmaker present. The Aero will also host the world premiere of a new restoration of “The Man Who Wasn’t There” with cinematographer Roger Deakins and his collaborator James Ellis Deakins. The Los Feliz 3 will screen the U.S. premiere of a brand-new 4K restoration of “Threads” with director Mick Jackson.
Feel unsettled? That mix of prestige, punishment, and unpredictability is exactly the point of Bleak Week. “We pick films from all over the world, all different genres,” said LeMaire. “It’s not just for one specific type of cinephile. Sometimes it’s horror films, sometimes it’s art films, sometimes it’s comedies.”
Rather than focusing on a single area of expertise, Bleak Week anchors itself in a refusal to smooth over the universal experience of feeling, well, shitty. The grinding torment of perpetual, unspoken stress is baked into every corner of the festival’s lineup in 2026, and nowhere is that better crystallized than in 1985’s “Come and See,” a recurring selection that has quietly become the program’s emotional North Star.
“I came out of the theater with an audience of 500 people and no one was saying a single word,” LeMaire remembered of first seeing Elem Klimov’s brutal anti-war film. “It was that devastating. We need a good dosage of really bleak films that people experience at least once in their lives.”
That sense of total annihilation is exactly what keeps the program’s diehard fans showing up. More than 10,000 attendees packed Bleak Week screenings in Los Angeles last year — a number that speaks less to any individual title’s endurance than to the film world’s curiosity. In an era of algorithmic online recommendations, Bleak Week asks audiences to trust there’s room for even painful discovery.
International selections, curated in partnership with programmers across Chile, Mexico, Argentina, and Uruguay, are part of a broader expansion that has helped further clarify the festival’s tone. “We basically gave them the theme and then had them interpret it, individually,” LeMaire explained. “To see everybody’s approach, that’s when you realize, we could do this forever.”
Find the full Los Angeles programming lineup for Bleak Week Year 5 below.
THE PIANO TEACHER (2001, Dir. Michael Haneke, Janus Films) — 25th Anniversary
HEAVEN’S GATE on 35mm(1980, Dir. Michael Cimino, Park Circus)
A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE in 35mm(2001, Dir. Steven Spielberg, Park Circus) — 25th Anniversary
INCENDIES(2010, Dir. Denis Villeneuve, Sony Pictures Classics)
HEART OF GLASS(1976, Dir. Werner Herzog, AGFA) — 50th Anniversary
MIDSOMMAR – The Director’s Cut(2019, Dir. Ari Aster, A24)
MYSTERIOUS SKIN(2004, Dir. Gregg Araki, Strand Releasing)
MOTHER JOAN OF THE ANGELS on Nitrate (1961, Dir. Jerry Kawalerowicz)— 65th Anniversary
THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE (2001, Dir. Joel Coen, Universal) — 25th Anniversary
LA CÉRÉMONIE / VIOLETTE NOZIÈRE(1995 / 1978, Dir. Claude Chabrol, Janus Films / Film Movement)
ELLE(2016, Dir. Paul Verhoeven, Sony Pictures Classics) — 10th Anniversary
SWEET COUNTRY(2017, Dir. Warwick Thornton, Samuel Goldwyn Films)
BUSTER AND BILLIE(1974, Dir. Daniel Petrie)
BAD TIMING(1980, Dir. Nicolas Roeg, AGFA)
BOY(1969, Dir. Nagisa Oshima, Janus Films)
COME AND SEE(1985, Dir. Elem Kimov, Janus Films)
THE PLAGUE DOGS (1982, Dir. Martin Rosen, AGFA)
SÁTÁNTANGÓ (1994, Dir. Béla Tarr, Arbelos) — “Bleak Week Salutes Béla Tarr”
TIME OF THE WOLF(2003, Dir. Michael Haneke, Strand Releasing)
CASTRATION MOVIE CHAPTER iii: Junior Ghosts—Premorphic Drift; a fragmentary passage(2026, Dir. Louise Weard, Muscle Distribution)
BEAU IS AFRAID(2023, Dir. Ari Aster, A24)
DEAD PRESIDENTS on 35mm(1995, Dirs. Albert Hughes and Allen Hughes, Disney)
SAMSON AND DELILAH(2009, Dir. Warwick Thornton, Samuel Goldwyn Films)
THE NEW BOY(2023, Dir. Warwick Thornton)
SPIDER(2002, Dir. David Cronenberg, Sony Pictures Classics)
THE PIANO(1993, Dir. Jane Campion, Sony Pictures Classics)
FEAR STRIKES OUT(1957, Dir. Robert Mulligan, Paramount)
THE SERPENT’S WAY(1986, Dir. Bo Widerberg, Janus Films) — 40th Anniversary
THE HUNT(1966, Dir. Carlos Saura, Janus Films)
WHISKY(2004, Dirs. Juan Pablo Rebella and Pablo Stoll.)
EL CHACAL DE NAHUELTORO(1969, Dir. Miguel Littín, ???)
PALO Y HUESO(1968, Dir. Nicolás Sarquís)
DEAD MAN’S LETTERS(1986, Dir. Konstantin Lopushansky) — 40th Anniversary
THE DEVIL, PROBABLY on 35mm(1977, Dir. Robert Bresson, The Film Desk)
FIVE STAR FINAL on 35mm(1931, Dir. Mervyn LeRoy, Park Circus WB) — 95th Anniversary
CRISS CROSS(1949, Dir. Robert Siodmak, Universal Pictures)
SHAME(1968, Dir. Ingmar Bergman, Janus Films)
MISUNDERSTOOD(1966, Dir. Luigi Comencini, AGFA) — 60th Anniversary
Source: indiewire.com