Martin Ritt
Retrospective event of the Lumière film festival 11-19 October 2025 in Lyon
After Hal Ashby, Fred Zinnemann and Sidney Lumet, the Lumière film festival continues its exploration of socially-engaged American auteur cinema. In 2025, we shine the spotlight on Martin Ritt, the director of Norma Rae and Hud.
Martin Ritt with Sally Field filming Norma Rae, 1979
From edition to edition, the Lumière film festival has taken us on a grand journey through American cinema history by highlighting major filmmakers, including those somewhat forgotten, such as Hal Ashby, Joan Micklin Silver and Sidney Lumet in 2022, or Fred Zinnemann in 2024. These retrospectives are the fruit of a collaborative endeavour between the Lumière film festival, the studios, distributors and rights holders. They enable the creation of new material, facilitating both the screening of works and the rediscovery of their auteurs.
A committed American director from the 1960s through the 1980s, Martin Ritt (1914-1990) created a rich, powerful and socially-conscious œuvre in an America undergoing profound change. His most renowned film, Norma Rae, the portrait of an American trade unionist, resulted in a Best-Actress Oscar for Sally Field.
During Ritt’s career, he worked with the likes of Barbra Streisand, Paul Newman, Sidney Poitier, Orson Welles, Sean Connery, John Cassavetes, Woody Allen, Richard Dreyfuss, Jane Fonda and Robert De Niro... addressing themes ranging from social status and trade union struggles to McCarthyism and racial injustice.
This October in Lyon, the Lumière film festival will present this first retrospective of the filmmaker's œuvre, featuring 14 films, most of which are rarities and have long been absent from the screen.
Rare films whose prints were made especially for the Lumière film festival
Edge of the City (1957)
No Down Payment (1957)
The Long, Hot Summer (1958)
Paris Blues (1961)
Hud (1963)
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965)
Hombre (1967)
The Molly Maguires (1970)
The Front (1976)
Norma Rae (1979)
Cross Creek (1983)
Murphy's Romance (1985)
Nuts (1987)
Stanley & Iris (1990)
A considerable effort was made by the festival to bring this retrospective to fruition. With the exception of one work by the director, none of the above films were available in DCP format (currently used to screen films in theatres) in its original version with French subtitles. As the majority of Ritt's films were created within the Hollywood movie industry, the trust and special bonds Lumière has forged with the American studios (Paramount, Sony/Columbia, The Walt Disney Company, MGM, Warner, and their representative Park Circus - all now well-acquainted with the festival), have proved invaluable in the creation of material subtitled in French, which will be presented in exclusivity at the festival.
Our thanks to Amazon MGM Studios, Cinémathèque Française, Forum des Images, Paramount, Park Circus, Sony Pictures, Studiocanal, Swashbuckler Films, Tamasa, The Walt Disney Company France, Warner Bros.
