THE DRIVERS ON FIRE : THE GREAT MOVIE NIGHT

Fabulous all-night screening with breakfast included. The Driver (Walter Hill, 1978), Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011) and Baby Driver (Edgar Wright, 2017): three existentialist neo-noir cult thrillers that take place in cars. In the presence of Walter Hill, with a few surprises thrown in for good measure.

10:30 P.M. | The Driver: Walter Hill - 1978 - 91 minutes - United States
For shaking off the police in Los Angeles’s serpentine freeway network, The Driver (Ryan O’Neal) is the best in the business, and all the stick-up men know it. Things get complicated when The Detective (Bruce Dern), obsessively on his trail, tries to bribe The Player (Isabelle Adjani) to say she saw him at a casino. Against a gritty urban backdrop populated by archetypal heroes, Walter Hill reinvents the film noir by elevating it to classical tragedy. Violent, existentialist and romantic, it’s one of the ultimate ’70s movies, where virtuoso direction meets spectacular car chases.

01:00 A.M. | Drive: Nicolas Winding Refn - 2010 - 100 minutes - United States
The double life of a mysterious driver (Ryan Gosling), mechanic and stuntman by day, getaway man for the mob by night, takes an unexpected turn when he clicks with his neighbour (Carey Mulligan). Through the blank features of his actor, Winding Refn revives the wordless man-with-no-name that haunts American cinema and gleefully channels the atmosphere of the thriller, the gangster film and the introspective neo-noir. A celebration of film fetishism, creaking leather, neon lights, polished minimalism and top-flight supporting roles, that anchors a harrowing, emotional and adrenaline-fuelled fable.

03:00 A.M. | Baby Driver: Edgar Wright - 2017 - 112 minutes - United Kingdom / United States
With his boyish face and headphones stuck to his ears, Baby (a pre-West Side Story Ansel Elgort) appears listless. Yet he’s Atlanta’s most skillful getaway driver. When he meets Debora, he decides to quit his life of crime, but it won’t let him go. A hero who masks his tinnitus by listening to pop music, an over-the-top team of armed robbers (Jamie Foxx and Jon Hamm at the top of their game), manic chase scenes and a whopping dose of humour are the ingredients for a bracing, tangy cocktail that injects the genre with a dose of youth.

In collaboration with CHOQ.ca and Fantasia.