Trailer

Ganja & Hess

Runtime
1hr 53mins
Directed by
Bill Gunn
Featuring
Duane Jones,
Marlene Clark,
Bill Gunn
Body

Through our Virtual Screening Room, you can rent films curated by the Coolidge team, while helping to support the Coolidge during this unprecedented time.

Flirting with the conventions of Blaxploitation and horror, Bill Gunn’s revolutionary independent film Ganja & Hess is a highly stylized and utterly original treatise on sex, religion, and African American identity.

Duane Jones (Night of the Living Dead) stars as anthropologist Hess Green, who is stabbed with an ancient ceremonial dagger by his unstable assistant (director Bill Gunn), bestowing upon him the blessing of immortality... and the curse of an unquenchable thirst for blood. When the assistant’s beautiful and outspoken wife Ganja (Marlene Clark) comes searching for her missing husband, she and Hess form an unexpected partnership. Together, they explore just how much power blood holds.

Later recut and released in an inferior version, this restoration represents the original release, restored by The Museum of Modern Art with support from The Film Foundation, and mastered in HD from a 35mm negative.

available october 16

Every new release we offer will be available through the individual distributor's websites and streaming services. You'll be taken to their websites to purchase and watch the film, but a portion of your ticket will help support the Coolidge. Having technical issues? Visit our FAQ page here.

Reviews
Review Text

A sensual, scholarly, magic-realist exploration of black history and black desire.

Review Author
A. O. Scott
Review Publication
The New York Times
Review Text

A blood-soaked masterpiece. One of the most profound, surreal and horrifying love stories ever made.

Review Author
Complex
Review Text

An underground classic! The most complicated, intriguing, subtle, sophisticated and passionate black film of the '70s.

Review Author
James Monaco
Review Publication
American Film Now

This Week

  • Denis Villeneuve's sequel to his Oscar winning adaptation of Frank Herbert’s seminal bestseller, screening in 70mm!

    Showtimes
  • Nominated for Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards, from director Wim Wenders. 

    Showtimes
  • From Director Rose Glass comes an electric new love story.

    Showtimes
  • From writer/director Julio Torres comes a surreal adventure through the equally treacherous worlds of New York City and the U.S. Immigration system.

    Showtimes
  • Join Kyle Stevens and see how Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? asks us what a happy marriage really looks—and sounds—like. 

    Showtimes
  • You are cordially invited to George and Martha's for an evening of fun and games.

    Showtimes
  • Powell and Pressburger’s richly humanistic film traverses time and space to make a case for the transcendent value of love.

    Showtimes
  • Sam Mendes directs Mark Gatiss as John Gielgud and Johnny Flynn as Richard Burton in this fierce and funny new play.

    Showtimes
  • An Ozark Mountain girl hacks through dangerous social terrain as she hunts down her drug-dealing father while trying to keep her family intact.

    Showtimes
  • Denis Villeneuve's sequel to his Oscar winning adaptation of Frank Herbert’s seminal bestseller.

    Showtimes
  • You Will Be Unprepared.

    Showtimes
  • Prepare to get weird, cause the world depends on it.

    Showtimes
  • An epic of epic epicness.

    Showtimes
  • Peter Jackson brings J.R.R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings from page to screen in this epic, Academy-Award winning trilogy, in 35mm!

    Showtimes
  • Discover how Sofia Coppola uses visual strategies in this introduction with Lesley professor, author, & filmmaker Ingrid Stobbe.

    Showtimes
  • With this debut feature, Sofia Coppola announced her singular vision, exploring the aesthetics of femininity while illuminating the interior lives of young women. 

    Showtimes