This lavish adaptation of James Joyce’s most celebrated short story proved a haunting farewell for filmmaker John Huston. Directing his daughter, Angelica, in one of the best performances of her career, Huston’s film is an unpretentious meditation on passion, life and death. It is made all the more powerful by the director’s own rapidly approaching demise.

A gathering of friends at an annual New Years Eve party in Dublin in 1904 sets the scene for this subtle ensemble drama which climaxes with a devastating confession by one of the guests. The film celebrates the beauty of the English language, the challenges of marital love and the intimations of mortality which can bring us back to an exaltation of life. The Dead explores theme of how the ‘shades’ from ‘that other world’ can live in those who still walk the earth. As Huston’s final film, it is as beautiful, delicate, and moving an epitaph as any filmmaker could ever hope for.