Series

Michael A. McRobbie's Choice

In September 2017, more than 30 Indiana University faculty and staff members presented gifts to endow the Michael A. McRobbie President’s Choice Film Series Fund. The series is now officially part of IU Cinema’s program every semester in perpetuity, honoring  Chancellor Michael McRobbie’s leadership and his affinity for cinema. Each semester,  Chancellor McRobbie selects films that represent some of the masterworks of cinematic art to screen in IU Cinema’s world-class theater.

Fall 2026 | Landscapes of Power: Kurosawa’s Late Epics 

In the final decades of his career, Japanese master—and, simply, one of the greatest filmmakers of all time—Akira Kurosawa turned his attention toward exploring literal and metaphorical landscapes as active forces that shape human destiny. Through relationships between individuals, political authority, and the environments they seek to master—whether that be the Siberian wilderness, the battlefields of feudal Japan, or the windswept plains of a kingdom in collapse—the films in this series examine the multifaceted concepts of “landscapes” as spaces where power is contested, imagined, and ultimately undone, producing profound meditations on power's impermanence.

October 18, 7pm: Dersu Uzala | One Kurosawa’s most beautifully composed and photographed films, Dersu Uzala is suffused with the humanism that illuminates the Japanese master’s oeuvre.

October 25, 7pm: Kagemusha | Grand in scope and awash with striking color, Kagemusha marks Akira Kurosawa's successful return to the samurai epic. 35mm presentation!

November 1, 7pm: Ran | Kurosawa's sprawling, monumental take on King Lear is required viewing for fans of westerns, war movies, or films in general. New 4K restoration!

Curated by IU University Chancellor Michael A. McRobbie.