“The gold standard of reissue distributors” — Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
"Rialto has made—and continues to make—a tremendous contribution to film culture in the United States." — David Schwartz, Chief Curator, Museum of the Moving Image, New York
Rialto was founded in 1997 by Bruce Goldstein, who was joined a year later by partner Adrienne Halpern. In 2002, Eric Di Bernardo became the company’s National Sales Director. Dave Franklin is the company’s marketing and distribution manager.
Since its founding over 25 years ago, Rialto has reissued more than 150 films in new 35mm prints or digital restorations, with fresh new marketing (trailers, posters, etc.) and, in the case of foreign language films, brand new translations and subtitles. Rialto’s past releases have included Renoir’s Grand Illusion; Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria (for the first time in its “director’s cut”); Jules Dassin’s Rififi; Godard’s Breathless, Contempt, Band of Outsiders, Pierrot Le Fou, Masculine Feminine, Le Petit Soldat, Alphaville, and the U.S. premiere of his Made in U.S.A.; Carol Reed’s The Third Man; Kurosawa’s Ran; Bresson’s Au Hasard Balthazar and Diary of a Country Priest; Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad and Hiroshima Mon Amour; the Ealing classics The Ladykillers and Kind Hearts and Coronets; Joseph Losey’s The Servant and Mr. Klein; as well as the U.S. premieres of the original, uncut Japanese version of Godzilla; the complete, uncut version of Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Cercle Rouge; Melville’s Army of Shadows, which became the most critically acclaimed film of 2006 (and winner of the New York Film Critics Circle Best Foreign Language Film award, 37 years after it was made); and the uncut version of Francesco Rosi’s Christ Stopped at Eboli. In 2021, Rialto released Jacques Deray’s La Piscine, which became a post-pandemic repertory sensation covered by the New York Times “Style” section, The Times of London, Le Figaro in France, and French public radio.
Breathless
Recent releases include a new 4K restoration of Fax Bahr, Eleanor Coppola, and Geroge Hickenlooper’s Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse; Claude Lelouch’s A Man and a Woman; new 4K restorations of Godard’s A Woman is a Woman, and René Clément’s Forbidden Games; the 50th anniversary 4K restoration of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation; and the 75th anniversary of The Third Man.
Rialto received special Heritage Awards from the National Society of Film Critics in 1999 and 2019, and in 2000 Rialto received a special award from the New York Film Critics Circle, presented to Goldstein and Halpern by Jeanne Moreau. The two co-presidents have each received the French Order of Chevalier of Arts and Letters.
In 2013, Goldstein became the first person to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award for Film from George Eastman House. He has also received career awards from Anthology Film Archive and the San Francisco Film Festival (Mel Novikoff Award).
The Graduate
Goldstein and Halpern take an active part in the subtitling of Rialto’s foreign language films, working alongside such collaborators as Lenny Borger, Jerry Rudes, Fiamma Arditi, Giulia D’Agnolo, and Michael F. Moore. Goldstein has lectured on “The Art of Subtitling” at Film Forum, the TCM Classic Film Festival, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences, and the Museum of Modern Art. He created a 20-minute film on the subject for the Criterion/Rialto Blu-ray release of Panique, which can be seen on the Criterion Channel.
For its 10th anniversary in 2007, Rialto was honored with a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Similar tributes were held at George Eastman House in Rochester, the AFI Silver Theater in Washington, and the SIFF Theater in Seattle. The Criterion Collection also issued a special gift box set. Rialto’s 15th anniversary was observed in 2012 with a series at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Rialto’s 20th anniversary was celebrated at the Museum of the Moving Image and the American Cinematheque. In April 2023, the Museum of Modern Art in New York hosted its second tribute to Rialto, in honor of the company’s 25th anniversary. In addition, Quentin Tarantino’s New Beverly Cinema presented an all 35mm anniversary series of Rialto releases.
Since 2012, Rialto has been the main U.S. theatrical and non-theatrical representative of the Studiocanal library of over 9,000 international titles, one of the world’s most important film catalogues.
Bruce Goldstein is the founder of Rialto Pictures. Among his many awards are those from the New York Film Critics Circle, National Board of Review, San Francisco Film Festival, the French government (Order of “Chevalier”), and the first Lifetime Achievement Award in Film ever given by George Eastman House.
Adrienne became Co-President of Rialto Pictures in 1998 after a career as an entertainment lawyer, first at ICM and then as Senior Counsel at Loeb and Loeb, where she represented producers, distributors, talent, and lenders and was Secretary of The Cousteau Society. She graduated from Yale College and NYU School of Law. She is a Trustee of Albertine Foundation, supporting French-American cultural exchange, and has received the French Order of Chevalier of Arts and Letters.
Eric joined Rialto in 2002. He previously worked for Paramount Pictures and Orion Pictures and was involved in the release of eight Best Picture Academy Award winners. He has the distinction of distributing both the original Breathless (50th anniversary) and its 1983 remake.
Dave joined Rialto Pictures in 2012. He received his B.A. in Cinema & Media Studies from the University of Chicago and his M.A. in Cinema Studies from New York University. Dave's previous work in the film industry includes positions at Sony Pictures Classics, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and the Museum of the Moving Image.
