Complimentary beer—while supplies last!—for ROBOCOP ticket holders on Friday, September 1, courtesy our friends at Revolution Brewery! Must be 21+ to redeem.

“There's a brooding, agonized quality to the violence that almost seems subversive, as if Verhoeven were both appalled and fascinated by his complicity in the toxic action rot.” - Pat Graham, Chicago Reader

“Most thriller and special-effects movies come right off the assembly line - ROBOCOP is a thriller with a difference.” - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Friday, September 1 & Monday, September 11 | Set in 2029 in a destitute, near post-apocalyptic Detroit, after cop Alex Murphy is brutally murdered in the line of duty, he is reborn as RoboCop, an unstoppable, crime-fighting cyborg. Threatened with an X rating from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), Verhoeven was forced to reedit his sci-fi satire multiple times to remove the more outrageous carnage. His original vision, presented in this series, was intended to be near-comical in its displays of violence, but the MPAA’s required edits muffled the surreal quality of the film. As Verhoeven noted in 2014, “It was very unusual that people would tell me how to shoot my movie. But the distributor said they wanted an R, not an X, and I understood that. So we went back to edit it. And each of those eight times we had to cut off a little more violence here, violence there. It was give and take, but I'm not sure if it was working with the MPAA, or working against them. They were very adamant.”


Awards & Nominations

Winner - Best Sound Effects Editing, Academy Awards
Nominee - Best Sound, Best Editing, Academy Awards
Winner - Best Science Fiction Film, Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films


Revolution BreweryComplimentary beer—while supplies last!—for ticket holders to ROBOCOP on Friday, September 1, courtesy our friends at Revolution Brewery! Must be 21+ to redeem.


Contra/Banned SeriesAs a disturbing wave of bans—on books, on bodies, on identities—continues to sweep across the United States, the Film Center declares: get your censorship off our cinema. With Contra/Banned, we present 10 films that have experienced, in varying absurd degrees, their own bans and outcries, their own protests and regulations. The films of Contra/Banned are at times subversive, controversial, taboo, provocative, and shocking. Sounds like a good time at the movies to us. View full series.


The Film Center is ADA accessible. This presentation will be projected without open captions. The theater is hearing-loop equipped. For accessibility requests, please email filmcenter@saic.edu