Michael Caine: A Shock of Recognition

August 07, 2025 – September 08, 2025

The Museum of Modern Art

In honoring Sir Michael Caine (b. 1933), MoMA celebrates one of British and American postwar cinema’s most endearing and enduring actors. Widely admired for his professionalism, relatability, and self-effacing charm, Caine has mentored many in the craft of acting, whether in his films or in his popular master classes and books, suggesting that “what you should get from my performance, to quote Edmond Wilson, is a ‘shock of recognition.’ I want people to see me on the screen and say, ‘I am him.’”

Caine got his first big break some 60 years ago as the supercilious British Army Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead in Cy Endfield’s Zulu (1964). Fame followed quickly thereafter when Caine received top billing as the cockney tomcat in Lewis Gilbert’s Alfie (1966) and as Harry Palmer, the novelist Len Deighton’s reluctant spy, in a succession of intelligent James Bond spinoffs: Sidney Furie’s The Ipcress File (1965), Guy Hamilton’s Funeral in Berlin (1966), and Ken Russell’s Billion Dollar Brain (1967). This retrospective features these and other cherished performances in films like Mike Hodges’s Get Carter (1971) and Pulp (1972), Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s Sleuth (1972), John Huston’s The Man Who Would Be King (1975), Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), Frank Oz’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988), Phillip Noyce’s The Quiet American (2002), and Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight (2008). Also presented are some of Caine’s more underappreciated films, including André de Toth’s Play Dirty (1969); Charles Jarrott and Anthony Page’s Male of the Species (1969), an episodic British television film also starring Sean Connery and Paul Scofield; James Clavell’s The Last Valley (1971); and Daniel Barber’s Harry Brown (2009).

Please refer to the screening schedule and program notes here.

Organized by Joshua Siegel, Curator, Department of Film.

Film at MoMA is made possible by CHANEL.

Additional support is provided by the Annual Film Fund. Leadership support for the Annual Film Fund is provided by Debra and Leon D. Black, with major funding from The Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art, The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art, Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder, the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP), and The Young Patrons Council of The Museum of Modern Art.

Images

Important: By downloading images you are agreeing to the following permissions: Images are provided exclusively to the press, and only for purposes of publicity of The Museum of Modern Art's and MoMA PS1's current and upcoming exhibitions, programs, and news announcements. Permission to use images is granted only to the extent of the Museum's and MoMA PS1's ownership rights relating to those images—the responsibility for any additional permissions remains solely with the party reproducing the images. The images must be accompanied by the credit line and any copyright information as it appears above, and the party reproducing the images must not distort or mutilate the images.

Get Carter. 1971. UK. Directed by Mike Hodges. Courtesy Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo

Sleuth. 1972. USA. Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Zulu. 1964. UK. Directed by Cy Endfield. Courtesy Rialto Pictures

Harry Brown. 2009. UK. Directed by Daniel Barber. Courtesy Samuel Goldwyn Films

Youth. 2015. Italy/France/UK/Switzerland. Directed by Paolo Sorrentino. Courtesy Searchlight Pictures

Alfie. 1966. UK. Directed by Lewis Gilbert. Courtesy Allstar Picture Library Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo

Billion Dollar Brain. 1967. UK. Directed by Ken Russell. Courtesy Entertainment Pictures/Alamy Stock Photo

Blood and Wine. 1996. UK/USA. Directed by Bob Rafelson. Courtesy Recorded Picture Company

Children of Men. 2006. UK/USA/Japan. Directed by Alfonso Cuarón. Courtesy Universal Pictures

Deathtrap. 1982. USA. Directed by Sidney Lumet. Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Educating Rita. 1983. UK. Directed by Lewis Gilbert. Courtesy Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo

Funeral in Berlin. 1966. UK. Directed by Guy Hamilton. Courtesy The Museum of Modern Art Stills Archive

Hamlet at Elsinore. 1964. UK. Directed by Philip Saville. Courtesy BBC Studios

The Ipcress File. 1965. UK. Directed by Sidney J. Furie. Courtesy Photo 12/Alamy Stock Photo

The Italian Job. 1969. UK. Directed by Peter Collinson. Courtesy Paramount Pictures/Photofest

The Magus. 1968. UK. Directed by Guy Green. Courtesy Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation/Photofest

Male of the Species. 1969. USA. Directed by Charles Jarrott, Anthony Page. Courtesy Park Circus/ITV

The Man Who Would Be King. 1975. USA/United Kingdom. Directed by John Huston. Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Mona Lisa. 1986. UK. Directed by Neil Jordan. Courtesy Janus Films

The Muppet Christmas Carol. 1992. USA/UK. Directed by Brian Henson. Courtesy PictureLux/The Hollywood Archive/Alamy Stock Photo

The Quiet American. 2002. Directed by Phillip Noyce. Courtesy Miramax/Photofest

The Romantic Englishwoman. 1975. UK. Directed by Joseph Losey. Courtesy Photo 12/Alamy Stock Photo

Silver Bears. 1977. UK. Directed by Ivan Passer. Courtesy Studiocanal Film Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo

The Dark Knight. 2008. USA. Directed by Christopher Nolan. Courtesy Warner Brothers Classics

The Last Valley. 1971. UK/USA. Directed by James Clavell. Courtesy Photo 12/Alamy Stock Photo

The Wilby Conspiracy.1975. UK. Directed by Ralph Nelson. Courtesy United Artists/Photofest

The Wrong Box. 1966. UK. Directed by Bryan Forbes. Courtesy Sony Pictures

X Y & Zee. 1972. UK. Directed by Brian G. Hutton. Courtesy Sony Pictures