Why does Orson Welles’s 1958 B-movie masterpiece get better with age? An early title for the film was Borderline, and it would’ve been appropriate: its garbage-strewn noirscape straddles Mexico and the U.S., while its antagonists, Charlton Heston’s crusading do-gooder Mike Vargas and Welles’s corrupt cop Hank Quinlan, are moralists from opposite worlds. In the deep shadows, ghosts of the past linger. A rich, haunting film. (Run time: 1 hour, 35 minutes)

After the film, join us for a talkback with film scholar and head of public programs, Will Schmenner.

Image: Touch of Evil (1958)