This August, King Street Cinema presents One Big Conspiracy, a season exploring American cinema's enduring fascination with hidden truths, political cover-ups and institutional paranoia. At its heart is director Alan J. Pakula's celebrated "paranoia trilogy": Klute (1971), a gripping character study in which a private detective investigating a disappearance becomes entangled in the life of a New York sex worker; The Parallax View (1974), a chilling conspiracy thriller following a journalist who uncovers a shadowy organisation linked to a series of political assassinations; and All the President's Men (1976), presented in a new 4K restoration following its premiere at Cannes this year, which dramatises the Washington Post investigation that exposed the Watergate scandal and brought down a presidency.
The season also highlights the blockbuster era through three films by Steven Spielberg. In Jaws (1975), local politicians and business leaders suppress the truth about a killer shark threatening a seaside community to protect the tourist economy. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) imagines a vast government operation dedicated to concealing evidence of extraterrestrial contact from the public. Even Jurassic Park (1993) can be viewed through a conspiratorial lens, as corporate secrecy, scientific hubris and the deliberate withholding of critical information about genetic experimentation create the conditions for catastrophe. Together, these films reveal how conspiracy narratives have shaped American cinema, reflecting anxieties about power, knowledge and the institutions that claim to protect us.