Brian De Palma

Dressed to Kill

Dressed to Kill

Brian De Palma ascended to the highest ranks of American suspense filmmaking with this virtuoso, explicit erotic thriller. At once tongue in cheek and scary as hell, Dressed to Kill revolves around the grisly murder of a woman in Manhattan and how her psychiatrist, her brainiac teenage son, and the prostitute who witnessed the crime try to piece together what happened while the killer remains at large. With its masterfully executed scenes of horror, voluptuous camera work, and passionate score, Dressed to Kill is a veritable symphony of terror, enhanced by vivid performances by Angie Dickinson, Michael Caine, and Nancy Allen.

Film Info

  • United States
  • 1980
  • 105 minutes
  • Color
  • 2.35:1
  • English
  • Spine #770

DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New, restored 4K digital transfer of director Brian De Palma’s preferred unrated version, supervised by the director, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • New conversation between De Palma and filmmaker Noah Baumbach
  • New interviews with actor Nancy Allen, producer George Litto, composer Pino Donaggio, shower-scene body double Victoria Lynn Johnson, and poster photographic art director Stephen Sayadian
  • The Making of “Dressed to Kill,” a 2001 documentary
  • New profile of cinematographer Ralf Bode, featuring filmmaker Michael Apted
  • Interview with actor-director Keith Gordon from 2001
  • Pieces from 2001 about the different versions of the film and the cuts made to avoid an X rating
  • Gallery of storyboards by De Palma
  • Trailer
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: An essay by critic Michael Koresky

    Cover based on original poster

Purchase Options

DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New, restored 4K digital transfer of director Brian De Palma’s preferred unrated version, supervised by the director, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • New conversation between De Palma and filmmaker Noah Baumbach
  • New interviews with actor Nancy Allen, producer George Litto, composer Pino Donaggio, shower-scene body double Victoria Lynn Johnson, and poster photographic art director Stephen Sayadian
  • The Making of “Dressed to Kill,” a 2001 documentary
  • New profile of cinematographer Ralf Bode, featuring filmmaker Michael Apted
  • Interview with actor-director Keith Gordon from 2001
  • Pieces from 2001 about the different versions of the film and the cuts made to avoid an X rating
  • Gallery of storyboards by De Palma
  • Trailer
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: An essay by critic Michael Koresky

    Cover based on original poster
Dressed to Kill
Cast
Michael Caine
Dr. Robert Elliott
Angie Dickinson
Kate Miller
Nancy Allen
Liz Blake
Keith Gordon
Peter Miller
Dennis Franz
Detective Marino
David Margulies
Dr. Levy
Susanna Clemm
Betty Luce
Ken Baker
Warren Lockman
Brandon Maggart
Cleveland Sam
Amalie Collier
Cleaning woman
Mary Davenport
Woman in restaurant
Anneka De Lorenzo
Nurse
Credits
Director
Brian De Palma
Written by
Brian De Palma
Produced by
George Litto
Music composed by
Pino Donaggio
Conducted by
Natale Massara
Director of photography
Ralf Bode
Art director
Gary Weist
Costumes
Ann Roth
Edited by
Jerry Greenberg
Production manager/Associate producer
Fred Caruso
Assistant director
Michael Rauch
Camera operator
Michael Stone

Current

Dressed to Kill: The Power of Two
Dressed to Kill: The Power of Two

Brian De Palma magnifies the pleasures and perils of Hitchcock and toys with the viewer’s spectatorship in his sly and scary horror masterpiece.

By Michael Koresky

The Wet Dreams and Twisted Politics of Erotic Thrillers
The Wet Dreams and Twisted Politics of Erotic Thrillers

Combining elements of soft-core porn and film noir, one of the most popular Hollywood genres of the 1980s and ’90s captured the fraught aspirationalism and sexual mores of the era.

By Beatrice Loayza

Fatal Attraction: Women on the Serial-Killer Movies That Thrill Them
Fatal Attraction: Women on the Serial-Killer Movies That Thrill Them

Six writers confront their fascination with films about murderers, including the true-crime shocker Angst, the quasi-documentary Landscape Suicide, and the erotic thriller In the Cut.

Lethal De Palma in Massachusetts

Repertory Picks

Lethal De Palma in Massachusetts
At the stroke of midnight on Saturday, the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, Massachusetts, will pull back the curtain on one of Brian De Palma’s most shocking and psychologically penetrating films, 1980’s Dressed to Kill, presented in all it…
From the De Palma Archives
From the De Palma Archives

On his seventy-sixth birthday, we’re celebrating the work of Hollywood enfant terrible Brian De Palma, whose iconoclastic five-decade career has encompassed an astonishing array of genres, including erotic thriller, war drama, and science fiction.

Megan Abbott’s Top 10
Megan Abbott’s Top 10

Megan Abbott is the award-winning author of seven novels, including Dare Me and The Fever. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, and the Wall Street Journal.

De Palma and Baumbach, Dream Team
De Palma and Baumbach, Dream Team

Noah Baumbach asks one of his idols, Brian De Palma, about the stunningly elaborate museum sequence in Dressed to Kill.