The Name of the Rose

The unavoidable compression needed to turn this medieval-monastery murder mystery into a two-hour film makes Jean-Jacques Annaud’s 1986 adaptation both less rich and less strange than Umberto Eco’s triumphal novel—and yet still, it’s a nearly perfect palimpsest, enjoyable both on its own terms and as an adjunct to the book. Annaud invests the film with a wonderfully creepy Gothic atmosphere, and his eccentric approach to casting pays off with a set of faces that are, well, terrifically eccentric. Rose was also a career-saver for Sean Connery, who was at the time considered so washed-up that the American backers pulled out of the film after he was cast. (Available July 6)