The Ninth Gate

The Ninth Gate (1999), directed by Roman Polanski, is a neo-noir, mystery horror thriller about the rare book business, wherein rare-book dealer Dean Corso (Johnny Depp) is hired by bibliophile Boris Balkan (Frank Langella) to validate a seventeenth-century copy of The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows, by Aristide Torchia, and what he encounters en route. The film, based upon the novel The Club Dumas (1993), by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, comprises... more

The Ninth Gate (1999), directed by Roman Polanski, is a neo-noir, mystery horror thriller about the rare book business, wherein rare-book dealer Dean Corso (Johnny Depp) is hired by bibliophile Boris Balkan (Frank Langella) to validate a seventeenth-century copy of The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows, by Aristide Torchia, and what he encounters en route. The film, based upon the novel The Club Dumas (1993), by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, comprises three genres, and was co-written by director Roman Polanski. The premiere showing was at San Sebastián, Spain, on 25 August 1999 — a month before the 47th San Sebastian International Film Festival; in North America, it failed critically and commercially, because, reviewers claimed, it was a lesser effort than Rosemary's Baby (1968), his best supernatural-theme film; nonetheless, The Ninth Gate earned a world-wide gross profit of $58.4 million against a $38 million budget. Dean Corso (Johnny Depp) is a New York City rare-book dealer motivated... less