Ken Russell’s controversial, censored 1971 film The Devils is getting an uncut, 4K re-release in cinemas this October. Here’s a new trailer…

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Update: “The restoration of the material is like cleaning the Sistine Chapel with saliva,” director Guillermo del Toro has said of Ken Russell’s The Devils. “It is insane, the epic size of the film.”

That quote’s mixture of sauciness and saintliness smartly sums up Russell’s now infamous 1971film, which proved so controversial that it was heavily censored on release. Now, 55 years later, it’s finally being released uncut, in a 4K version that will give cinema-goers the movie the maverick director originally had in his febrile mind.

There’s a new trailer to remind us of its release on the 30th November, but be warned: it contains some of the most frenzied editing we’ve seen in quite some time. Honestly, it makes a Michael Bay Transformers action sequence look like Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker.

The description beneath Warner Bros Clockwork’s trailer warns of flashing lights and patterns that may trigger seizures in some, so it would be remiss of us not to give you the same note of caution. We’re looking forward to being able to see Russell’s bizarre, beautiful images in full this autumn.

Previously…

22nd June 2026: Weeks after it made its appearance at Cannes, along comes the trailer for the newly restored, uncut edition of Ken Russell’s controversial cult film, The Devils.

Due in cinemas in October (for one week only), it represents the first time a truly pristine, uncensored version of the film has appeared on the big screen. The disc release will follow not long after, we’re sure.

Here’s an accompanying synopsis:

An enduring masterpiece of cinema starring Academy Award®-winner Vanessa Redgrave and Oliver Reed, KEN RUSSELL’S THE DEVILS is a prescient epic of obsession and corruption – and a defining work of art from seminal filmmaker Ken Russell. Assembled from the original camera negative, this new 4K restoration presents Ken Russell’s definitive version of THE DEVILS by referencing the edit he privately constructed in 2004. KEN RUSSELL’S THE DEVILS is the uncut and unfiltered theatrical experience that Russell always envisioned – and the first time the film will be presented restored an in 4K.

Having only seen cut versions of this febrile period piece ourselves, we’re genuinely looking forward to finally seeing The Devils as its director originally intended.

The Devils will appear in UK cinemas from the 16th October. We’ll bring you more updates on the release as we get them.

Our original story follows…

6th May 2026: Director Guillermo del Toro may soon get his wish. Only last November, the filmmaker was talking about one of his favourite films – 1971’s The Devils – and bemoaning its lack of a definitive, restored 4K disc release.

“Somebody really doesn’t want this released,” he said at the time.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, however, director Ken Russell’s controversial horror-drama classic is among a number of restored films being shown at the Cannes Film Festival this year.

A restored, uncut, 4K scan of The Devils will screen as part of the Cannes Classics strand – it being one of a eclectic line-up of cleaned-up prints.

We half wonder whether Del Toro had something to do with securing a screening of The Devils, since his own phantasmagoria, Pan’s Labyrinth, will also be showing as part of the same program. Del Toro will be in attendance for the 20th anniversary presentation of his period fantasy, and we’d bet, ooh, £5 of our own money that he’ll also be there for The Devils screening.

Among the other cornerstones of cinema selected for this year’s Cannes Classics you’ll find Akira Kurosawa’s Sugata Sanshiro, Orson Welles’ The Stranger and Chen Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine. Oh, and, er, Rob Cohen’s The Fast And The Furious.

The screening of The Devils could – hopefully – mean that a 4K disc release isn’t too far away. Heavily censored on its initial run, Russell’s lurid, unsparing account of religious zealotry, power hunger and madness in the 17th century has only been sporadically available since.

A 117-minute cut, which Mark Kermode managed to unearth in 2002, was the closest anyone’s gotten so far to a definitive version of Russell’s original. That version hasn’t been seen again for almost a quarter of a century. It now looks as though the version showing at Cannes will be an uncut version taken from the original camera negative – in other words, exactly as Russell intended it over 50 years ago.

One of the people who worked on the restoration revealed as much on BlueSky. Loitering in vaults for decades, this classic of British cinema is finally getting the screening it deserves.

“Ken Russell was unique,” del Toro told Konbini in November. “He has an energy that nobody else has. When people see baroque filmmaking, they think it’s easier. It isn’t… When you make tables for a living, when you’re a carpenter, which is a director, you know when somebody’s delivering something exceptional. Ken Russell’s The Devils is one of the greatest movies ever directed.”

We’ll keep you posted if news of The Devils on disc emerges.