Contagion

Contagion

Release Date

2011

Director

  • Steven Soderbergh

Cast

  • Matt Damon
  • Kate Winslet
  • Jude Law

Director Steven Soderbergh’s disaster thriller follows the rapid progress of a lethal airborne virus that kills within days.

When Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) returns to Minnesota from a Hong Kong business trip, she attributes the malaise she feels to jet lag. However, two days later, Beth is dead, and doctors tell her husband (Matt Damon) that they have no idea what killed her. Soon, many others start to exhibit the same symptoms, and a worldwide pandemic erupts. Doctors try to contain the lethal microbe, but society begins to collapse as a blogger (Jude Law) fans the flames of paranoia.

Past Programs

2015

Disease Outbreaks

Michigan Theater, Ann Arbor, MI

Menacing Microbes: Protein Models Reveal Secrets

The State Theatre, Modesto, CA

2016

Worldwide Epidemics

Film Streams, Omaha, NE

Why are some of us born immune?

Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline, MA

2017

Reconstructing a rabies epidemic: Byte by byte

The State Theatre, Modesto, CA

2019

Lessons of the Black Death

FilmScene, Iowa City, IA

2021

Conducting scientific research in a pandemic

Martha's Vineyard Film Society, Tisbury, MA

2024