To my knowledge, Bruce is the only member of the Class of 1970 to be in Wikipedia, and also be named a Chevalier of Arts by the French Government. At Hicksville High, Bruce organized the First HHS Film Festival (1968), which screened Animal Farm, and a music video I helped him create based on I Am The Walrus, by the Beatles.
Bruce Goldstein, the son of Murray and Betty (Horowitz) Goldstein, was born in Amitville, New York on Long Island and was raised in nearby Hicksville. He attended Hicksville High School and went on to Boston University, dropping out to run a movie theater in Provincetown, Massachusetts on Cape Cod. He later moved to New York City to work for Sid Geffen, owner of the Bleecker Street Cinema and Carnegie Hall Cinema. He went on to program for the Thalia.
Goldstein became the director of repertory programming for New York 's Film Forum in 1986. At Film Forum he presented series on film noir, silent comedy, classic 3-D, Pre-Code movies, science fiction and "gimmick movies" of the 1950s, Westerns, and French crime films.
In 1990 Goldstein was awarded the New York Film Critics Circle Awards for "visionary programming."
In 1997, Goldstein founded Rialto Pictures which has been described as "the gold standard of reissue distributors" by Los Angeles Times/NPR film critic Kenneth Turan. Rialto's releases include Murderous Maids, the original 1954 Japanese version of Godzilla, a restored print of the 1974 documentary Hearts and Minds, The Battle of Algiers, Mafioso, Lola Montès, and the first U.S. release of Made in U.S.A. and "Z." In 2007, the Museum of Modern Art presented a retrospective tribute to Goldstein's company, entitled "Rialto Pictures: Reviving Classic Cinema."
In 2004, the government of France named Goldstein a Chevalier (knight) of the Order of Arts and Letters for his work releasing, promoting, and screening classic French Cinema.
In 2009 Goldstein was awarded the Mel Novikoff award by the San Francisco International Film Festival, an award given annually "to an individual or institution whose work has enhanced the film going public's knowledge and appreciation of world cinema."In 2010 Goldstein was nominated by James Billington, Librarian of Congress, to the Board of the National Film Register.
For all his renown, Bruce appears to lead a simple life, living and working in what used to be known as Little Italy, with his wife and daughter.
Submitted by Dennis Hendrickson
