Rosemary's Baby: A Retrospective

Rosemary's Baby is a 1968 American supernatural psychological horror film written and directed by Roman Polanski, based on Ira Levin's 1967 novel. It stars Mia Farrow as Rosemary, a newlywed living in Manhattan who becomes pregnant, and begins to suspect that her elderly neighbors are Satanists who have sinister intentions regarding her and her baby. The film's supporting cast includes John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer, Maurice Evans, Ralph Bellamy, Patsy Kelly, Angela Dorian, and Charles Grodin in his feature film debut. Polanksi adapted the film's screenplay from Levin's novel, and the film was produced and partly-funded by William Castle, a producer known primarily for making low-budget horror films. It marked Polanski's first American production. Although the film is set in New York City, the majority of principal photography for Rosemary's Baby took place on soundstages at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles throughout late 1967. Rosemary's Baby had its world premiere on June 12, 1968, and went on to become the eighth highest-grossing film at the United States box office that year, grossing over $30 million. It was met with significant critical acclaim and received numerous accolades, including multiple Golden Globe Award nominations and two Academy Award nominations, winning Best Supporting Actress (for Ruth Gordon) and the Golden Globe in the same category. Internationally, Farrow was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Leading Actress, while the film won the award for Best Foreign Film from the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics. Since its release, Rosemary's Baby has been widely regarded as one of the greatest horror films of all time, and in 2014 was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." Critics and film scholars in the intervening years have analyzed numerous themes in the film, including paranoia, women's liberation, Catholicism, and the occult. The film was followed by the 1976 television sequel Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby, a 2014 miniseries, and a 2024 prequel, Apartment 7A.