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The Saragossa Manuscript

Original title: Rekopis znaleziony w Saragossie · Turkish title: Zaragoza El Yazması
1965 · 3 h 2 min
Directed by Wojciech Has
AdventureDramaFantasy

Cast

Zbigniew Cybulski

Credits

Written by: Jan Potocki

Plot

During the Napoleonic wars, a young officer, Alphonse van Worden, finds a mysterious manuscript in a deserted inn near Saragossa. As he reads it, he enters a labyrinth of stories within stories: ghosts, bandits, kabbalists, gypsies and seductive princesses. Wojciech Has's 1965 Polish adaptation of Jan Potocki's novel is a dreamlike, nested tale, admired by Jerry Garcia and Martin Scorsese, who helped restore it.

Sinekatalog’s take

Wojciech Has's dreamlike epic nests stories within stories as an officer reads a mysterious manuscript. Witty, baroque and bewildering, with Zbigniew Cybulski, it is a cult favourite praised by Buñuel and Scorsese.Sinekatalog’s own editorial review – not a user or critic quote.

Ratings

IMDb: 7.7 / 10 (6,645 votes)
IMDb rating and vote count from the IMDb ratings dataset (October 2026). Scores change over time.

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