Eve’s Bayou is a 1997 American Southern Gothic horror drama film written and directed by Kasi Lemmons in her feature directorial debut. Samuel L. Jackson served as a producer, and starred in the film with Lisa Nicole Carson, Jurnee Smollett, Lynn Whitfield, Debbi Morgan, Meagan Good, and Diahann Carroll. Following its premiere at the 1997 Toronto International Film Festival, it was released in theaters on November 7, 1997 to both critical and commercial success; it grossed $14 million domestically on a budget of $4 million, becoming the most commercially successful independent film of 1997.[5][3] The unreliability of memory and observation function as important themes throughout the film.
In 2018, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.[6][7][8] A 116-minute[1] director’s cut of the film was made a part of The Criterion Collection on October 25, 2022.[9]