Nearly 80 years after its premier, Gaslight has never felt more relevant. Adapted from Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 play Gas Light, George Cukor’s 1944 film follows a young newlywed named Paula (Ingrid Bergman) as she’s slowly driven to the brink of insanity by her nefarious husband Gregory (Charles Boyer). The film’s title has since been verbified to describe an extended period of psychological manipulation designed to make the victim doubt their sanity and “gaslighting” was recently named the Merriam-Webster word of the year. The dictionary’s official definition is “the act or practice of grossly misleading someone especially for one’s own advantage;” a perfect description of the way Gregory abuses his wife in the film. Gaslight hit theaters 78 years ago, but Gregory’s tactics are all too familiar today, an intimate and terrifying version of the large-scale manipulation we see all around us.

Set in 1875 London, Gaslight begins with...