what's showing in nyc this weekend - feb 18 - 23
ANORA has awards momentum, go see NO OTHER LAND & CITIZEN KANE at film forum, and it's f*cking freezing but at least we have movies
I still really miss David Lynch. Might just post pics of him for every newsletter going forward.
Welcome to screen time!
Beloveds, it’s with no great pleasure that I report — I kinda enjoyed myself watching the Super Bowl a week and a half ago. All my guys were there — Tom Cruise set the narrative stakes, Glen Powell (one of the great loves of my life) reinterpreted Goldilocks and the Three Bears (with his adorable niece and nephew), Willem Dafoe and Catherine O’Hara had incredible comedic chemistry, and Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal returned to Katz’s Deli. Were any of these ads “good”? Hardly. But I can’t think of a less relevant question.
TL;DR:
The first still from Christopher Nolan’s upcoming adaptation of the Odyssey has the Bronze Age fashion girlies (historians) seething.
Workers at Alamo Drafthouse’s Brooklyn and Manhattan locations are on strike to protest the unceremonious layoffs of their colleagues.
Many opportunities to see classic films at Film Forum over the next couple of weeks during their “Tales from The New Yorker” series. Turns out truly an absurd number of classic films were based on past New Yorker stories! When a Jia Tolentino story finally makes it to the screen, the only person possibly more seated than myself will be Erica Marrison.
Oscar nominated doc programs open at IFC and BAM. Seems like they will eventually come to AMCs as well.
Two weekends ago, Anora won big at the Critics’ Choice and Directors Guild of America Awards, pretty much solidifying its position as frontrunner for Best Picture and possibly setting up Sean Baker to be first person ever to win four Oscars in one night for the same film, as he was Anora’s writer, producer, director, and editor.1 Madison winning Best Actress at last weekend’s BAFTAs (over British candidates Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Cynthia Erivo) was also a good omen for the film’s chances.
Palestinian documentary No Other Land is showing at Film Forum and Nitehawk this week, despite the fact it still doesn’t have distribution here in the US. This film is essential, but I appreciated Mary Turfah’s gentle but principled criticism for MUBI, alleging the film indulges in a “familiar kind of wishful thinking.” Her reflections very much echo the dissonance I felt watching it during NYFF last fall.
last great thing i’ve seen:
I’ve seen a lot of lovely things lately — Parasite in IMAX, Mati Diop’s Dahomey and Atlantics (inspired by my dear friend Matene’s article about Diop’s practice of “reparative cinema” for Africa is a Country), and Mulholland Drive at IFC on David Lynch’s birthday. Justin Theroux & Naomi Watts showed up to surprise intro the film and talk about their friend, and it was truly a spiritual experience. I have no plans to shut up about it any time soon, even though it was about a month ago.
Last Valentine’s Day I saw Madame Web — on opening night, in IMAX, at AMC Lincoln Square — and frankly, it was one of the best theater experiences of my life. This year I saw Casablanca at the Paris Theater (and adored!) but still. Big shoes to fill — for Casablanca of course.
join me at:
I’m seeing Moonlight in IMAX at AMC Lincoln Square in about a week and a half. I’m also trying to see Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat before it leaves Film Forum, but I have been saying that for approximately the last four months.
new releases:
It’s February. There’s basically nothing to see. My love and solidarity to everyone in so-called “small” markets. Technically speaking, you could go see Captain America: Brave New World, but you shouldn’t because it’s both bad and on the BDS list.
A couple of wonderful things have come to streaming though — Flow is on HBO, Bridget Jones: All About the Boy is on Peacock, and the new season of HBO’s White Lotus premiered on Sunday. (But if you’re the type to be reading this, you probably already know that.)
what’s showing in nyc this week: programs, retrospectives, & exhibitions
ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES
“Dafoe’s craft was nurtured and developed during his time as a core member of the avant-garde theater company, The Wooster Group. One of the most important, uncompromising, and genuinely radical groups in postwar global theater, The Wooster Group was (and is) distinguished by a wild yet disciplined approach to acting (and stagecraft) that transcends conventional psychological realism in favor of Brechtian distancing effects, vertiginous swings in tone, an embrace of technology, and a mash-up of texts from the realms of theater, literature, and pop culture.” — Screen Slate, on Dafoe’s early career.
BAM
FILM FORUM
FILM AT LINCOLN CENTER
IFC CENTER
Remembering David Lynch; Shudder Showcase 2025; Late Night Favorites: Winter 2025; Waverly Midnights: Winter Vacation; Oscar-Nominated Shorts 2025
METROGRAPH
Amongst Humans; Emilia Pérez + Jacques Audiard Selects; Ryan Sloan and Ariella Mastroianni Select; Brigitte Lin on Screen; Raise Ravens and They Will Pick your Eyes Out; Knock Knock; The Many Lives of Laura Dern; Urban Ghosts
MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE
NITEHAWK CINEMA
Iconic Chainsaws at Nitehawk Cinema; Man on Fire: The Selected Works of Denzel Washington at Nitehawk Cinema; Recent Restorations at Nitehawk Cinema; Re-Consider This! At Nitehawk Cinema
ROXY CINEMA
OTHER COOL PROGRAMMING:
Anti-Valentines: Ozon Lovers x 3 at Spectacle; Water and Oil: The Films of Ang Lee at Asia Society.
what’s showing in nyc this week: special events/what I want to see
TUESDAY: LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST, GAZA IS OUR HOME, WILD AT HEART
Early last week sometime, I saw there was a showing of Last Temptation of Christ scheduled for last Saturday as part Anthology Film Archives’ program Willem Defoe: Wild at Heart, and thought, “huh, looks interesting. Maybe I should grab a ticket?”
I didn't. SPOILER ALERT: I regretted it. Later in the week, Anthology announced that BOTH Willem Defoe and Martin Scorsese would be in-person for a Q&A following on the showing. By the time I got to the site, tickets, were, of course, sold out. As I said, will live to regret this. Anyway, on Tuesday, you can still catch the 7:30 PM showing of Last Temptation, before this program wraps up.
A 7:30 PM showing of Gaza is our Home at Spectacle will be followed by a hybrid Q&A with director Monear Shaer and family members in Gaza.
Pretty much the only not-sold-out showing of Wild at Heart left in this city is at Metrograph on Tuesday at 10 PM. I’m not dedicated enough to go, but I’m desperate to see this one in a cinema — and soon.
Canada’s submission to the Academy Award for Best International Feature Universal Language is playing all week at Angelika.2 It’s a dreamy Wes Anderson-inspired romp set between Winnipeg and Tehran, featuring a scene on a highway median I have not stopped thinking about since I saw it last fall.
The Pieces I Am, a documentary celebrating what would have been Toni Morrison’s 94th birthday, is showing at Maysles at 7 PM.
WEDNESDAY: UNCUT GEMS, MALCOM X, AND REMEMBERING DAVID LYNCH
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me is showing at 4:05 at IFC.
David Lynch programming continues thought the day at Metrograph, starting with Mulholland Drive at 1 PM. While the 7 PM showing of Wild at Heart has been sold out for a while, there is still space at the 4 PM showing of Blue Velvet featuring Q&A with cinematographer Frederick Elmes.
Uncut Gems is showing at 9:50 PM as part of Emilia Pérez + Jacques Audiard Selects, which ick, but still.
Malcom X is showing at 8:45 at Nitehawk Cinema Prospect Park, as part of their Man on Fire: The Selected Works of Denzel Washington series. He’s Got Game, also directed by Spike Lee, is showing at 9:15 PM at Nitehawk Cinema Williamsburg.
THURSDAY: SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP E’TAT, HARD TRUTHS, & LOST IN TRANSLATION
Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat continues showing at Film Forum.
Notes on Displacement, a 2022 film about Palestinian refugees in Europe is showing at 7 and 9 PM at Anthology.
“My grandmother Shafiqa was forced to leave her home in Haifa, her jasmine tree, her cup of tea on her balcony and her view of the sea. I inherited this ‘pain print’ of hers through haunted memories both beautiful and painful at the same time. They chased me in my dreams like ghosts that never intended to leave. […] As the director, from behind the camera, I was driven to offer images of our own making, outside the never-ending Western paparazzi image onslaught of displaced refugees. This film is for us, our values, our knowledge, our experiences.” –Khaled Jarrar
Anthology is also showing Auto Focus and Light Sleeper, two Paul Schrader films, continuing their Willem Defoe series.
Hard Truths (which is getting increasingly hard to see, especially outside of work hours) is showing at Film at Lincoln Center at 6:15.
A 9:30 PM showing of The Necro Files, which the New York Times called “a jaw-droppingly gory trash fest,” at Nitehawk Williamsburg will be followed by a Q&A with director Matt Jaissle.
You could also catch Sophia Coppola’s first feature, Lost in Translation, in 35 MM at Metrograph at 9:50 PM.
FRIDAY: GAZA SURF CLUB, SUGARCANE, PLUS FREE SHOWING OF PASSING
Gaza Surf Club, a 2016 documentary about the surfing community in Gaza City, is showing at BAM. Also showing at BAM, Better, which follows the ascendance of Nassim Lachhab, the first ever African and Moroccan professional skateboarder, is also showing at 7:10 PM, with a Q&A with the director Kamal Ourahou to follow. Both are part of “Counterculture Pioneers: Middle East.”
Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse is showing at Film Forum, to be followed by a Q&A with filmmakers Molly Bernstein & Philip Dolin.
Oscar-Nominated Feature Docs 2025 Porcelain War and Sugarcane are showing at Firehouse: DCTV’s Cinema for Documentary Film, at 6:30 PM and 8:30 PM respectively. Sugarcane, which is about the Church-run residential school system in Canada, is the first film directed by an Indigenous North American to be nominated for an Academy Award.
1999 film Compensation is showing at Lincoln Center, a Q&A with Zeinabu irene Davis and Marc Arthur Chéry (with ASL interpretation) to follow.
A Paris Theater showing of Passing, as part of their “Strong Black Lead at the Paris” series, is free with RSVP. Director Rebecca Hall provides a pre-recorded introduction.
SATURDAY: CITIZEN KANE, SLINGSHOT HIP HOP, & THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE
Film Forum is showing Citizen Kane, In Cold Blood, The Swimmer and Bigger than Life as part of their “Tales from The New Yorker” series, celebrating a century of languid prose, rigorous factchecking, and implacable umlauts. Each selection is adapted from a piece that ran in The New Yorker, such as In Cold Blood, based on Truman Capote’s 1965 investigative series, or other writings of New Yorker staff members, namely Once in a Lifetime, based on a play by contributor George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. Or, in the case of Citizen Kane, actually co-written by New Yorker theater critic, Herman Mankiewicz, as well as the subject of critic Pauline Kael’s two-part essay “Raising Kane.”
BAM is showing Slingshot Hip Hop at 6:45 PM, which documents the emergence of the Palestinian hip hop scene. A Q&A with director J. Reem Salloum and Suhel Nafar of Palestinian hip-hop trio DAM to follow the screening.
Pizza Guy 8, about a disgruntled and (eventually) murderous pizza delivery guy, is showing at the Museum of the Moving Image as part of “Disreputable Cinema.” The screening will be followed by Q&A with director Tate Hoffmaster.
Enjoy brunch at Nitehawk Prospect Park, with either Mildred Pierce (11 AM) part of “Classic Pictures at Nitehawk Cinema,” or The Manchurian Candidate (12:15 PM), part of “Man on Fire: The Selected Works of Denzel Washington.”
A 7:15 showing of Ciao, Manhattan! at Roxy Cinema will be introduced by Canadian multi-hyphenate (actor, writer, director, underground filmmaker), Bruce LaBruce.
“Ciao, Manhattan! parallels Andy Warhol Factory star Edie Sedgwick’s glory days in the late 1960s with her inevitable downfall and the tragic addiction that would take her life only weeks after filming wrapped in 1971.” - Roxy Cinema
And finally, the United Palace is showing the full original Star Wars trilogy, starting at noon. Festivities will include a live organ performance, a Yoda impression contest with special guest judges, a costume parade, something called a “lightsaber duel of fates,” brought to lucky patrons by BBQ films, and speciality cocktails. If you go, please please please report back.
SUNDAY: “TALES FROM THE NEW YORKER” CONTINUES, AN ACT OF WORSHIP & EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN
Dreadful Penny Dreadful, part of “Energy of Delusion: Keith Sanborn,” is showing at Anthology and will be followed by a Q&A with Keith Sanborn, moderated by Natasha Chuk.
An Act of Worship is showing at the Museum of the “Moving Image as part of Infinite Beauty: Muslim and Menasa Identity on Screen” and will be followed by a panel discussion about the state of representation of Muslims in media.
Film Forum’s “Tales from The New Yorker” series continues, featuring other classics, such as the Secret Life of Walter Minty.
You could also see Eat Drink Man Woman at Asia Society, part of Water and Oil: The Movies of Ang Lee, followed by Q&A with editor Tim Squyres.
The Daytrippers at Paris Theater will be followed by a Q&A with director Greg Mottola, actors Liev Schreiber, Hope Davis & Campbell Scott. This screening is part of “Filmmaker Magazine Presents.”
and finally…
He would not, however, be the first person to win four Academy Awards in one night — that distinction belongs to none other than Walt Disney himself.
One of our rare opportunities to compete, as the Matthew Rankin-directed film is primarily in Farsi (one of the requirements for the award is that submissions have to be primarily in a language other than English).