Season 56 (2024-2025)

Eight Men Out

Date Shown: September 8, 2024

USA, 1988, Color, PG, 119 min

Directed by John Sayles; starring John Cusack, Charlie Sheen, Jace Alexander

One of the greatest baseball teams in history and the odds-on favorite to win the 1919 World Series over the Cincinnati Reds, the Chicago White Sox appeared posed for victory. Undervalued and underpaid, eight team members were approached by a gambling syndicate to throw the series for more money than they would make winning.

Frankenstein

Date Shown: October 13, 2024

USA, 1931, B&W, Not Rated, 70 min

Directed by James Whale; starring Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, Mae Clarke

In her novel, Mary Shelley simply referred to the creature Dr. Frankenstein fabricated from body parts as “the Monster.” This film, which has influenced every horror film in its wake, brought to life a monster so iconic that its name has become confuses with its creator and symbolic father.

The Devil’s Backbone

Date Shown: November 10, 2024

Mexico/Spain, 2001, Color, R, 108 min

Directed by Guillermo del toro; starring Fernando Tielve, Eduardo Noriega, Federico Luppi

The wold is full of monsters, full of ghosts. The scariest monsters are too often human. In this mournful ghost story set during the waning days of the Spanish Civil War, a boy whose father has been killed fighting for democracy is sent to haunted orphanage.

My Favorite Year

Date Shown: December 8, 2024

USA, 1982, Color, PG, 92 min

Directed by Richard Benjamin; starring Peter O’Toole, Mark Linn-Baker, Jessica Harper

When drunken, washed-up, swashbuckling star, Alan Swann (a perfectly cast O’Toole) agrees to make an appearance on a live television program in 1950’s New York, a junior writer and lifelong fan (Linn-Baker) is taksed with babysitting his charming buy unruly charge. Mayhem, pratfalls, laughter and fun ensue.

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

Date Shown: January 12, 2025

USA/GB, 1965, B&W, Not Rated, 112

Directed by Martin Ritt; starring Richard Burton, Claire Bloom, Oskar Werner

At the height of the Cold War, a spy (Burton), undertakes one final perilous mission in East Germany to flush out a mole in MI-6, nicknamed the “Circus” by insiders. From the acclaimed best seller by John le Carré, director Ritt captures a world where nothing is black and white, only seemingly endless shades of grey.

Lost in Translation

Date Shown: February 2, 2025

USA, 2003, Color, R, 102 min

Directed by Sofia Coppola; starring Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson, Giovanni Ribisi

Two lonely, lost Americans adrift in Tokyo meet and forge an unlikely friendship. He is older, an actor whose career is on the skids. She is younger, a wife who has accompanied her husband on a photo shoot. Somehow, miraculously, they see each other, hear each other, get each other in this valentine to the wonders of chance friendships and the city of Tokyo itself.

The Player

Date Shown: March 9, 2025

USA, 1992, Color, R 124 min

Directed by Robert Altman; starring Tim Robbins, Greta Scacchi, Fred Ward

A self-admitted Hollywood player himself, Altman casts a satirical insider’s eye at the cutthroat corporate Hollywood world. From its audacious and renowned eight-minute opening tracking shot, through a constellation of stars in cameo roles to its upbeat Hollywood ending, his satire of the morally bereft studio exec remains funny, suspenseful and hugely entertaining.

Day For Night

Date Shown: April 13, 2025

France, 1973, Color, PG, 116 min

Directed by François Truffaut; starring Jacqueline Basset, Jean-Pierre Léaud, François Truffaut

Deriving its title from a term for shooting a nighttime scene in the daylight with a special filter, A Day for Night, follows a harried director (Truffaut) as he struggles to complete a flimsy melodrama. “A movie for people who love movies,” promises a tagline form an original poster. The film delivers on that purpose.

Kedi

Date Shown: May 11, 2025

Turkey/Istanbul, 2017, Color, Not Rated, 79 min

Directed by Ceyda Torun; starring Sari, Asian Parcasi, Psikopat

Torun’s documentary provides a well-needed reminder that human beings are capable of love, warmth, solicitude and kindness, While the title is Kedi (Turkish for cats), and the stars are feline, the supporting players are humans who affectionately care for these street cats of Istanbul.

Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)

Date Shown: June 8, 2025

USA, 2021, Color, PG, 118 min

Directed by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson; starring Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sly & the Family Stone

In the summer of ‘69, for six consecutive Sundays and a mere 100 miles from Woodstock, the Harlem Cultural Festival hosted an epic event that celebrated Black history, culture, fashion and music with headliners like Mahalia Jackson, B.B. King, Max Roach, The Staple Singers, and the 5th Dimension. Thompson rescued, edited, and assembled a hitherto lost-to-history cache of festival archival footage that revives a milestone moment.

Blackkklansman

Date Shown: July 13, 2025

USA, 2018, Color, R, 134 min

Directed by Spike Lee; starring John David Washington, Adam Driver, Laura Harrier

The hoary cliché “truth is stranger than fiction,” raises its head once again with this biographical crime story of a Black detective (Washington) and his Jewish partner (Driver) infiltrating the Colorado Springs KKK in the 1970’s. Timely, provocative, funny, devastating, wry, blunt, and brilliant, BlacKkKlansman finds one of America’s great filmmakers at the top of his game.

Seven Samurai

Date Shown: August 10, 2025

Japan, 1954, Not Rated, 207 min

Directed by Akira Kurosawa; starring Toshirȏ Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Tsushima

East meets West in a legendary film that remains one of the greatest, most influential, and just plain entertaining epics of all time. A beleaguered village hires a down-and-out samurai to gather a small band of warriors to protect them from marauding bandits in this absorbing story of hope, sacrifice, honor and courage.