A relatively quiet weekend for new releases, with everyone ceding space to The Odyssey still. Some great rep screenings though including a rarely seen Robert Frank documentary, The Last Picture Show, and a mess of great films playing on Art House Theater Day next Thursday.
Special Screenings
Thursday, July 23
Sia: Nostalgic for the Present (2026)
AMC Southdale 16/Emagine Willow Creek/Marcus West End
You guys remember Sia. Also Sunday. AMC: Prices, times, and more info here. Emagine: Prices, times, and more info here. Marcus: Prices, times, and more info here.
Summer Tour (2026)
AMC Southdale 16/Emagine Willow Creek
A new doc about Deadheads. AMC: $15. 7 p.m. More info here. Emagine: $13. 9:20 p.m. More info here.
The Bad Guys 2 (2025)
Emagine Willow Creek/Riverview Theater
Sam Rockwell is a wolf, fwiw. Emagine: $8. 11 a.m. More info here. Riverview: $2. 10:30 a.m. More info here.
River’s Edge (1986)
Emagine Willow Creek
‘80s teen burnout month continues at Emagine. $9. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Call Me By Your Name (2017)
Grandview 1&2
Richard Butler! Fantastico! $14.14. $9:15 p.m. More info here.
Carnival: They Can’t Steal Our Joy (2025)
Main Cinema
A documentary about Caribbean Carnival. $15. 7 p.m. More info here.
The End of Evangelion (1997)
Marcus West End
The movie-length alternate (and I believe preferred?) ending to the TV series. $13. 7:20 p.m. More info here.
Saturday Night Fever (1977)
Parkway Theater
Revisit a time when Brooklyn was uncool. $9/$12. DJ Shane Kramer at 7 p.m. Movie at 8 p.m. More info here.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026)
Phillips Park
It’s-a me, Mario Galaxy. Free. 8:50 p.m. More info here.
Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999)
Riverview Theater
A Minnesota classic. $7. 10:05 p.m. More info here.
Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)
Rivoli Bluff Farm
I love the noises they make when they eat. Presented by TriLingua Cinema. Free. 9 p.m. More info here.
Friday, July 24
Arco (2026)
Alamo Drafthouse
Arco fuck yourself. $7. 12:30 p.m. Monday-Wednesday 4 p.m. More info here.
High School Musical (2006)
Como Park Midway Pavillion
Are the kids still into this? Free. Dusk. More info here.
How to Train Your Dragon (2025)
Emagine Willow Creek
Essential viewing for dragon owners. $8. Friday, Monday-Thursday 11 a.m. Saturday-Sunday 10 a.m. More info here.
Me and My Brother (1965-1969)
Trylon
Robert Frank’s hard-to-see doc about Peter Orlovsky and his schizophrenic brother. $8. 7 p.m. Saturday 5 p.m. Sunday 1 p.m. More info here.
F for Fake (1973)
Trylon
Orson Welles tour-de-force about forgery. $8. 9 p.m. Saturday 7 & 9 p.m. Sunday 3 p.m. More info here.
Fight Club (1999)
Walker Art Center
This movie could be your entire personality. $12/$15. 7 p.m. More info here.
Shrek 2 (2004)
Windom Northeast Park
Whoa, there’s a second Shrek movie? Free. 8:50 p.m. More info here.
Saturday, July 25
The Thing Called Love (1993)
Alamo Drafthouse
Samantha Mathis travels to Nashville to become a star. $10.99. 12:30 p.m. More info here.
The Secret Life of Pets (2016)
Matthews Park
Let them have their little secrets! Free. 8:50 p.m. More info here.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
Parkway Theater
Could you people keep it down? I’m trying to watch the movie. $10/$15. Midnight. More info here.
Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)
Walker Art Center
A second chance to see it this weekend. Free for middle schoolers. 1 p.m. More info here.
Willow (1988)
Walker Art Center
A lil guy becomes a big hero. $12/$15. 7 p.m. More info here.
Sunday, July 26
Rashomon (1950)
Alamo Drafthouse
This is just like that Happy Days episode where Fonzie gets shot on a hunting trip and everyone has a different story about how it happened. $13.99. 12:30 p.m. More info here.
The Fifth Element (1997)
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16/B&B Bloomington/Emagine Willow Creek/Marcus West End
Earth, air, fire, water, and Milla. Also Monday, Wednesday. Prices, showtimes, and more info here.
Tremors (1990)
Emagine Willow Creek
Kevin Bacon vs. the Graboids. Also Wednesday. $11. 3:40 & 6:20 p.m. More info here.
Superbad (2007)
Grandview 1&2
Revisit the days of yore, when teens got drunk. Also Thursday. $14.14. 9:15 p.m. More info here.
Curious George (2006)
Marcus West End
Love that lil monkey. $3. 11:50 a.m. Sunday & Tuesday 10:45 a.m. Monday & Wednesday 11:35 a.m. Thursday 11:30 a.m. More info here.
Mallrats (1995)
Roxy’s Cabaret
Do I even need to tell you where this was filmed? Free. 7 p.m. More info here.
Wanda (1970)
Trylon
Barbara Loden's long-overlooked masterpiece. $8. 5 & 7 p.m. Monday-Tuesday 7 & 9 p.m. More info here.
Monday, July 27
Mystery Voyage
Alamo Drafthouse
A surprise scifi action movie from 2000. $13.99. 9:45 p.m. More info here.
Snake Eyes (1998)
Alamo Drafthouse
Not to be confused with the G.I. Joe movie. $13.99. 6:45 p.m. More info here.
The Bad Guys 2 (2025)
AMC Southdale 16
You can't say you didn't have enough chances to catch this one this summer. Also Wednesday. $3. 11 a.m. & 2 p.m. More info here.
Shrek (2001)
Edina Mann
I’ve had enough of all this pro-ogre propaganda. Also Wednesday. $4.78. 10 a.m. More info here.
The Last Picture Show (1971)
Edina Mann
Fun fact: Cybill Shepherd claims she was the first woman Elvis ever went down on (at her insistence). Also Wednesday. $12.12. 7 p.m. More info here.
Error_MovieTitle_Unknown (2026)
Emagine Willow Creek
A secret movie. $7. 7 p.m. More info here.
Raw Meat (1972)
Emagine Willow Creek
Cannibals in the London Underground. $9. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Marcus Mystery Movie (2026)
Marcus West End
Another secret movie. $6. 7 p.m. More info here.
Tuesday, July 28
Elf (2003)
Alamo Drafthouse
Oh come the fuck on. $20. 6:45 p.m. More info here.
Divine Hammer (2025)
Alamo Drafthouse
Two online gorehounds arrange a meeting where one will kill the other. $10.99. 8 p.m. More info here.
Wham! 10 Days in China (2026)
AMC Rosedale 14/Southdale 16/Emagine Willow Creek/Marcus West End
Only Wham! could go to China. AMC: $15. 6:30 p.m. More info here. Emagine: $17. 6 & 8:30 p.m. More info here. Marcus: $15.50. 7:20 p.m. More info here.
Black Adam (2022)
Hiawatha School Park
The Rock’s failed superhero movie. Free. 8:45 p.m. More info here.
The Secret Life of Pets (2016)
Riverview Theater
Again, that’s none of my business. $2. Tuesday-Wednesday 10:45 a.m. Thursday 11:30 a.m. More info here.
Wednesday, July 29
Casualties of War (1989)
Alamo Drafthouse
Everybody had a Vietnam War movie in the '80s. $13.99. 6:45 p.m. More info here.
Jeopardy Interactive
Alamo Drafthouse
Not really a movie, but whatever. $15. 7 p.m. More info here.
Nacho Libre (2006)
The Commons
I never said it was my libre. Free. 8:45 p.m. More info here.
Stone Cold (1991)
Emagine Willow Creek
Brian Bosworth, action hero. $9. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Lagoon Cinema
That sounds dirty. $11. 4 & 7 p.m. More info here.
Pow Wow Highway (1989)
Trylon
Gary Farmer travels to Santa Fe to help free a framed man. $8. 7 & 9 p.m. More info here.
Thursday, July 30
Cellular Cinema: An Experimental Film Showcase
Bryant Lake Bowl
Experimental work from local filmmakers. $10. 7 p.m. More info here.
If… (1968)
Emagine Willow Creek
Malcolm McDowell vs. the schoolmasters. $9. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Best in Show (2000)
Loring Park
Dog people, amirite? Free. 8:45 p.m. More info here.
Network (1976)
Main Cinema
TV news is bad. $9. 1 p.m. More info here.
Car Wash (1976)
Main Cinema
It’s better than digging a ditch. $9. 4:15 p.m. More info here.
Saber (2026)
Main Cinema
A doc about LED saber combatants. $11. 7 p.m. More info here.
Sorry to Bother You (2018)
Main Cinema/TriLingua Microcinema
You have two opportunities tonight to see Boots Riley’s brilliantly boisterous debut. Main: $13. 7:15 p.m. More info here. TriLingua: Free. 7 p.m. More info here.
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Riverview Theater
Starring Tom Hardy as a hood ornament. $7. 9:45 p.m. More info here.
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Walker Art Center
Is this still IMDB’s favorite movie of all time? $12/$15. 7 p.m. More info here.
Opening
Follow the links for showtimes.
Chennai Love Story
An Indian romantic drama.
Hadestown: The Musical
Maybe you’re still in a Greek mythology mood?
Haunted Heist
Tiffany Haddish heads the cast of this horror comedy.
Her Private Hell
The latest from Nicolas Winding Refn.
Jana Nayagan
The final film from movie-star-turned-politician Vijay.
Motor City
Action drama set in '70s Detroit.
Pinocchio Unstrung
Maybe the public domain is a bad idea.
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Film adaptation of the bestselling book.
Ongoing in Local Theaters
Follow the links for showtimes.
Backrooms
More film-studenty than anyone impressed at director Kane Parsons’s tender age of 20 wants to let on, this unexpected budget horror hit is ambiguous enough for us all to project our own sense of entrapment on its unrelentingly yellow liminal space. Postmodern capital, the male psyche, miscellaneous trauma, the internet—whatever’s recursively hemming you in, we all feel lost within some labyrinth right now, and much credit to Parsons for tapping into that timely sensibility. But movies, pesky damn things, will have characters, and stories, and dialogue, and, well… Chiwetel Ejiofor (as an extremely divorced furniture store owner) and Renate Reinsve (as a therapist I personally would not recommend) do what they can with some leaden dialogue by Will Soodik, who does not have youth and inexperience as an excuse. Doesn’t help that Parsons ratchets up the drama whenever a bit of the ol’ flattened affect would accentuate the eeriness. Backrooms is an A minus haunted house padded out into a B minus movie, so let’s just say… B
Disclosure Day
In this movie we believe aliens exist, empathy is strength, TV brings people together, truth wins out in the end, some kind of vague god-related thing—I’m sorry, but what are we doing here? Spielbergologists will no doubt thematically connect this latest, closest encounter with the extraterrestrial to his past work in ways that are meaningful to them, but for this skeptical admirer it was two-plus hours of drab auteurist tics livened occasionally by technical feats no other living (or maybe dead) director could execute. Plotwise, former cybersecurity wiz Josh O’Connor has the proof of a government/corporate coverup, and he’s ready to tell the world. He’s somehow linked with Emily Blunt, a weather gal for a Kansas City TV station who’s gifted with mystical abilities by ETs. Both leads are swell, even if Blunt’s attempts at naïveté aren’t wholly convincing and O’Connor can’t always summon enough shades of earnest to avoid monotony, But Colin Firth and Coleman Domingo, as rival spymasters of sorts, find no pleasure in their roles, and Eve Hewson, as O’Connor’s girlfriend, a former novitiate, dispenses religious doubts with a sense of obligation that shortchanges both spirituality and science—and hell, fantasy as well. And then there’s the finale. Ultimately, your view of Disclosure Day may come down to whether you find Spielberg’s nostalgic faith in the transformative power of mass spectacle touching or deluded—or, let’s face it, self-aggrandizing. B-
Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass—ends July 23
A David Wain movie is an extremely known quantity. How funny you’ll find it, the ways in which you’ll find it funny, which actors will pop by, credited and un- —these factors are preordained. In the scattershot Zucker Brothers tradition (though the sensibility is crass in a hip way rather than a crude way), basically every line is a joke, or arrives in the form of a joke, and maybe a third of ’em land, though all the jokes have to be told regardless because my third may not be yours. As far as plot goes: When her boyfriend unexpectedly hooks up with his “celebrity sex pass,” Jennifer Aniston, the titular Gail (Zoey Deutch) takes off for L.A. with her gay friend Otto (Miles Gutierrez-Riley), where to settle the score she decides she has to bang John Hamm. Along the way they’re befriended by a would-be agent (Ben Wong), a paparazzo (Ken Marino), and John Slattery (John Slattery) and you start to realize (Daughtry Gail? Otto? Hey, wait a minute…) this is also a Wizard of Oz parody. There are also goons out to recapture Important Documents for a wicked witch (Sabrina Impacciatore). It’s all an amusing mess, and everyone is game, especially Deutch, adorably wide-eyed but never naive or virginal. B
The Invite
We all know couples like Angela and Joe. As played by Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogan, they’re perpetually bickering over things you can’t believe either cares all that much about, as though following a preordained script. We’re less likely to know a couple like Hawk and Pina, embodied by two of our most ageless actors, Edward Norton and Penelope Cruz. The older couple has frequent, explosive sex upstairs, which irritates Joe, intrigues Angela, and becomes a topic of intense discussion when Hawk and Pina come downstairs one night for dinner. Over the course of one exhausting, hilarious, and loquacious evening, Joe and Angela are forced to confront some truths about their relationship. Joe falls back on wisecracks, Angela turns positively giddy at the thought of experiencing orgasms like Pina’s, and composer Devonte Hynes’s strings ratchet up the tension throughout. I can’t say I wholly agree with the film’s final assessment of their relationship—for all its pyrotechnics, the Will McCormack/Rashida Jones script doesn’t give us much beyond the surface, even when it purports to peek underneath. But what a surface it is. Norton is on a nice later career run and Cruz is just a fuckin’ movie star whatever she does. And as for Wilde the director, she makes a few awkward shot choices but the screwball-paced dialogue guides us through a (mostly) single-set film that’s rarely stagey and only as claustrophobic as it’s meant to be. I’m ready to pretend Don’t Worry Darling never happened if she is. A-
Maddie's Secret—ends July 23
The best thing about John Early’s directorial debut is his own performance as Maddie Ralph, a sweetly obliging woman whose bulimia resurfaces when her online cooking videos unexpectedly go viral. That star turn—stylized yet credible—allows Early to execute a precisely calibrated balance of melodramatics and laughs. It’s a pointed contrast to the supporting characters: Maddie’s Secret serves us the sort of supporting actors you might expect from a hip comedy (Kate Berlant as a horny, obsessive lesbian, Conner O’Malley as a sleazy food show producer, and so forth) while Kristen Johnson flaunts a virtuosic lack of subtlety as Maddie’s horrific mom. Maddie’s Secret occasionally feels like a tonal exercise, a challenge to see how thoroughly Early can sentimentalize bad taste without toppling into camp or kitsch, though that's no small feat. People with actual eating disorders should proceed with caution, of course, though I’m plenty curious what they make of all this. B+
Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World
Michael
This is the story of a sweetly eccentric young fellow who merely wants to collect exotic animals, visit children in hospitals, and share his incredible talents with the world. With the help of agent (and, incidentally, the film’s executive producer) John Branca (Miles Teller), our hero wriggles free of his abusive, domineering father (Colman Domingo) and embarks on his first solo tour in 1988, finally his own man—presumably it was all smooth sailing from there. A glitzy extended ad for the disgraced superstar’s estate, Michael follows in the footsteps of the modern music biopic not only as a form of brand management, but as a means of score-settling—from NWA to Elton John, every star wants to be a victim nowadays. Michael has a made-to-order villain in Jackson paterfamilias Joseph, but with his grotesque prosthetics and Nixonian hunched shoulders, Domingo is actually more cartoonish than Mike Myers is in his brief borscht-belt turn as CBS head Walter Yetnikoff. The lesson of Michael Jackson’s life is that the further you retreat into escapist fantasy the more inescapably your neuroses surface, and that plays out with his fandom: The more irreparably Jackson’s reputation is tarnished, the more his worshippers demand a portrait of a saint’s life. And so they get as lousy a movie as they deserve. Shout out to Janet Jackson, who refused to participate and therefore simply doesn’t exist in this Michaelverse. C
Obsession
I’ll say this for the “must see” horror flick of the summer—you should probably see it. Which is more than I say about most of the lukewarm bloodbaths (some of them not even Oz Perkins’s fault) that are regularly touted as the best thing to happen to the screen since the chainsaw. Michael Johnston’s Bear is so hapless he can’t acknowledge his crush on pal/co-worker Nikki (Inde Navarrette) even when she asks him about it point blank. So, like so many doomed losers before him, he makes a magical wish for her love, an overturning of the natural order that goes wrong is ways both predictable and un-. Like any effective horror movie, there are all sorts of psychosexual subtexts you can tease out of this scenario—the (male) anxiety that true love is smothering, the (again male) desire to efface female personality—but though YouTube-weaned auteur Curry Barker has a genre-adept’s knack for pacing and execution, Obsession doesn’t have much conceptual play. But it also doesn’t give us the easy “slay girl” catharsis of, say, Companion, and what truly sets it apart is Navarrette’s committed performance of a woman trapped in a man’s fantasy. B+
The Odyssey—read full review here
What we tend to forget about The Odyssey is that it’s maybe 10% cool mythological shit like one-eyed giant cannibals and sinister witches and gods punishing impudent mortals and like 90% about exchanging gifts with your hosts and telling very long stories to impress them. What’s remarkable about Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is that it honors this aspect of the epic while delivering the supernatural adventure film moviegoers want. Yet as always, Nolan is so transparent in his ideology you can almost believe he’s making an argument, when like any storyteller he’s just using fiction to justify his beliefs. Which, as always, is that we are always one well-told tale away from chaos. Whether the gods are real or not, warns the David Brooks of the cineplex, if we don’t honor them we will undermine the customs that hold our society together. Hey man, I just came here for the Cyclops. B+
Peter Asher: Everywhere Man—ends July 23
Rose of Nevada—ends July 23
Of all the young guys in movies these days who look like Callum Turner and George McKay, Callum Turner and George McKay are two of the better ones. Director Mark Jenkin had a promising if narrative-averse breakthrough in 2022 with the folk horror tone poem Enys Men. And the setup here—two young men sail on a cursed Cornish fishing boat that transports them back in time—isn’t just intriguing, but makes for a solid metaphor of how dying towns survive on the backs of the youth who remain behind. But excuse me if Rose of Nevada is a little too vibes-first for Mr. What Happens Next? here. Once the two men develop opposing reactions to their fate—Turner’s Liam sees this as an opportunity to become the family man he never was, while McKay misses his present-day family and is desperate to return—we’ve learned about all we’re going to from these characters. All that remains to be experienced is atmospherics, film presence, spooky tension, and storms at sea. Which ain’t nothing. B
