Another film festival this week: The Italians are taking their turn at the Main, with a healthy serving of popular and arthouse fare, along with some classics. Also, in the "iconic duo" category, we've got the Trylon and Emagine Willow Creek teaming up for their "Bad Company" series—19 movies about evil corporations all March long at both theaters.
Special Screenings
Thursday, February 26
Perfect Days (2023)
Alamo Drafthouse
Wim Wenders’ lovely film about the joys of routine and the wonders of Japanese bathrooms. $10. 7 p.m. More info here.
The Revenant (2016)
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16
A man (Leonardo DiCaprio) will do anything to win an Oscar. $18.99. 6 p.m. Sunday 2 p.m. More info here.
Ghost Elephants (2025)
AMC Southdale 16/Emagine Willow Creek
Werner Herzog trails a naturalist seeking elephants. AMC: $13.99. 6:55 p.m. More info here. Emagine: $13. 6:05 p.m. More info here.
Book Club (2018)
Emagine Willow Creek
Some ladies read 50 Shades of Grey. $12. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Ratatouille (2007)
Granada
You’re telling me a rat tatted this touille? A Taste the Movies event. $169.99. 6 p.m. More info here.
Almost Famous (2000)
Grandview 1&2
This is exactly what being a music journalist is like. $14.14. 9:15 p.m. More info here.
Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954)
Heights Theater
Filmed on location at Folsom Prison. $13. 7 p.m. More info here.
Point Break (1991)
King Coil Spirits
Admission includes two drinks and popcorn. Presented by Trilingua Cinema. $30. 7 p.m. More info here.
Il Maestro (My Tennis Maestro) (2025)
Main Cinema
This year’s Italian Film Festival kicks off with this tennis comedy. $45.50. Pre-show opening event at 6 p.m. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
The Princess Bride (1987)
Parkway Theater
RIP Rob Reiner. $12/$15. Trivia at 6:30 p.m. Movie at 7 p.m. More info here.
WTO/99 (2025)
Riverview Theater
Newish doc about the 1999 clash between protesters and the WTO in Seattle. Free; $10 donation requested. 7:15 p.m. More info here.
Friday, February 27
Souleymane 's Story (2024)
Alliance Française
A Guinean bike messenger seeks asylum in France. Full review here. Free; $10 donation requested. 6 p.m. More info here.
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Heights Theater
Starring Tom Hardy as a hood ornament. $13. 9:45 p.m. More info here.
Roma città aperta (Rome Open City) (1945)
Main Cinema
Rossellini’s neorealist landmark Part of the Italian Film Festival. $17. 11 a.m. More info here.
La donna nella Resistenza (Women of the Resistance) (1965)
Main Cinema
Liliana Cavani’s documentary tribute to the Italian women partisans of WWII. Part of the Italian Film Festival. Free. 2:15 p.m. More info here.
Cinque secondi (Five Seconds) (2025)
Main Cinema
A man living in solitude has a mysterious past. Part of the Italian Film Festival. $17. 4:15 p.m. More info here.
Breve storia d’amore (A Brief Affair) (2025)
Main Cinema
An extramarital affair has unexpected results. Part of the Italian Film Festival. $17. 6:30 p.m. More info here.
Le città di pianura (The Last One for the Road) (2025)
Main Cinema
An architecture student’s life is changed by two middle-aged drunks. Part of the Italian Film Festival. $17. 8:45 p.m. More info here.
The Bad Guys 2 (2025)
Marcus West End
They’re back, and badder than ever. Or maybe not. I haven’t seen this. Through Sunday. $3.12:30 p.m. More info here.
Heavy Metal (1981)
Trylon
If you’ve never watched this while stoned, were you really a teen in the ’80s? $8. Friday-Saturday 7 & 9 p.m. Sunday 3 & 5 p.m. More info here.
Saturday, February 28
Twin Peaks: The Return: Parts 5-6 (2017)
Alamo Drafthouse
Enter the world of Dougie Jones. $10.99. Noon. More info here.
Hoppers (2026)
AMC Southdale
A woman transfers her brain into a robot beaver for… reasons. Advance screening. $16.19. 1 p.m. More info here.
Born to Be Wild (2011)
AMC Southdale
An animal rescue doc. $6. 11:15 p.m. More info here.
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
Emagine Willow Creek
The best Spider-Man? Also Sunday & Wednesday. $10.60. 3:50 & 7 p.m. More info here.
The Land Before Time (1988)
Heights Theater
They had to read Newsweek back then. $16. 11 a.m. More info here.
Hard Boiled (1992)
Heights Theater
How does Chow Yun-Fat like his eggs? $13. 9:30 p.m. More info here.
L’Eclisse (1962)
Main Cinema
An eclipse plunges attractive Europeans into stylish ennui. Part of the Italian Film Festival. $17. 10:15 a.m. More info here.
Gioia Mia (Sweetheart) (2025)
Main Cinema
A boy spends the summer in Sicily with his grumpy old aunt. Part of the Italian Film Festival. $17. 1:45 p.m. More info here.
Lamerica (1994)
Main Cinema
Italian con men run a scam in post-Communist Albania. Part of the Italian Film Festival. $17. 4:15 p.m. More info here.
La vita va così (Life is Life) (2025)
Main Cinema
A shepherd stands up to real estate developers. Part of the Italian Film Festival. $17. 7:45 p.m. More info here.
La Gioia (2025)
Main Cinema
Not to be confused with Gioia Mia. Part of the Italian Film Festival. $17. 10 p.m. More info here.
Invisible Beauty (2023)
Mia
A documentary about fashion pioneer Bethann Hardison. Free. 2 p.m. More info here.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
Parkway Theater
Would you people keep it down? I’m trying to watch the movie. $10/$15. Midnight. More info here.
Howl’s Moving Castle (2024)
Walker Art Center
A screening for middle-schoolers. Free. 1 p.m. More info here.
Sunday, March 1
The Room (2003)
Grandview 1&2
I hear it’s bad. Also Thursday. $14.14. 9:15 p.m. More info here.
A Better Tomorrow (1986)
Emagine Willow Creek/Marcus West End
John Woo flick about a former gangster and his brother the cop. Emagine: $13. 4 & 7 p.m. Monday & Wednesday 7 p.m. More info here. Marcus: $10.50. Sunday-Monday 7:30 p.m. Wednesday 7:25 p.m. More info here.
Fuori (2025)
Main Cinema
A film about rediscovered author Goliarda Sapienza. Part of the Italian Film Festival. $17. 11 a.m. More info here.
Napoli-New York (2024)
Main Cinema
A new film based on an old Fellini script. Part of the Italian Film Festival. $17. 2:30 p.m. More info here.
Film d’amore e d’anarchia (Love and Anarchy) (1973)
Main Cinema
As politically provocative a film as you’d expect from the great Lina Wertmüller. Part of the Italian Film Festival. $17. 5:30 p.m. More info here.
La vita da grandi (Siblings) (2025)
Main Cinema
After their parents’ deaths, a brother and a sister learn a little something about each other. Part of the Italian Film Festival. $17. 8:30 p.m. More info here.
Fight Club (1999)
Roxy’s Cabaret
Men would rather punch each other in the face than go to therapy. Free. 7 p.m. More info here.
Michael Clayton (2007)
Trylon
George Clooney isn’t the guy you kill. $8. 7 p.m. Monday-Tuesday 7 & 9:30 p.m. More info here.
Monday, March 2
The Room (2003)
Edina Mann 4
If you’d rather see it in Edina. Also Wednesday. $12.12. 7 p.m. More info here.
Frankenstein's Bloody Terror (1968)
Emagine Willow Creek
A Eurohorror cult classic. $12. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Borderland: The Line Within (2024)
Main Cinema
A fundraiser for the Minnesota Immigrant Movement (MIM)–Rent Assistance Program. $50. 6 p.m. More info here.
Tuesday, March 3
Fly Fishing Film Tour (F3T)
Parkway Theater
The series celebrates its 20th anniversary. $12/$22. 7 p.m. More info here.
Wednesday, March 4
Dolly (2026)
Alamo Drafthouse
Advance screening of a new horror movie about a murderous giant doll. $13.99. 7 p.m. More info here.
Aurora: What Happened to The Earth (2026)
Emagine Willow Creek
Concert film from the Norwegian singer. $17. 7 p.m. More info here.
The Hidden Fortress (1958)
Lagoon Cinema
You know, I’d always thought of this Star Wars influence as second-tier Kurosawa but I rewatched it recently and it’s a blast. $11. 7 p.m. More info here.
Natural Phenomena (2024)
Main Cinema
The 17th Minnesota Cuban Film Festival begins with the story of a woman who lives on an isolated ranch in the ’80s. $12. 7 p.m. More info here.
Tape Freaks
Trylon
It’s sold out. It’s always sold out. $5. 7 p.m. More info here.
Thursday, March 5
Sweet Charity (1969)
Alamo Drafthouse
Shirley MacLaine + Bob Fosse. $10. 7 p.m. More info here.
40 Acres (2025)
Capri Theater
Danielle Deadwyler is a woman trying to protect her children from the outside postapocalyptic world. Full review here. $5. 7 p.m. More info here.
Tank Girl (1995)
Emagine Willow Creek
Lori Petty fights a postapocalyptic Australian megacorp. $10. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
The Lineup (1958)
Heights Theater
Mobsters smuggle drugs using unsuspecting tourists. $13. 7 p.m. More info here.
Opening
Follow the links for showtimes.
Dreams
Wealthy socialite Jessica Chastain has an affair with an undocumented immigrant.
Get on the Bus (1996)
Remember the Million Man March?
K-Pops
Anderson .Paak writes, starts and directs.
Pegasus 3
A Chinese blockbuster about auto racing.
The President’s Cake
A nine-year-old girl must bake a birthday cake for Saddam Hussein.
Scream 7
OK, that’s enough now.
Twenty One Pilots: More Than We Ever Imagined
They only imagined about 13 pilots, 14 tops.
2026 Documentary Oscar Nominated Shorts
Yes, the docs are in theaters now too.
Uma Musume: Pretty Derby - Beginning of a New Era
The Woman King (2022)
Viola Davis battles slavers.
Ongoing in Local Theaters
Follow the links for showtimes.
All That’s Left of You—ends February 26
Avatar: Fire and Ash
There’s a silly ongoing online debate that no, I will not join, about whether the Avatar movies have any “cultural impact.” But I can say that watching the first 10 minutes of each new sequel is like seeing your in-laws’ extended family over the holidays: Everyone looks kind of familiar but damned if you can be expected to remember their names, let alone what their deal is. And you know what? I like that. When you’re not actually watching an Avatar movie, nobody expects you to think about Avatar at all, and what more can you ask from a talented megalomaniac’s misguided passion project? James Cameron still can’t plot for shit, and even more than its two predecessors, Avatar: Fire and Ash is just one damn thing after another. (It hardly fits his grandiose vision, but what Cameron is narratively suited for, with his cliffhangery series of captures and escapes, is an old-fashioned serial.) So… do those damn things still look cool? Sigh, yes, they still look cool. We’re introduced to the Mangkwan, a more vicious race of Na’vi who shoot flaming arrows and practice dark magic, ruled by the sinewy, feline Varang (Oona Chaplin, whose hissing skills rival even Zoe Saldana’s). There’s a billowy, translucent trading vessel that floats through the air. Nasty squids with pincers haunt the ocean depths. So while all the usual caveats apply—Cameron’s ideas about indigenous peoples remain ideologically suspect; the younger actors still sound like they’re doing voice work for a tepid Scooby-Doo reboot; the whole thing’s just too damn long—Avatar remains your best one-stop-shop for state-of-the-art ecotopian fantasy and the righteous destruction of military hardware. B
EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die
Hamnet
There’s no reason this should work. Hamlet isn’t “about” the death of Shakespeare’s only son, and even if the play was his way of processing that calamity, what’s that to us? But while I feared the biographical fallacy would run amok through (cursed phrase incoming) Chloé Zhao’s first film since Eternals—movies have a tedious habit of treating works of art as riddles we decode to understand an artist’s life—Hamnet honors the complexity of human creativity. It helps that the central figure isn’t Shakespeare (Paul Mescal, here to make the girlies weep once more), but his wife Agnes (Jessie Buckley), a “forest witch” (as the villagers say) who takes to motherhood intensely, with a protectiveness born out of her visions of dark foreboding. With the aid of DP Łukasz Żal’s muddy tones and chiaroscuro interiors, and an allusive yet plainspoken script co-written with Maggie O'Farrell (author of the novel that serves as source material), Zhao creates a credible Elizabethan world, and Buckley’s performance, ranging from the subtle flickers of a smile to wracked howls of grief, is all-encompassing. The final segment—the premiere of Hamlet itself—is the emotional equivalent of juggling chainsaws, yet Buckley’s commitment anchors a conceit that could as easily elicit snickers as sniffles. In her expression we watch as the stuff of life—mourning, family drama, the unworthiness we feel in the face of personal tragedy—is subsumed into something greater than its components. A
The Housemaid
Sydney Sweeney is Millie, an ex-con living out of her car who miraculously lands a job as a live-in maid for the wealthy Winchester family. Amanda Seyfried is Nora, the too-perfect wife. Brandon Sklenar is Andrew, a kind Barry Lyndon buff who’s built like an underwear model. There’s also a daughter who looks like she sees dead people. No sooner does Millie sign on than Nora becomes unpredictably moody and vicious. Mysteries abound! Does Nora have an ulterior motive for hiring a hottie with a killer rack? Why does Andrew stick around with his cuckoo wife? Just what is the deal with that dead-eyed kid? If Sydney Sweeney can act, why does she deliver every line in the same flat zoomer mutter, as though she’s just getting the words out of the way? Seyfried has a ball throughout, and Sweeney does wake up for the finale, but trash shouldn’t be this impressed with itself, and the twist—you knew there was one—is undermined by an extended period of explanatory voiceover. Cartoonish about class, which is fine, and about domestic abuse, which is less so, and overall just not enough fun. Next time you think, “They don’t make movies like that anymore,” be careful what you wish for: This is what happens when they try. C+
Kokuho—ends February 26
Marty Supreme
Josh Safie and Ronald Bronstein’s script brings the frenetic energy of postwar Jewish fiction to the story of an annoying little man who is very good at 1) ping pong and 2) getting people to do what he wants. In the course of two and a half hours, Marty Mauser robs his uncle, knocks up a married woman, bangs an aging movie star, opens for the Harlem Globetrotters, loses a mobster’s dog, swindles some Jersey rubes, and screws over anyone who gives him a break. The cast is uniformly great, even (grits teeth) Kevin O’Leary, but this is the Timothée Chalamet show, let’s be real. He gets that Marty’s ego and his willingness to be humiliated all come from the same place, that drive to succeed that either hollows you out or reveals your hollowness. Open wounds from the last war seep out all over this film via Jewish resentment, Holocaust survival, Japanese nationalism. And despite an anachronistic ’80s new wave/pop soundtrack blended with composer Daniel Lopatin’s audition to become this generation’s Giorgio Moroder, the production design is impeccable: No one in this movie looks like they’ve ever seen a cell phone. So smart and frantic and bracing that if you’re not careful you might even mistake its closing scene for a moment of heartwarming redemption. A-
Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie
Matt Johnson cashes in the cred he earned with his 2023 film Blackberry to turn his ‘00s cult web series with Jay McCarrol into perhaps the most relentlessly Canadian hit comedy movie since Strange Brew. The two jokesters play their fictionalized selves, with Matt devising increasingly desperate plans to score their musical duo a gig at a Toronto rock club as Jay grudgingly goes along. When Matt invents a time machine, the fellas find themselves back in 2008 (when their show first streamed), and the trail of period clues leading to the moment when Matt realizes he’s not in 2025 anymore are perfect. As time travelers will do, Matt and Jay soon foul up the time line by interacting with their former selves and must undergo a series of hilarious convolutions to set things right. The Main was a-hootin’ when I saw this, with a guy behind me shouting “Oh no! OH NO!” in anticipation of one gag. (Though there was no reaction quite like the theater-wide groan when a certain music vlogger appeared on screen.) But the movie’s heart is its investment in Toronto as a place, evident as Matt and Jay interact with ordinary Torontonians and tourists and leading to climactic gag that involves the CN Tower, miles of electrical cord, and a police chase. You think studios will take the hint and start green-lighting more low-budget romps like this from funny weirdos? Nah, me either. B+
No Other Choice
Park Chan-wook sure knows how to end a damn movie—if at any point you find the macabre comedy of No Other Choice a bit unfocused, rest assured that it will end with as much bleak finality as Decision to Leave, though on a far less romantic note of doom. We begin with handsome paper-factory manager Man-Su (Squid Game album Lee Byung-hun) outside his gorgeous home, grilling eel to celebrate his pretty wife Mi-ri’s (Son Ye-jin) birthday. As they huddle together with daughter and son, and their two dogs dart between their legs in the lovely autumn light, you just know an ax is gonna fall. Sure enough, the new American owners toss Man-Su out on his ear, forcing him to endure a patronizing session where the newly unemployed are coached to chant that their firing is not their fault. But masculinity doesn’t untangle that easily. Battling guilt, jealousy, alcoholism, pride, and sheer purposelessness as he fails to find a new job, Man-Su decides he must murder his competition. Unlike Park’s usual protagonists, though, Man-su has a hard time acclimating to murder. He’s not just squeamish and inept, he’s hobbled by empathy—he might be able to kill these guys, but he can’t stand to see their feelings hurt. Working with cinematographer Woo-hyung Kim, Park’s technique dazzles with acrobatic unpredictability here, with tricky dissolves that wash us nimbly between scenes and perspectives. And by the time Man-Su gets his final reward Park’s kill-or-be-killed metaphor has left all subtlety behind, as it damn well should. A-
Pillion
Who says BDSM can’t be romantic? In Harry Lighton’s directorial debut, Harry Melling is Colin, a meek little gay fella who sings in a barbershop quartet at the local with his dad while his dying mom tries to fix him up with someone nice before she passes. Enter the opposite of her hopes and dreams: an impossibly chiseled Alexander Skarsgård as a biker named Ray. Under Ray’s laconic tutelage, Colin dives happily into his new submissive leather ‘n’ chains lifestyle, and the first half of Pillion is both warmly affectionate and flat-out hilarious. It loses its way for a bit in the midsection until Colin starts quietly asserting himself, hoping to get to know the Ray behind his dom exterior. The result is a crowdpleaser that doesn’t untangle its kink. If only it had opened here on Valentine’s Day weekend like it did in so many other cities. A-
Send Help
Sam Raimi the schlock lover and gross-out king is back, and he hasn’t had this much fun since Drag Her to Hell—there are moments of eyeball-gouging here worth the price of admission alone. Rachel McAdams is nerdy office worker Linda, a spreadsheet wiz who’s been screwed over by her new boss, fratty nepo baby Bradley (Dylan O’Brien). En route to a Thailand business meeting, their plane crashes (an understatement—Raimi gleefully rips apart the aircraft and its occupants), with only Linda and Bradley surviving. Naturally, Linda, a Survivor fanatic, thrives in their new island home, while Bradley struggles. If that makes Send Help sound like a late entry in the eat-the-rich movie trend of a few years back, well, kinda, yes, but Raimi is less overwrought and, well, European about class conflict. McAdams is an underutilized comic actress who deserves more roles like this and O’Brien builds off his success in last year’s Twinless—if modern Hollywood wasn’t so inherently tedious he’d have Glen Powell’s career, though selfishly I’d rather have him making the movies he does. (It’s also the second movie in a row where he shows his butt.) Send Help is the best kind of horror comedy, where rather than fearing what awful thing might come next, you look forward to it. What you might dread instead is that the movie could stumble into opposites-attract territory, with Linda and Bradley learning a little something about each other and finding l-u-v. Rest easy. Raimi didn’t save up all his Dr. Strange money just to piss it away on a romcom. A-
The Testament of Ann Lee—ends February 26
Hard not to see Mona Fastvold’s telling of the story of Ann Lee, the woman who brought the Shaker movement to America, as a companion piece to her partner Brady Corbet’s more lauded The Brutalist, which was also built off a Fastvold-Corbet script. Both capture the tension between immigrant outsiders and the ethos of the land they’ve moved to. But Ann Lee is ambitious in a less conventional way, a way I hesitate to call “feminine” but is at least non-masculine, typified in how Ann Lee strives to create a community where Laszlo Toth constructed an accusatory and alienated landmark, and in the film’s flowing structure as well. Though there’s plenty of incident here, there’s not much drama: The “And then… and then…” mode of the religious text that the screenplay takes doesn’t lend itself to that. Fastvold captures the textures of 18th century Britain, the grubby toil and the joyless sex, reminding us that religious extremism once served as a route to agency for the oppressed, and her tone aims for the ecstatic austerity of the Shakers themselves. That’s undercut by a pop sweetness to the hymns and a choreographed precision to the dances that feels stagey; this is a movie musical as much as it’s a representation of the Shaker belief in worship through song. Then again, maybe that genre movie is Fastvold feminizing, even queering, the film epic? Regardless, Amanda Seyfried’s cult leader is both intensely physical and otherworldly; with her luminous eyes, beatifically parted lips, musical Mancunian drawl, and quiet presence, you can see why she has so many followers, despite her “no sex ever” rule. As I overheard one woman say on her way out of the theater, “If celibacy makes you sing like that…” B
This Is Not a Test—ends February 26
2026 Animated Oscar-Nominated Shorts
2026 Live Action Oscar-Nominated Shorts
