Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 16 May 2025 - 22 May 2024

Looking at the previews and screen counts for the week's new releases and thinking that's more demand than I would expect for them.

• For instance, Final Destination Bloodlines is getting a lot of screens, premium and otherwise, 15 years after the last entry, long enough that Death is coming for all the descendants of folks who cheated him/it in earlier episodes. It's at the Capitol, Fresh Pond, Jordan's Furniture (Imax), CinemaSalem, Boston Common (including Imax Laser & Dolby Cinema & Spanish subtitles), Causeway Street, Kendall Square, the Seaport (including Dolby Atmos), SouthBay (including Imax Xenon & Dolby Cinema), and Assembly Row (including Imax Laser & Dolby Cinema).
  
  Hurry Up Tomorrow, meanwhile, heavily plays up that it's the new one from Trey Edward Shults, who doesn't seem to be a household name, but, hey, his movie about a young woman (Jenna Ortega) kidnapping The Weeknd (Abel Tesfaye apparently playing himself) has a trippy-enough preview to be interesting. It plays Fresh Pond, The Embassy, Boston Common, Causeway Street, Kendall Square, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Arsenal Yards.
  
  After what seems like an unusually generous amount of previews, Friendship has a limited opening before going wider next week. It stars Tim Robinson as a socially awkward man who makes friends with his cool new neighbor (Paul Rudd) but apparently has trouble when they don't become or stay very close. It opens this week at the Coolidge, Boston Common, and Kendall Square.
  
  Things Like This, a romantic comedy about two guys named Zack falling for each other, plays Fresh Pond and Boston Common. Drama Bound, which has been bouncing around the festival circuit since December 2023, plays at Fresh Pond.
  
  Aztek World Tour "Towards the LiIght: Will to Power" has an encore at Boston Common Saturday. The Wiz has shows Sunday & Wednesday at Boston Common, Kendall Square, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Arsenal Yards; Saturday & Wednesday at the Seaport. There's a Monday "Scream Unseen" preview at Boston Common, Causeway Street, South Bay, and Assembly Row. 28 Days Later plays Wednesday at the Coolidge, the Seaport, and Assembly Row. There are "fan event" previews for Lilo & Stitch in Dolby Cinema at Boston Common, South Bay, and Assembly Row and Mission Impossible: The FInal Reckoning in Imax at Boston Common, South Bay, at Assembly Row.
• The Coolidge Corner Theatre opens documentary Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted; Swamp Dogg is a rock/R&B legend living in the L.A. suburbs with other music-making friends.
  
  Tangerine Dream midnights this weekend are Miracle Mile on Friday and Near Dark on 35mm Saturday; The Room also plays the midnight shift on Friday. Peggy Sue Got Married on Saturday afternoon is the final Coolidge Award show in tribute to Francis Ford Coppola (I guess rather than doing a big announcement and ceremony they just worked it into the Megalopolis shows). Sunday is busy, with Franz Kafka romance The Glory of Life for the Goethe-Institut German film matinee, a special Panorama screening of Sinners with Cliff Notez discussing its musica and history, and Weathering with You for Ani-Mania. Monday has a digital restoration of PIcnic at Hanging Rock with pre-film seminar le by Lesley University's Ingrid Stobbe; Tuesday has another digital restoration and speaker, with folks from The Theater Offensive discussing Wong Kar-Wai's Happy Together; Wednesday has an Ani-Mania show of Belladonna of Sadness; and Thursday has a Rewind! Screening of 10 Things I Hate About You, plus the kickoff to the WBUR Festival with speakers for The Social Network
• New South Asian movies at Apple Fresh Pond include Tamil-languge drama Maama, Tamil-language horror-comedy sequel DD Next Level, Nepali romance Unko Sweater, Malayalam-language comedy-adventure Padakkalam (through Tuesday). A re-release of Telugu-language fantasy-comedy Yamadonga plays Saturday and Sunday, Tamil-language thriller Eleven plays Sunday, and Nepali-language historical drama Jaar plays Wednesday, probably as the start of a week-long run though Apple isn't showing dates from Thursday on, as per usual. If you can make it out to the Liberty Tree Mall in Danvers (or live nearby), Telugu-language thriller 23 (Iravai Moodu) opens there.
  
  Tamil-language feel-good movie Tourist Family continues at Fresh Pond; #Single continues at Boston Common and Causeway Street.
  
  Haitian thriller July 7 opens at South Bay.
  
  Wow, is it Studio Ghibli Fest time already? Apparently so, as Kiki's Delivery Service plays Boston Common, Assembly Row on Saturday (dubbed), Sunday (dubbed), Monday (subtitled), Tuesday (subtitled), Wednesday (dubbed). Demon Slayer The Movie: Mugen Train has encores at Boston Common, Kendall Square, the Seaport, South Bay, and Assembly Row Friday, Sunday, and Monday).
  
  Chinese thriller A Gilded Game continues at Causeway Street.
  
  Vietnamese movies Money Kisses and The Ancestral Home continue at South Bay.
• The Somerville Theatre opens New Zealand drama We Were Dangerous, about the friendship between three girls in an isolated reform institution in 1954 (it's also in West Newton). They welcome Hungarian director Bálint Szimler to present his film Lesson Learned, about a new teacher and a transfer student both facing challenges in a fifth-grade classroom, on Saturday afternoon. The schedule also has two polar opposites for their F— the Nazis series, with Bedknobs and Boomsticks playing Sunday afternoon and a 35mm print of Downfall on Thursday evening. Frederick Wiseman documentary Public Housing plays Tuesday Evening.
  
  The Capitol Theatre picks up When Fall Is Coming.
• The Brattle Theatre starts off the weekend with Love Story on 35mm for the Friday Film Matinee. They also have two new restorations: Compensation is a 1999 film telling the stories of Deaf African Americans at the beginning and end of the twenty-first century, playing Friday to Sunday and Tuesday, subtitled. Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep plays Friday to Monday.
  
  Val Kilmer forever continues with MacGruber on Friday, 35mm matinees of Willow on Saturday & Sunday, Batman Forever on Monday, and a 35mm encore of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang on Tuesday. There's a special Revolutions Per Minute Fest "Behind the Scenes" show Sunday afternoon which features shorts by the curators who usually assembly other people's work. Reunion Week begins on Wednesday, with 2000's American Psycho playing that night and a 35mm print of 1950's Sunset Boulevard playing Thursday. Note that 1975's Jaws plays Friday to Sunday and is your only chance to catch it on 35mm this summer as Universal is farming it out to lesser institutions for the anniversary around the Fourth of July.
• The Seaport Alamo has thriller Sew Torn, with Eve Connolly playing a seamstress whose latest house call has her in the middle of a drug deal gone wrong, playing once a day through at least Wednesday, with the shows Friday & Saturday night featuring writer/director Freddy Macdonald on-hand for a Q&A. They also have Dog Day Afternoon Sunday & Monday, a mystery preview on Monday, Cooley High on Tuesday, and a Crossroads Movie Party on Wednesday
• The Boston Asian American Film Festival has two shows at ArtsEmerson's Paramount Theatre this weekend: Power, about the history of American policing, plays for free on Friday night, including a post=screening Q&A with filmmaker Yance Ford and others. The Truer History of the Chan Family, about a Chinese-American playwright trying to make hay out of his family's scandalous reputation and being corrected by their ghosts, plays Saturday afternoon with short "Ten Times Better" and post-film Q&A. They also sponsor the MOS screening of The Glassworker on Sunday.
• The Harvard Film Archive wraps its spring semester with the end of its Satyajit Ray series: Days and Nights in the Forest on Friday evening and Sunday afternoon, The Adversary later Friday night, The Music Room and Charulata separately on Saturday, and finishing with The Big City on Sunday evening. After that, they're dark until mid-July, when they begin their annual deep dive.
• WBUR kicks off a monthly "Set in Boston" film series at CitySpace with The Friends of Eddie Coyle, considered by many to be the best Boston movie ever. WBUR's Sean Burns will be in conversation with Jake Mulligan afterward.
• Everything Everywhere All at Once has two free shows on The Museum of Science's Omni dome on Saturday (RSVP recommended), and The Glassworker has a special screening in association with the Boston Aisan American Film Festival on Sunday, with director Usman Riaz on hand and a panel afterward (it plays again on Saturday the 31st).
• Belmont World Film wraps their 2025 series at the West Newton Theater on Monday with Irish Four Mothers, in which a young novelist must look after not only his own mother, but those of three of his friends, during an already-busy weekend. The Irish Film Festival co-presents, social worker Marybeth Duffy speaks, and there is a separately-ticketed reception featuring Irish cuisine at the nearby Flora's Wine Bar beforehand.
• Landmark Kendall Square has an R-rated Monday Mystery Movie, Mamma Mia! for Tuesday's Meryl Streep selection, stand-up film Joe List: Small Ball on Wednesday.
• The Museum of Fine Arts begins their annual Festival of FIlms From Japan on Thursday with Sunset Sunrise, about a Tokyo office worker who takes the opportunity of the Covid pandemic to move to a small coastal town where he can fish everyday, something the locals regard with suspicion. The series continues through 6 June.
• Joe's Free Films is a bit behind on the summer programs, but the Coolidge is showing Josie and the Pussycats at the Allston Speedway on Wednesday.
• The Embassy has Thunderbolts* and Hurry Up Tomorrow through Sunday. Disney's 1954 20,00 Leagues Under the Sea, with Kirk Douglas, James Mason, and Peter Lorre, is Monday's free community matinee.
• The Lexington Venue is open Friday to Wednesday with On Swift Horses, The Shrouds, and The Ballad Of Wallis Island. The 2025 New York Dog FIlm Festival program plays Saturday morning, and they have a free matinee screening of The Killing on Sunday.
  
  The West Newton Cinema hosts the Global Cinema Flm Festival of Boston, with 10 documentary features and one shorts program playing between Friday and Sunday. Friday's The Treasure Hunter has a virtual Q&A, Saturday's Faithful Unto Death has an in-person Q&A, and most have video introductions from the filmmakers. The theater also opens We Were Dangerous and holds over Marcella, Thunderbolts*, The Penguin Lessons, Sinners, Secret Mall Apartment, and A Minecraft Movie. They are also the venue for Boston Jewish Film's screening Persona Non Grata on Wednesday (tickets via BJF's website), which tells the story of a Japanese diplomat in Lithuania torn between Japan's allegiance to Germany and the Jewish refugees looking for transit visas.
  
  Cinema Salem has Thunderbolts*, Sinners, Clown in a Cornfield, and Final Destination Bloodlines through Monday. On Saturday they have For Sale By Exorcist, a horror-comedy about a woman who flips houses after dispelling their spirits, plays Saturday night with director Melissa MaMartina and co-writer Chris LaMartina in person. There's a Whodunnit Watch party Monday night (rather than the usual Sunday). The Sea Wolf is the Wednesday Classic, with Weirdo Wednesdays down the hall. Clueless plays Thursday as part of a sponsored new "Girlies with Anniversaries" series.
  
  Supernatural thriller The Ruse opens at the Showcase in Woburn and the Liberty Tree Mall AMC in Danvers.

I'll probably do Sew Torn on Friday and We Were Dangerous soon after, maybe trying to grab stragglers alongside Hurry Up Tomorrow.