Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 10 October 2025 - 16 October 2024

Ah, it's "streamers pretend they care if people see their movies because they're contractually obligated to give theatrical releases" season!

• As such, Netflix is releasing A House of Dynamite, the new Kathryn Bigelow thriller starring Idris Ela as the President and Rebecca Ferguson as the National Security Advisor responding to the unthinkable situation of a nuclear strike on the United States with no clear evidence for who ordered it, at The Coolidge Corner Theatre, Kendall Square, West Newton, and the Lexington Venue.
  
  Midnight slashers at the Coolidge this weekend are Prom Night on Friday and a 35mm print of The Prowler on Saturday. At the other end of the day, there's an hour-long package of "Little Kid Flicks" at 10:30am Saturday & Sunday mornings. Sunday morning also features a Goethe-Institut presentation of two episodes of miniseries ZEIT Verbrechen, "December" and "Love by Proxy", with "December" director Mariko Minoguchi on-hand for a Q&A. Other rep this week includes "Art House of Horror" presentations of Diabolique '55 Sunday afternoon, Possession Tuesday evening, and Kwaidan on Wednesday evening; The Phantom of the Opera (1925) with a live score by Invincible Czars on Monday; Open Screen on Tuesday; Peeping Tom as the Big Screen Classic Thursday evening, and a 35mm print of Earnest Scared Stupid as the Cult Classic later Thursday night.
• Kind of fun: Greta Lee co-stars in both Dyanmite and Tron: Ares, which has Jared Leto as a Program spawned into the real world as disposable holographic mercenaries, although one wants to become a real boy. No Bruce Boxleitner (who played "Tron"), but Jeff Bridges shows up, as does Jodie Turner-Smith and Gillian Anderson. Gets a bunch of big screens, playing the Capitol, Fresh Pond (including 3D), the Museum of Science (Omnmax Friay/Saturday), Boston Common (including Imax Laser 2D/3D 7 Dolby Cinema 2D/3D & RealD 3D), Causeway Street (including RealD 3D), Kendall Square, the Seaport, South Bay (including Imax Xenon 2D/3D & Dolby Cinema 2D & RealD 3D), Assembly Row (including Imax Laser 2D/3D & Dolby Cinema 2D & RealD 3D), Arsenal Yards (including CWX), and Chestnut Hill.
  
  Roofman looks cute, with Channing Tatum as a good-natured escaped convict hiding out in a big-box toy store for months, becoming fond of its employees, especially the one played by Kirsten Dunst. It's at the Capitol, Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Causeway Street, Kendall Square, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, Arsenal Yards, and Chestnut Hill.
  
  Also opening is Kiss of the Spider Woman, with Bill Condon directing a musical starring Diego Luna and Tonatiuh as cellmates, with the former retelling his favorite movie (starring Jennifer Lopez) in order to remain sane. It's at the Coolidge, West Newton, Boston Common, Causeway Street, the Kendall., and Assembly Row.
  
  There's also Soul on Fire, about an injured boy relying on his "family, faith, and community", with John Corbeett as the father, William H. Macy in there, and Sean McNamara as the director (and, honestly, I kind of want to know what the deal is with McNamara doing just a huge amount of stuff that seems to run the gamut from crud to sincere mediocrity to big in the conservative/faith community). It plays Boston Common, and Assembly Row.
  
  Fairyland, a Sundance 2023 film just finding distribution now, features Emilia Cooke as a young woman reminiscing about growing up with her gay father (Scoot McNairy) in the 1970s and 1980s; hope Geena Davis isn't just in a couple scenes as the mother who dies young! It's at Boston Common.
  
  A Nightmare on Elm Street plays Arsenal Yards Friday to Sunday; The Dark Crystal plays Boston Common on Sunday/Monday; Trick 'r Treat plays Boston Common Tuesday/Thursday. There are mystery movies at Boston Common, Causeway Street, the Kendal, South Bay, Assembly Row on Monday; plus non-mystery previews of .After the Hunt at Boston Common, Causeway Street, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row on Wednesday. Edward Burns's latest, The Family McMullen, revisits The Brothers McMullen (with Connie Britton and Mike McGlone also returning) and plays Wednesday night at Boston Common, South Bay, Assembly Row.
• Landmark Kendall Square opens Orwell: 2+2=5, with I Am Not Your Negro director Raoul Peck delving into the live and impact of George Orwell.
  
  The Kendall also has The Monster Squad for their Tuesday Halloween Retro Replay. Netflix's Ballad of a Small Player, with Coln Farrell as a gambler lying low in Macau pursued by a PI (Tilda Swinton) and offered a way out by a casino employee (Fala Chen), opens on Wednesday; Landmark is offering a four-pack with it, Dynamite, Frankenstein, and Nouvelle Vague for $30 to paid loyalty members.
• Row to Win, with Bo Huang as a small-time crook who returns to his hometown to coach son Adam Fan Chengcheng's crew team, has a kind of big opening for a Chinese movie at Boston Common, Causeway Street, and South Bay.
  
  Horror movie The Bride stars Rima Thanh Vy as a young Vietnamese woman engaged to a wealthy Thai Man who apparently awakens a vengeful spirit when trying on a heirloom wedding dress. It's at South Bay.
  
  Anime 100 Meters, about a pair of rival sprinters in high school and beyond, plays Boston Common, Assembly Row Sunday to Monday. Two other anime continue: The 4K remaster of Satoshi Kon's Perfect Blue, plays Boston Common (actually picking up showtimes!), the Seaport, and South Bay. Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle continues at Fresh Pond, Boston Common,Kendall Square, South Bay, and Assembly Row.
  
  Quiet-looking week for Indian movies, as Kantara A Legend: Chapter 1 continues at Apple Fresh Pond (showtimes in Kannada, Telugu, Hindi, Tamil) at Fresh Pond, Causeway Street (Kannada/Telugu/Hindi), and at Boston Common. Also continuing at Fresh Pond and being picked up by Boston Common is Hindi-language romantic comedy Sunny Sanskari Ki Tulsi Kumari. Telugu-language comedy Mithra Mandali opens at Causeway Street on Wednesday and Tamil-language comedy Dude opens Causeway Street on Thursday (and probably Fresh Pond, but they're not on the site yet).
• The Brattle Theatre starts the weekend with a print of The Shadow for the Friday Film matinee, and then gets back to the IFFBoston Fall Focus series of upcoming releases: If I Had Legs I'd Kick You and The Plague Friday; Arco, Sound of Falling, It Was Just an Accident, and Sentimental Value Saturday; and Next Lffe, My Father's Shadow, Miroirs No. 3, The Mastermind, and Blue Moon on Sunday. More at the end of the month, too.
  
  Monday has the 2025 Sundance Institute Indigenous Films Tour package for matinees, an Open Crafting screening of The Lost Boys with lights up, and the premiere of Dance Freak with filmmakers in person. Then on Wednesday and Thursday, they have Hal Hartley's Long Island Trilogy, with Simple Men (35mm), The Unbelievable Truth, and Trust (35mm) both days (though in different orders), ahead of Hartley's latest next weekend.
• The Seaport Alamo has a (sold out) movie party for The Mummy Friday night, and Steven Kostanski's new Deathstalker movie Friday, Sunday, and Tuesday. The "International Cut" of Lifeforce plays Saturday, and the director's cut of Tom Savini's version of Night of the Living Dead on Saturday and Monday. There's more spooky stuff with The Craft on Sunday, a classic in Sullivan's Travels on Tuesday, and an already-sold-out preview of Frankenstein on Wednesday.
• Very busy Friday at The Capitol Theatre , with 12 Angry Men in the afternoon for the 100th anniversary, Nosferatu with live score by Invincible Czars in the evening, and a 4th Wall show of Equipment, See Through Person, Hey, Ily, Latchkey Kids, and Battle Mode. There's another 4th Wall show on Saturday, with Ringing, Main Era, Vivid Bloom, and visuals by Cool Pics. They're back to the Capitol 100 shows on Thursday with Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate. The Somerville Theatre holds steady with One Battle After Another on the main screen in 70mm.
• The Museum of Science adds "Penguins 4-D" to the rotation in the little room starting on Saturday, with Tron: Ares in the Omni theater Friday & Saturday for the next few weeks..
• The main Revolutions Per Minute festival for 2025 continues with three days at the Harvard CAM Lab from Friday to Sunday, featuring nine separate shorts programs, free with RSVP. It wraps at Boston's City Hall on Tuesday with "Sound + Light + Movement", featuring Greg Kelley on trumpet and Lori Goldstein on cello accompanying an hour of silent experimental shorts, although one of their recurring programs will be at the Brattle in a week.
• The Museum of Fine Arts has documentary Minnie Evans: Draw or Die on Friday night and Gosford Park for "Cozy Crime" on Saturday afternoon..
• CineFest Latino 2025 returns for an encore of sorts on Sunday afternoon with Genero: Salsa playing at the City Pavillion in Boston City Hall; director Kamillah Aklaff will be on hand for a Q&A about the film which looks at how queer dancers are using salsa to upend gender norms in Cali, Columbia, the salsa capital of the world.
• The Boston Asian American Film Festival opens at the Coolidge on Thursday with Forge, in which a pair of sibling art forgers find themselves in over their heads when a millionaire hires them for a big job that has more going on that it would appear. Director Jing Ai Ng will be on-hand for a Q&A, and possibly stars Andie Ju and Brandon Soo Hoo (some images have them, some don't).
• Getting chilly out there, but Joe's Free Films shows Goosebumps playing on the Rose Kennedy Greenway Friday evening and I Know What You Did Last Summer '97 at the Allston Speedway (courtesy of the Coolidge) on Wednesday.
• Last weekend for The Taiwan Film Festival of Boston's virtual edition (although you may have a month to watch anything you order through Sunday; I'm not totally sure how it works).
• The Harvard Film Archive had another pipe burst last week (wasn't this what they were doing all that work to prevent the past couple summers?), so they will be closed for at least this weekend.
• The Lexington Venue is open all week with A House of Dynamite, plus Anemone and Good Boy Friday to Monday. There's also a free Saturday morning show of Three Days of the Condor and a free showing of Willie on Thursday in honor the 90th birthday of subject Willie O'Ree, the first black player in the NHL.
  
  The West Newton Cinema opens A House of Dynamite and Kiss of the Spider Woman, keeping The Smashing Machine, Anemone, One Battle After Another, Eleanor the Great,Gabby's Dollhouse, and Downton Abbey. They show documentary short "An Uncommon Education: The Allen School" with post-film panel discussion on Tuesday, plus The Bostonians for "West Newton Cinema Reads".
  
  Cinema Salemis in full Halloween mode, with Carpenter's Halloween, Casper '95 and Hocus Pocus all playing Friday-Sunday and Wednesday/Thursday. The rep includes a "Miz Diamond Wigfall" presentation of The Shining and a Night LIght show of Dario Argento's Tenebrae on Friday, and two shows of Rocky Horror with Teseracte on Saturday (Full Body as the Common,as usual), The Exorcist Saturday/Sunday/Wednesday, Battle Royale Sunday, and Psycho for the Wednesday Classic (with an encore Thursday), a probably-spooky Werido Wednesday show, and Universal Monsters: Frankenstein Friday & Thursday, Creature from the Black Lagoon Saturday, The Mummy Sunday, Bride of Frankenstein Sunday & Thursday, The Wolf Man Sunday.

The MBTA messing with my attempt to see One Battle After Another in VistaVision last night puts a little more pressure into a week where there are limited times to see various things, since that one is hitting its end of its runs on the big film formats. That's on top of what looked like the only showtime for Deathstalker when I bought my ticket, the various things at Fall Focus which I don't figure will get releases (I'm eying Arco, Next Life, and My Father's Shadow), Forge, and likely short runs for A House of Dynamite. Ballad of a Small Player, Fairyland and Row to Win. I'm kind of crossing my fingers to see if The Bride will hang around a second week, because South Bay is a nuisance on the T. (And, yes, you'll probably see Tron: Ares on my Letterboxd page before a lot of these!)