Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 26 November 2025 - 4 December 2024

Big wave of movies for Thanksgiving!

• Zootopia 2, which appears to add a reptilian underclass below the predator and prey animals of the first, opens at The Capitol Theatre, Fresh Pond, Jordan's Furniture (Imax 2D), West Newton, CinemaSalem, Boston Common (including Imax Laser 2D & Dolby Cinema 2D & RealD 3D & Spanish dubs), Causeway Street (including RealD 3D), Kendall Square, the Seaport, South Bay (including Imax Xenon 2D & Dolby Cinema 2D & RealD 3D), Assembly Row (including Imax Laser 2D & Dolby Cinema 2D & RealD 3D), Arsenal Yards, and Chestnut Hill.
  
  Also opening wide is Eternity, a riff on Defending Your Life with Elizabeth Olsen as a woman who died soon after her second husband (Miles Teller), only to be forced to choose between him and her first husband (Callum Turner) in terms of her companion until the heat death of the universe. It plays at the Somerville, the Coolidge, Boston Common, Causeway Street, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Arsenal Yards.
  
  There's also Hamnet, the new film from Chloe Zhao, starring Jessie Buckley as Agnes Shakespeare and Paul Mescal as Will in a story about how their son dying young inspired Hamlet. It's at the Coolidge, Boston Common, Kendall Square, and Assembly Row, expanding wider next week.
  
  The Thing with Feathers opens Thursday at Boston Common, with Benedict Cumberbatch as a widowed father whose grief manifests itself in an odd way.
  
  National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation plays Arsenal Yards Friday to Sunday (and the Seaport on Sunday). There's a mystery preview at Boston Common, Causeway Street, South Bay, and Assembly Row on Monday. Fantasy romance 100 Nights of Hero has a preview at Boston Common on Tuesday, and there's one for drawing-room spoof Fackham Hall at Boston Common on Wednesday. K-pop concert/doc Monsta X: Connect X plays Boston Common on Wednesday, while The Doors: When You're Strange plays there on Thursday. Wedding Crashers also plays Boston Common on Thursday.
• Lots of folks pick up this week's Netflix picture, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, which has a somewhat different look as Daniel Craig returns with Benoit Blanc with a new ensemble cast of suspects around him as he tries to solve a locked-room mystery. It's at Landmark Kendall Square (part of their Netflix package), the Coolidge, Fresh Pond, West Newton, CinemaSalem (starting Friday), and the Seaport.
  
  The Tuesday Retro Replay series for December kicks off with Gremlins, one of three "holiday essentials".
• In addition to the new releases - including a "Shakespeare re-imagined" show of Hamnet on Sunday with a panel discussion - The Coolidge Corner Theatre continues to celebrate Ethan Hawke with Training Day on Wednesday, Boyhood on Sunday afternoon, sold-out presentations of Blue Moon and an award ceremony Wednesday the 3rd (no shows on the other 5 screens that day).
  
  Midnights this weekend wrap up the M. Night Shyamalan with The Visit on Friday and Trap on Saturday. There are kids' matinees of Where the Wild Things Are on Saturday & Sunday, a Big Screen Classics show of Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World on Monday, a sold-out screening of Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie with Q&A, Nimona with author ND Stevenson on Thursday the 4th, with Carol as the cult classic that night.
• Apple Fresh Pond opens Telugu-language Andhra King Taluka, whose description reads like an obsessed-fan thriller but which may not be quite so intense, on Wednesday. Hindi-language thriller Tere Ishk Mein opens there (plus Causeway Street and South Bay) Friday, while Telugu-language action comedy Revolver Rita opens at Causeway Street on Friday (with a preview late Thursday), while Hindi-language drama Gustaakh Ishq opens at Boston Common. Telugu-language fantasy adventure Akhanda 2 - Thaandavam opens at Fresh Pond next Thursday the 4th.
  
  There's an early-access event for Jujutsu Kaisen: Execution at Boston Common (Imax Laser), Assembly Row (Imax Laser) on Wednesday. Chainsaw Man - The Movie: Reze Arc hangs on at Boston Common.
• The Brattle Theatre has a big "Give Thanks for Chicago" series through the holiday weekend and beyond: The Blues Brothers (35mm) & Ferris Bueller's Day Off on Wednesday; Home Alone & Risky Business on Thursday; They Live & Josie and the Pussycats, both on 35mm, early Friday and Child's Play & Poltergeist III (35mm) later Friday; The Untouchables & The Fugitive, both on 35mm, on Saturday; Call Northside 777 early Sunday; About Last Night… (35mm) & Love Jones Sunday; Cooley High on Monday; Candyman '21 later on Monday; Go Fish on Tuesday; High Fidelity on Wednesday the 3rd; and Jupiter Ascending on 35mm later that night. There's also a Grrl Haus Cinema show on Thursday, focused on "Suspense, Horror, and Camp!"
• The Seaport Alamo has a Greta Gerwig's Little Women Saturday afternoon, a Christmas Vacation movie party on Sunday, the director's cut of Brazil on Monday, Lethal Weapon on Tuesday, and Elf movie party on Wednesday, and a preview of No Other Choice with Park Chan-wook doing a live-streamed Q&A afterward later that night.
• The Somerville Theatre is about to give the main room over to The Slutcracker, and also has a couple screenings of Hundreds of Beavers on Wednesday.
• The Harvard Film Archive is mostly dark for the holiday, but continues their Gore Vidal series with matinees of Ben-Hur on Saturday (with an introduction by Leslie Morris) & Sunday and Myra Breckinridge on Monday.
• The New England Aquarium shows Finding Nemo on the giant screen Saturday night.
• The Regent Theatre has You Got Gold: A Celebration of John Prine on Wednesday the 3rd, with filmmaker Flora Prine (also John's widow) on hand for a Q&A.
• The Museum of Fine Arts wraps its "Cozy Crime" series with 8 Women on Thursday the 4th.
• The Museum of Science has Wicked: For Good on Fridays and Saturdays into December.
• The Lexington Venue has its last show of Nuremberg on Wednesday, keeping Wicked and Jay Kelly. There's a second weekend of matinees for documentary The Nutcracker at Wethersfield on Saturday & Sunday mornings, and the theater is closed Monday & Tuesday.
  
  The West Newton Cinema opens Wake Up Dead Man and Zootopia 2, continuing Rental Family, Sentimental Value, Wicked: For Good (double feature with the first on Friday), and Nuremberg. Smoke Signals plays Thanksgiving (Thursday), and there's a Producer's Circle rough cut presentation of documentary Nine a week later, on Thursday the 4th.
  
  Cinema Salem opens Zootopia 2 on Wednesday, with The Maltese Falcon for the Wednesday classic and a Weirdo Wednesday show on the other screens, and then has the Disney movie, Wake Up Dead Man, Wicked: For Good, and Rental Family from Friday to Monday. Friday's Night Light show is Society, and the Wednesday classic on the 3rd is The Spirit of St. Louis (with Weirdo Wednesday down the hall).
  
  The Liberty Tree Mall AMC in Danvers opens Aftershock: The Nicole Bell Story on Friday; which appears to be a TV miniseries cut into a feature film.

Almost (but not quite) tempted to forgo heading north for Thanksgiving to get more movie-seeing time in, since I'd like to see Zootopia, Wake Up Dead Man, Hamnet, Rental Family, and The Thing with Feathers among the new releases (and maybe one or two of the Indian ones), a fair chunk of the Chicago movies at the Brattle, and I am torn on Monday night between liking gender-bending stuff (Myra Breckinridge) and especially wanting to see Master and Commander again on the big screen since the 4K is just not coming back into stock fast enough.

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