Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 30 January 2026 - 5 February 2025

Happy New Sam Raimi Movie Day to those who celebrate, which is presumably everyone, right?

• The new Raimi is Send Help, which has mousy Elizabeth Banks relishing the role-reversal after a plane crash strands her and her boss (Dylan O'Brien) on an island in the middle of the Pacific, only she's the one who is uninjured and knows how to live off the land. It plays Fresh Pond, West Newton, CinemaSalem, Boston Common (including Dolby Cinema 2D & RealD 3D), Causeway Street (including RealD 3D), Kendall Square, the Seaport (Dolby Atmos), South Bay (including Dolby Cinema 2D & RealD 3D), Assembly Row (including Dolby Cinema 2D & RealD 3D), Arsenal Yards (including CWX), and Chestnut Hill.
  
  The annual late-January "Jason Statham as a deadly operative dragged back into action" flick is Shelter, with Bill Nighy and Naomi Ackie hopefully picking up nice paychecks as the authorities hunting him and the young girl stuck with him down. It's at Fresh Pond, Boston Common (including Dolby Cinema), Causeway Street, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Arsenal Yards (including CWX)
  
  Sci-fi horror flick Iron Lung is a video game adaptation adapted by streamer Mark "Markipiler" Fischbach (he writes/directs/stars) as "The Convict" scouting a blood ocean on a distant planet. It's at Fresh Pond, CinemaSalem, Boston Common (including XL), Causeway Street, Kendall Square (possibly only Friday), the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Arsenal Yards.
  
  Also opening this weekend is Oscar nominee for Best Animated Feature Arco, apparently only playing in an English dub although it is very much a French sci-fi story that looks like a bandes dessinees adaptation. It has a kid from the far future who swipes his family's time travel gear getting stuck in 2075, where the survival of humanity is still on the brink. It's at the Coolidge, West Newton, Boston Common, Kendall Square, the Seaport, and Assembly Row.
  
  Islands, a thriller starring Sam Riley as a resort tennis pro who gets involved with a visiting family (and possibly murder), opens at Boston Common. Palestinian/Jordanian drama All That's Left of You also plays Boston Common.
  
  One Battle After Another, F1, and Marty Supreme return/upgrade to Imax screens at Assembly Row; It's another Lord of the Rings weekend at Boston Common, Causeway Street, and South Bay; and The Lego Movie plays in 3D at Fresh Pond through Thursday.
  
  Documentary Paris Hilton: Infinite Icon opened at Boston Common, Causeway Street, and Assembly Row on Wednesday; vanity project/obvious bribe Melania plays Boston Common, Causeway Street, South Bay, and Assembly Row.
  
  Gang drama (inspired by a 4th-century legend) Moses the Black plays Boston Common Saturday afternoon and Wednesday evening. There's a "Scream Unseen" preview at Boston Common, Causeway Street, South Bay, Assembly Row Monday evening. K-Pop concert film Stray Kids: The dominATE Experience has advanced Imax screenings Wednesday at Boston Common, Assembly Row.
• The Coolidge Corner Theatre opens A Private Life, which features Jodie Foster as a psychiatrist in Paris who is convinced that one of her patients was murdered, and enlists her ex-husband to help solve this case. It also plays the Arlington Capitol, the Lexington Venue, and Boston Common.
  
  For midnights, the Coolidge welcomes Cinematic Void's Jim Branscome to introduce the original Suspiria on Friday and A Bay of Blood on Saturday for the end of Giallo January. They get the cult movie vibe going earlier in the evening with Repo Man, with a couple podcasters from The Ringer doing an introduction. Monday's Big Screen Classic is Slap Shot; they wrap "Projections" with Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith on Tuesday; start February's "Opposites Attract" series with My Man Godfrey on 35mm Wednesday (including a pre-film seminar with Jake Mulligan); and start a Sidney Poitier series with The Defiant Ones on 35mm Thursday.
• If I'm reading Landmark Kendall Square's website right, they've got last week's pre-recorded Q&A on all screenings of Sentimental Value, which returns for a full run this week. Tuesday's Retro Replay is Breakfast at Tiffany's, and Wednesday's "Filmmaker Focus" is North By Northwest.
• Apple Fresh Pond opens Hindi-language action film Mardaani 3, with Rani Mukerji as a cop hunting down kidnapped girls; Hindi-language drama Om Shanti Shanti Shantihi, featuring Eesha Rebba as a survivor of domestic abuse (through Sunday); Nepali drama Aa Bata Aama; Malayalam-language horror comedy Prakambanam (through Sunday); and Malayalam-language crime drama Valathu Vashathe Kallan (through Sunday). Held over for another week is Hindi-language action flick Border 2.
  
  Hong Kong fantasy-action movie Back to the Past, featuring Louis Koo traveling back in time to usurp the Qin Dynasty, plays Boston Common. Boston Common also opens Chinese comedy Busted Water Pipes, where a small-town police trying to justify staying open in a town with no crime gets broken into by thieves posing as plumbers.
• The Brattle Theatre has Crossing Delancey for the Friday Film Matinee, then returns to "Some of the Best of 2025: Frankenstein and One of Them Days on Friday evening; Happyend & Cloud Saturday; Eephus for the Sunday and a 35mm double feature of Splitsville & Friendship later Sunday evening; Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk and Train Dreams on; Peter Hujar's Day & The History of Sound on Tuesday; An Unfinished Film & Caught by the Tides on Wednesday; finishing with The Mastermind & Wake Up Dead Man on Thursday.
• The Seaport Alamo holds Two Sleepy People over for another week, and also has Hard Boiled from Friday to Sunday for those who got snowed out last week. Josie and the Pussycats also plays Friday to Sunday, with Twin Peaks episodes 14-17 on Saturday, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence on Sunday, the last Twillight movie party (Breaking Dawn Part 2) on Monday, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? on Tuesday, and an early access show of Luc Besson's Dracula on Wednesday.
• The Museum of Fine Arts has the first week of their annual Festival of Films From Iran, with It Was Just an Accident Friday evening, Certified Copy Saturday afternoon, Cutting Through Rocks Sunday afternoon, and The Things You Kill on Thursday evening.
• The ICA has BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions for one night Friday and short film program "Intaglios of Breath and Light: An Indigenous Present" on Thursday evening
• The Somerville Theatre has One Battle After Another on 70mm film on Sunday, Wednesday, and Thursday, bumping The Testament of Ann Lee to smaller digital screens those nights.
  
  The Capitol Theatre has the GLAMM (Gaming Local Arts, Music, Movies) festival Friday night.
• The Harvard Film Archive continues the Antonioni/Bertolucci/Olmi series with Blow-Up on Friday, L'avventura on Saturday, and The Conformist (rescheduled from last week) on Monday. On Monday they begin The Complete Stanley Kubrick, with Killer's Kiss and "Day of the Fight" at 7pm with Fear and Desire and "The Seafarers" (16mm) at 8:45pm; all except that one short are on 35mm film.
• Last call for Avatar 3 on the Omnimax screen Friday & Saturday at the The Museum of Science.
• The Lexington Venue is open all week but Wednesday with The Choral, Hamnet, and Marty Supreme, and A Private Life (though not every film every day). There's a free screening of documentary short "Beyond Their Years: The Incredible Legacies of Herb Carnegie and Buck O'Neil" on Thursday evening.
  
  The West Newton Cinema opens Arco and Send Help, keeping The Testament of Ann Lee (including a Behind the Screen show on Sunday), The Choral, The Voice of Hind Rajab, One Battle After Another, Father Mother Sister Brother, Marty Supreme, The Secret Agent, and Hamnet. Last week's snowed-out silent double bill of The General & The Immigrant with Bruce Vogt is rescheduled for Sunday; Groundhog Day plays Monday afternoon.
  
  Cinema Salem has Send Help, Iron Lung, The Testament of Ann Lee, and Hamnet Friday to Monday. Documentary Soldiers of Song plays Saturday afternoon; there's a Whodunnit Watch Party Sunday; Pride and Prejudice for the Wednesday Classic, with a Weirdo Wednesday show next door; and a screening party for "Face Crusher Legends" on Thursday.
  
  In addition to the wide openings, the Liberty Tree Mall multiplex in Danvers has German animated film Tafiti: Across the Desert dubbed into English and Worldbreaker, a sci-fi action piece starring Milla Jovovich & Luke Evans directed by Brad Anderson.

I'm doing the Boswords Winter Wondersolve on Sunday, and the timing is actually kind of annoying, because when you combine that with MGM apparently four-walling Melania, it puts both the two Chinese movies 3D screenings of Send Help in places where they only overlap with other things. I'll try and carve that out, hopefully also squeezing in Cloud and Splitsville at the Brattle and crossing my fingers that a couple other things hang around one more week. My Letterboxd page will have updates on managing it.