Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 31 July 2026 - 6 August 2026

Back home this week, Brattle back open, and the blockbuster one-two meaning Fantasia hasn't go tme too enormously far behind!

• The big opening is Spider-Man: Brand New Day, with Destin Daniel Cretton taking the reins for the Tom Holland series which sees all Peter Parker's friends no longer aware of his dual identity and changes in his powers, leading to the question of whether, with one of the greatest rogue's galleries in comics, Marvel is reduced to using Morlun in a Spider movie. It gets all the big screens that aren't playing The Odyssey, opening at the Capitol, Apple Fresh Pond(including 3D), West Newton, CinemaSalem, Boston Common (including Dolby Cinema 2D & XL 2D & RealD 3D), Causeway Street (including XL 2D & RealD 3D), Kendall Square, the Seaport (including 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.
  
  Gregg Akari's newest, I Want Your Sex, opens wider than his films often do, playing the Coolidge, Fresh Pond, Boston Common, and the Seaport. It has a young man (Cooper Hoffman) finding his conventional life turned upside down after taking a job for a sexually provocative influencer (Olivia Wilde).
  
  Hadestown: The Musical is extended at West Newton, Boston Common, Causeway Street, the Seaport, South Bay, and Assembly Row. K-Pop concert film Ateez: Light the Way plays Boston Common on Thursday.
  
  Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory plays Boston Common Sunday & Wednesday, and Boyhood plays Boston Common on Tuesday. There are mystery (horror) previews at Boston Common, Causeway Street, the Seaport, and Assembly Row on Monday. South Bay has Monday & Wednesday matinees of The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants. Some of the Thursday preview shows at South Bay & Assembly Row for Super Troopers 3 include "Fan Event" Q&As.
• While The Odyssey continues to monopolize screen #1, The Coolidge Corner Theatre welcomes back a couple movies whose directors recently stopped by for previews. First up is Sheep in the Box, the new entry from Hirozaku Kore-eda, which has a grieving couple receive a doppelganger of their son. It also plays Dedham Community Theatre and Boston Common, expanding to the Seaport next week.
  
  The Coolidge also gets two by Ross McElwee, with the new restoration of his film Sherman's March playing matinees and his new one, Remake, in the evenings. The first chronicles how an attempt to make a documentary about the titular event was derailed by his family trying to set him up, while the latter is re-examining the last years of his recently-deceased son.
  
  At midnight, the Coolidge wraps alien invasion month with a 35mm print of I Come in Peace Friday night and begins Camp Coolidge August with In a Violent Nature on Saturday. Monday's Big Screen Classic is A Streetcar Named Desire; and there's a special screening of Flaco-the-owl documentary Wild Inside with director Penny Lane on hand Tuesday. Tuesday also has the "Midsummer Stick-Ups" series begin with a 35mm print of Bottle Rocket, followed by Le Cercle Rouge on Wednesday. Thursday's Cinema Jukebox show is a 35mm print of 24 Hour Party People.
• The Somerville Theatre opens independent films Bouchra (about a Moroccan expat in New York coming out to her mother in Casablanca) and Barrio Triste (found-footage coming-of-age in 1987 Columbia). The Odyssey continues in 70mm and the big-film Saturday midnight special is The Doors.
  
  In addition to Spider-Man The Capitol Theatre picks up Mary Oliver: Saved By the Beauty of the World.
• The Brattle Theatre reopens with updated seating (mostly the same but now staggered so you're not directly behind someone's big head), starting things off with a 35mm IB Technicolor print of West Side Story '61 for the Friday Film Matinee! After that, they have a new 4K restoration of Elaine May's Mikey and Nicky and the local premiere of Alex Cox's Dead Souls, both running through Monday. There's also a special bonus matinee of Cox's Straight to Hell on Saturday.
  
  On Sunday, Fiddlehead pairs a screening of their new video Baby I'll Change with a Q&A and Good Will Hunting, although it's already sold out. The workweek offers a belated start to the summer vertical schedule: Mondays & Tuesdays feature "Aliens in the 1950s", with this week's entries classic versions of The Day The Earth Stood Still & The Thing from Another World. Wednesday is "TV Goes to the Movies", with a free Elements of Cinema screening of Network in between showings of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy that you've got to pay for. Thursdays will offer both Éric Rohmer's Six Moral Tales - this week's are La Collectionneuse & The Bakery Girl of Monceau, with short "Suzanne's Career" playing before the second - and "When Carolco Was King", kicking off with a 35mm late show of First Blood.
• The Seaport Alamo has "Kids Camp" matinees of Paddington 2 Friday & Monday. They also screen I Saw the TV Glow on Sunday/Monday/Wednesday and We're All Going to the World's Fair on Tuesday & Wednesday, with a preview of director Jane Schoenbrun's latest Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma with livestreamed Q&A on Monday night. One Night Only gets a similar preview-with-Q&A on Sunday, and the De Palma series ends with The Untouchables Tuesday & Thursday night.
• The Museum of Fine Arts has another weekend of their Boston French Film Festival with Leave One Day (Friday night), Whatever it Takes (Saturday morning), The Girl in the Snow (sold out Saturday afternoon) and Colors of Time (sold out Sunday afternoon.
• In addition to the usual Imax nature docs, The New England Aquarium shows Jaws on Saturday night (hopefully from an actual Imax source rather than what they used last year).
• The Regent Theatre screens Jesus Christ Superstar on Sunday with star Ted Neeley and castmates Kurt Yaghjian & Larry Marshall in person; it's a farewell tour for Neeley, who played the part on stage and appeared with the film many times in the past 50 years.
• Landmark Kendall Square starts new monthly rep, with La Dolce Vita on Tuesday for "Art House Essentials" and Tony Scott's The Hunger on Wednesday ("Great Scotts").
• Outdoor screenings via Joe's Free Films this week show It Happened One Night at the MIT Open Space, Lilo & Stitch at the Hatch Shell, and TV-movie Good Against Evil at Somerville's Edward L. Leathers Park ("Celluloid Confidential) on Friday; The Parent Trap at TimeOut Market on Monday; and The Wiz at Seven Hills Park in Somerville on Thursday. Inside, Goethe-Institut shows The Goldfish on Wednesday (RSVP required)
• The Museum of Science has The Odyssey on the Omnimax Screen at 7pm Friday & Saturday.
• The Lexington Venue is open all week but Monday with Spider-Man and The Odyssey. Documentary No Country for Mothers plays free on Wednesday with RSVP.
  
  The West Newton Cinema opens the Floaters, a comedy about a musician who takes a job at the summer camp she attended as a kid, as well as Spider-Man, continuing Reading Lolita in Tehran, The Odyssey, The Invite, Minions & Monsters, The Sheep Detectives, and Hadestown.
  
  The Dedham Community Theatre opens Sheep in the Box with The Invite continuing.
  
  Cinema Salem has Spider-Man, The Invite, >Rose of Nevada, and The Odyssey Friday to Monday. The Wednesday Classic is Bringing Up Baby, with Weirdo Wednesday down the hall.

The Fantasia movie binge ends Sunday, and then I'll probably decompress before heading home Tuesday night (follow that on my Letterboxd page!), though I'm tempted to catch The Odyssey on Genuine Film Imax while it's closer to me than Providence. We'll see if I'm up for Le Cercle Rouge on Wednesday and finally catching up with some other stuff Thursday!