Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 28 August 2026 - 3 September 2026

Another weird late-August week.

• The biggest release is Coyote vs. Acme, in which Wile E. Coyote finally takes legal action against the Acme Corporation for how everything he's used to catch the Road Runner has failed, which was supposedly written off and meant to be destroyed as a tax dodge along with a couple other Warner Brothers films, but survived to be licensed out to Ketchup and is getting great reviews. It's at the Coolidge, Fresh Pond, the Lexington Venue, West Newton, Boston Common (including Dolby Cinema), Causeway Street, the Seaport, South Bay (including Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Dolby Cinema), and Arsenal Yards.
  
  It's an oddly muted release for Ridley Scott's The Dog Stars, featuring Jacob Erlodri, Margaret Qualley, and Josh Brolin as survivors of a pandemic that caused governmental collapse, getting a lot of theaters but not a lot of excitement; I guess it sounds somewhat generic compared to the much crazier other films releasing this weekend. It's at the Capitol, Fresh Pond, Boston Common (including Imax Laser & Dolby Cinema), CinemaSalem, Kendall Square, Causeway Street, the Seaport, South Bay (including Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Dolby Cinema), Arsenal Yards (including CWX), and Chestnut Hill.
  
  Finding Emily features Spike Fearn as a musician who meets his dream girl but gets the wrong number, and teams with an eccentric student (Angourie Rice) to track her down. It's at the Coolidge, Boston Common, Kendall Square, and the Seaport.
  
  Fantasia selection Buddy takes place in the surreal world of a children's television show, where time has no meaning and the bright orange unicorn at the center turns out to be very unstable. It's at the Coolidge, Boston Common, Causeway Street, and Assembly Row. A Fantasia selection from last year, It Ends, has a carful of college driving a seemingly endless purgatorial road and is more intriguing than that sounds; it opens at Boston Common and the Seaport.
  
  Not to be confused with Nimrods from a couple weeks ago, Idiots stars O'Shea Jackson Junior and Dave Franco as dimwits hired to drive a teenager to rehab only to have everything go wrong. It plays Boston Common and South Bay.
  
  Legend of the White Dragon stars a number of Power Rangers veterans in a more grown-up take on that sort of thing (with Mark Dacascos also in there) and opens at Boston Common.
  
  Fall 2: Deadpoint opens at Boston Common on Wednesday.
  
  Terminator 2 gets a 35th anniversary re-release (and 3D conversion) at Boston Common (including RealD 3D), South Bay (including RealD 3D), Assembly Row (including RealD 3D); AMC responds uncomfortably quickly to a celebrity death to play matinees of Dolly Parton in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and Steel Magnolias at Boston Common all week, and I suspect The Rocky Horror Picture Show may have more folks than usual at its regular Saturday night show. The Hunger Games plays Boston Common and South Bay Thursday.
  
  Concert film GHOST: 2 Big to Rig plays Boston Common Saturday, with Katy Perry: The Lifetimes Tour Live From Paris at Boston Common (Imax Laser) Tuesday and Kendall Square Thursday; documentary Sara Bareilles: Good Grief plays Boston Common Wednesday. There are mystery previews at Boston Common, Causeway Street, South Bay, and Assembly Row on Monday, and a preview of The Uprising at South Bay and Assembly Row Thursday night that includes a livestreamed Q&A with director Paul Greengrass and star Andrew Garfield.
• The big Indian movie this week is Toxic: A Fairy Tale for Adults, which plays Apple Fresh Pond in Kannada (its primary language), Hindi, and Telugu; at Boston Common in Telugu; and at Causeway Street in Telugu. Also opening is Tamil-language romance Hi! at Fresh Pond. Gujarati-language family comedy Tom & Cherry plays Fresh Pond Sunday afternoon; Telugu-language action flick Panjaa has a 15th-anniversary show there on Tuesday. Held over are Malayalam-language romance Bethlehem Kudumba Unit (Fresh Pond), Telugu-language drama Irumudi (Fresh Pond & Boston Common).
  
  Colony, the new Korean biohorror film by Train to Busan writer/director Yeon Sang-ho opens at Boston Common, South Bay, Assembly Row; I saw it at Fantasia and it's good fun; bummer it's mostly playing late shows.
  
  Vietnamese thriller Madame in Saigon opens at Causeway Street (early matinees), South Bay.
  
  Chinese animated adventure All Wishes Come True has a full slate of shows at Causeway Street all week.
  
  Anime drama The Last Blossom plays Boston Common Sunday & Monday.
• The Brattle Theatre has Cabaret on 35mm for the Friday Film Matinee. A new 4K Restoration of The Piano plays through Monday, as does Dreams in Nightmares, the new film from Test Pattern director Shatara Michelle Ford following a group of queer Black friends on a road trip.
  
  The "Keep Watching the Skies" finale on Monday & Tuesday is a double feature of Invaders from Mars (restored!) & Invasion of the Body Snatchers '56 (35mm!), with TV Goes to the Movies ending Wednesday with Good Night, and Good Luck on 35mm. The theater teams with Lovestruck (the romance bookshop a few doors down) for Twilight on Thursday before wrapping the Carolco retrospective that night with Total Recall
• The Harvard Film Archive spends another weekend focusing on The Cinema of Graham Greene: The Heart of the Matter Friday, Our Man in Havana and The Stranger's Hand Saturday (separate admission), and Ministry of Fear Sunday afternoon, and Went the Day Well? on Monday. All are projected from 35mm film except The Heart of the Matter, which is a 16mm print.
• The Somerville Theatre has Manhunter: The Final Cut in the main auditorium on Friday & Saturday, with Bound playing there on 35mm film as a Midnight Special on Saturday. Between those and some live shows in that room, 70mm screenings of The Odyssey are not an everyday occurrence, so check before you go if that's a priority.
  
  The Capitol has their monthly Disasterpiece Theatre show on Monday.
• The Seaport Alamo has their Kids' Camp show of the season with Moonrise Kingdom Friday afternoon (I feel like it's kind of diminished because there really aren't young families in that trendy neighborhood). A couple things initially scheduled for just a show or two got a fair amount more put on when the week's listings came out, with Little Shop of Horrors playing Saturday/Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday and Mothra vs. Godzilla with at least one show every day from Saturday to Wednesday. There's a movie party for Coppola's The Outsiders: The Complete Novel Sunday afternoon, and Butthole Surfers: The Hole Truth and Nothing Butt on Wednesday.
• Formats being played at The Coolidge Corner Theatre run the gamut: The Odyssey plays its last shows there on 70mm film through Monday, while the midnight Camp Coolidge show on Friday night is a mystery screening of a summer camp slasher sequel on VHS, while Saturday night's Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers is on 35mm film.
  
  Sunday afternoon, they have a 35mm "Malkovich, Makovich, Malkovich" triple feature including In the Line of Fire, Dangerous Liaisons, & Being John Malkovich. Monday's Big Screen Classic is a 35mm presentation of Top Hat with a seminar led by choreographer Dr. Ilya Vidrin. Tuesday features a special-screening of documentary The Cycle of Life with subjects Lotta Von Schedvin and P.K. Mahanandia on-hand for a Q&A afterward, and also kicks off September's "Welcome to the Art House" series of classic flicks (for the new students!) with Ozu's Tokyo Story on 35mm film, with a digital restoration of Breathless on Wednesday. Bicycle Thieves plays Thursday with a pre-film seminar by Emerson faculty member Andre Puca.
• The Embassy Cinema in Waltham hosts the Mass Honors FIlm Festival on Saturday & Sunday, intending to spotlight performing arts on film. Saturday features a number of short film and music video programs, capped by Michael at 4pm (what is it with the Embassy and that movie?), while Saturday feature's Buster Keaton's The General, the Marx Brothers' Animal Crackers, 1922 short Dans Macabre, Splinter (a drama starring Debbie Allen with producer Isaac Carlen on hand for a Q&A), and The Shadow's Edge (one of Jackie Chan's better recent movies which they're calling a Boston Premiere but look at that link from a year ago).
• Landmark Kendall Square starts new weekly rep series for September, with "School Days" Tuesdays kicking off with Ferris Bueller's Day Off and a spotlight on Sandra Bullock & Nicole Kidman on Wednesday with Demolition Man.
• The Regent Theatre in Arlington has the rest of the Lonely Seal Film, Screenplay, and Music Festival from Friday to Saturday, scheduled very tight with numerous short blocks, the latest Spike & Mike animation block (supposedly the first one in the Boston area for 18 years), and a handful of features.
• Outdoor screenings via Joe's Free Films (and elsewhere) this week show Legally Blonde at Aeronaut Brewing on Saturday, Moana (not sure which) at TimeOut Market on Monday, and The Wiz at the MIT Open Space Thursday (rescheduled for expected weather happening).
• The Museum of Science has The Odyssey on the Omnimax Screen Friday, Wednesday, and Thursday, with the long Labor Day weekend after its last set of shows before a "sci-fi super-sized" series takes over this fall.
• The Lexington Venue is open Friday to Sunday and Thursday with Coyote vs. Acme and Tony. Thursday also has a screening of The Last Picture Shows, a documentary on the disappearing small-town theaters in the American West.
  
  The West Newton Cinema opens Coyote vs. Acme and Late Fame, holding over Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, Tony, PAW Patrol, Spider-Man, and The Invite. There's a Thursday "Behind the Screen" showing of documentary Homegrown with filmmakers and experts on hand for post-film discussion; the film was initially called "The Trump Supporters" and follows them in the months leading up to the attack on the Capitol.
  
  The Dedham Community Theatre holds over The Rivals of Amziah King and The Odyssey for their last weekends. Good on you, Dedham, for supporting Rivals!
  
  Cinema Salem has The Dog Stars, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, and Tony from Friday to Monday. The Friday Night Light show is A Girls Walks Home Alone at Night, while Friday & Saturday feature their first Kaiju Fest with Saturday offering Mothra, Gamera vs. Jiger, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, tokusatsu episodes, Destroy All Monsters, and War of the Gargantuas (the last on VHS); Sunday features Pacific Rim, Gamera the Brave, Godzilla vs. Destroyah, and Godzilla 2000. The Wednesday Classic is Bonnie and Clyde (no Weirdo Wednesday?) and they open the Salem-set Practical Magic 2 on Thursday (as do a lot of other places, but, hey, Salem).

Looking forward to finally/actually seeing Coyote vs. Acme and might check out a couple of the other new releases, trying to fit in some Graham Greene and stragglers Camp Miasma and Tony. Pretty much everything from Fantasia is recommended! Updates on my Letterboxd page as I see 'em.