Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 4 September 2026 - 10 September 2026

It is oddly satisfying that Adam Wingard and Joe Swanberg, both folks from overlapping indie waves fifteen or twenty years ago, both have new movies in local theaters this weekend.

• Wingard's latest is Onslaught, starring Adria Arjona as a single mom who is probably more capable of defending her trailer park & daughter from a group of brainwashed super-soldiers on a rampage than you might expect, with Dan Stevens, Michael Biehn, and Rebecca Hall among those along for the ride. It's at the Somerville, Fresh Pond, CinemaSalem, Boston Common (including Imax Laser), Causeway Street, Kendall Square, the Seaport, South Bay, and Assembly Row.
  
  Also opening is By Any Means, which pairs Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as an FBI agent and Mark Wahlberg as a sympathetic gangster investigating the murder of civil rights leaders in 1966. It's at Fresh Pond, Boston Common (including Dolby Cinema), Causeway Street, Kendall Square, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, Arsenal Yards, and Chestnut Hill.
  
  Fall 2: Deadpoint opened Wednesday and rolls into the weekend at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, South Bay, and Assembly Row.
  
  Dreams and Nightmares moves over to Boston Common for those who missed it at the Brattle last week.
  
  Cars gets a 20th Anniversary re-release at the Capitol, Fresh Pond, Boston Common (including RealD 3D), Causeway Street (including RealD 3D), South Bay (including RealD 3D), Assembly Row (including RealD 3D), Arsenal Yards, and Chestnut Hill. Boston Common and the Seaport mark the 60th Anniversary of Star Trek by pairing the films with episodes of the original series - The Motion Picture & "The Changeling" Friday, The Wrath of Khan & "Space Seed" Saturday, The Search for Spock & "Amok Time" Sunday, The Voyage Home & "The City on the Edge of Forever" on Monday, with Boston Common showing Khan and Voyage Tuesday while the "Genesis Trilogy" plays the Seaport that day. Boston Common and South Bay also continue The Hunger Games films with Catching Fire Friday, Mockingjay Part 1 Saturday, Mockingjay Part 2 Sunday, and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes Monday. The Nutty Professor '96 has 30th anniversary shows at Boston Common and the Seaport on Sunday & Wednesday.
  
  Katy Perry: The Lifetimes Tour Live From Paris has an encore at Kendall Square Saturday. There are mystery previews at Boston Common, Causeway Street, South Bay, Assembly Row Monday. I Want Your Sex plays Causeway Street & South Bay Monday night (random!). Oasis: Don't Look Back in Anger has Imax preview screenings Wednesday at Boston Common, South Bay, and Assembly Row.
• Swanberg is at The Coolidge Corner Theatre for the Friday 7pm screening of The Sun Never Sets, which features Dakota Fanning as a woman whose ex comes back into her life just as her older, divorced boyfriend is looking to reassess the relationship. It also plays West Newton, Boston Common, Causeway Street.
  
  With school back in session, the Coolidge is focusing on essentials for September. That includes midnights, with the monthly showing of Eraserhead on Friday and a 4K restoration of John Waters's Desperate Living on Saturday. Earlier in the day, they feature more "Welcome to the Art House" programs, with Persepolis on 35mm Sunday afternoon, Killer of Sheep Tuesday evening, Chungking Express on Wednesday, and, yes, Welcome to the Dollhouse on 35mm Thursday (in the late "Cult Classic" slot). The annual Labor Day screening of Jaws plays on 35mm Monday, and there's a Cinema Jukebox screening of True Stories on 35mm film Thursday. It's also last call for The Odyssey on 70mm film, with the last show at 3:30pm on Sunday.
• Indian movies opening this week at Apple Fresh Pond include Hindi-language crime flick Mirzapur: The Movie (also at Boston Common), the follow-up to a 3-season TV series; Malayalam-language thriller I'm Game; Telugu-llanguage family drama Sahaa; and Telugu-language romantic comedy Romanchakam. Malayalam-language romance Bethlehem Kudumba Unit adds a screen at Causeway Street to Fresh Pond.
  
  Absolutely bonkers-looking Korean alien-invasion movie Hope, from director Na Hong-jin (The Wailing & The Chaser) opens Wednesday at Fresh Pond, Boston Common (Dolby Cinema preview Monday), Causeway Street (XL preview Monday), Kendall Square, the Seaport, South Bay (Dolby Cinema and a preview Monday), and Assembly Row (including Dolby Cinema and a preview Monday).
  
  One of the all-time great animated films, Akira plays big screens in a new 4K restoration this weekend, opening at the Coolidge, Boston Common, South Bay (including Imax Laser), Assembly Row (including Imax Laser). A new anime from a studio of Ghibli alumni, cocoon - One Summer of Girlhood opens at Boston Common.
  
  Chinese family drama Dear You, which has Zheng Rungqi voyaging to Thailand to find her long-lost grandfather, opens at Boston Common, Causeway Street, and South Bay. Chinese animated adventure All Wishes Come True continues at Causeway Street all week.
• The Brattle Theatre doesn't have Akira but does have several other "Animated Anniversaries", with Spirited Away playing subtitled 35mm all week (and dubbed Saturday/Sunday/Monday/Wednesday/Thursday), Allegro non troppo Friday & Saturday, Osamu Tezuka/Rintaro's Metropolis Sunday & Wednesday, Satoshi Kon's Millennium Actress Monday & Thursday.
• The Harvard Film Archive gets to the centerpiece of The Cinema of Graham Greene this weekend, with their new print of The Third Man showing Friday & Saturday, plus The Fallen Idol later Friday, Brighton Rock earlier Saturday, and John Ford's The Fugitive on Monday, all but the last on 35mm film.
• The Somerville Theatre has what may be their final 70mm screening of The Odyssey Saturday afternoon. They also have the annual screening of Hundreds of Beavers to welcome new college students (and anyone, really) on Saturday evening, re
  
  stored documentary Working Girls with post-film discussion Monday, The Capitol picks up Coyote vs. Acme and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.
• The Seaport Alamo has an encore of Butthole Surfers: The Hole Truth and Nothing Butt and John Carpenter's The Fog (separately) on Friday, Neil Breen's Dire Duplicity Saturday & Thursday, and Boyhood with pre-recorded Q&A Monday.
• Landmark Kendall Square has Clueless for "School Days" Tuesdays and To Die For for the Wednesday Nicole Kidman spotlight.

• The Taiwan Film Festival of Boston opts to spread out at multiple venues rather than get crammed into a weekend downtown, opening Thursday at the Somerville Theatre with Hero! HIto!, which follows the national baseball team from being crushed in the World Baseball Classic in 2013 to winning an international championship in 2024
• Just a couple outdoor screenings on Joe's Free Films this week with When Harry Met Sally at TimeOut Market on Monday and The Last Song at Charlestown's Hood Park on Thursday.
• It's also last call for The Odyssey on the Omnimax screen at The Museum of Science, but it shows daily through Monday.
• The Lexington Venue is closed Tuesday, with Coyote vs. Acme, Cookie Queens (no show Wednesday), and Late Fame playing the rest of the week. Wednesday also features documentaries Ghost in the Machine and Mary Oliver: Saved By the Beauty of the World, the latter the monthly movie discussion group meet-up, while Your Attention Please plays Thursday (free but RSVP required).
  
  The West Newton Cinema opens The Sun Never Sets and Bernstein's Wall, continuing Coyote vs. Acme, Late Fame, Tony, Spider-Man, and The Invite. On Sunday, Bruce Vogt accompanies a silent double feature of Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr. and Ernst Lubitsch's The Doll.
  
  The Dedham Community Theatre opens three indies this week: Late Fame with Willem Dafoe has been kicking around, while Virginia Woolf's Night & Day, starring Haley Bennett as an astronomer trying to duck romance and marriage in 1910 London, is only playing the suburbs and they seem to be the only place showing The Salt Path with Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs as a couple walking across southwest England after being evicted.
  
  Cinema Salem has Onslaught, Coyote vs Acme, The Dog Stars, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, and Tony from Friday to Monday. The Wednesday Classic is Bullitt with Weirdo Wednesday next door, and this is the week they open the Salem-set Practical Magic 2 on Thursday (as do a lot of other places, but, hey, Salem).
  
  If you can get out to Woburn or the Liberty Tree Mall in Danvers, that's where you can find Tom and Jerry: Forbidden Compass, a Chinese-made animated adventure dubbed into English; I had no idea the duo were relatively popular in the Far East! Coming of age film American Summer, with Steve Guttenberg & Christie Brinkley as a couple recalling the summer they first met, plays at the Liberty Tree Mall, as does Virginia Woolf's Night & Day.

Starting the week with The Sun Never Sets and ending with Hero! Hito! (is this a common cheer in Taiwan and does it sound like the late Japanese emperor there?), with Onslaught, The Fugitive, and as many animated classics as I can make fit in between Updates hopefully on my Letterboxd page.