The Indian blockbuster that is smashing box-office records worldwide, is coming to Academy's $5 Wednesday for a special screening! "Dhurandhar: The Revenge follows Hamza Ali Mazari’s rise while operating deep undercover in enemy territory."

This is an Auckland Film Society screening for Auckland Film Society members. For info on how to join, see below. Ringo Lam • Hong Kong • 1987 101 mins • HD • R18 violence In Cantonese, Mandarin and English, with English subtitles An undercover cop infiltrates a gang planning a major jewellery heist in Ringo Lam’s blistering crimeland classic, often cited as a major influence on Tarantino. “Burns with grit and moral tension” – Steve Rose, Guardian

This is an Auckland Film Society screening for Auckland Film Society members. For info on how to join, see below. Hamaguchi Ryūsuke • Japan • 2023 106 mins • HD • PG violence In Japanese with English subtitles A modern eco-fable that provides a gorgeous meditation on humanity's relationship with nature, and an unnerving commentary on the price of progress. “Mesmerises as much as it mystifies… Breathe in its secrets” – Total Film

This is an Auckland Film Society screening for Auckland Film Society members. For info on how to join, see below. Ariane Louis-Seize • Canada • 2023 90 mins • HD • M offensive language, horror & suicide references In French and English, with English subtitles A sensitive vampire meets a depressed teenage boy in this deadpan French-Canadian romantic comedy. “Decidedly cool, impossibly hip” – Screen Zealots

This is an Auckland Film Society screening for Auckland Film Society members. For info on how to join, see below. Mikhail Kalatozov • USSR • 1960 96 mins • HD, B&W • tbc In Russian with English subtitles Four Soviet geologists discover a diamond cache in the remote Siberian wilderness, only to be trapped by a devastating forest fire in this cinematically adventurous tale of survival. “Spectacular… unforgettable” – Richard Peña, BAMPFA

This is an Auckland Film Society screening for Auckland Film Society members. For info on how to join, see below. Arthur Harari • France/Japan/Germany/Belgium/Italy/Cambodia • 2021 167 mins • DCP • tbc In Japanese and Tagalog with English subtitles An absorbing epic and the true story of Hiroo Onoda, a WWII Japanese intelligence officer who refused to believe the war was over and spent 30 years fighting on in the Philippine jungle. “An unforgettable portrait of war for the ages” – Kurt Brokaw,Independent

This is an Auckland Film Society screening for Auckland Film Society members. For info on how to join, see below. Mikhail Kalatozov • USSR • 1957 95 mins • HD, B&W • PG In Russian with English subtitles Awarded the Palme d'Or, this shattering anti-war classic frames two young lovers split apart by the outbreak of WWII within dazzling black-and-white cinematography. “Spellbinding visual beauty” – Slant

This is an Auckland Film Society screening for Auckland Film Society members. For info on how to join, see below. Chelsea Winstanley • New Zealand • 2025 101 mins • HD • Exempt This new documentary takes us inside the curation of the landmark Toi Tū Toi Ora: Contemporary Māori Art exhibition revealing the ongoing struggle for Māori artistic sovereignty. “An important cinematic document" – RNZ

This is an Auckland Film Society screening for Auckland Film Society members. For info on how to join, see below. David Byrne • USA • 1986 89 mins • HD • PG The Talking Heads frontman made his directorial debut with this satirical, musical portrait of American life, plumbing the uncanniness of the suburban everyday with ‘aw-shucks’ gusto. “Deeply funny and free-spirited” – Rebecca Bengal, Criterion

Catch this as part of our Boutique Retro Cinema's Monday encore screenings playing all through April! "On a cold Monday morning, a group of counselors clock in at an old-fashioned social services office. Their task is to interview the recently deceased, record their personal details, then, over the course of the week, assist them in choosing a single memory to keep for eternity."

Stanley Kubrick's WW1 classic is coming to Academy's big screen for a special ANZAC screening! "The futility and irony of the war in the trenches in WWI is shown as a unit commander in the French army must deal with the mutiny of his men and a glory-seeking general after part of his force falls back under fire in an impossible attack."

Screening as apart of our “Nunspoitation” season in our Retro Boutique auditorium over the month of April! Based on true events, BENDETTA unearths the story of Benedetta Carlini, a 17th-century nun in Tuscany who believed she saw visions of Christ and engaged in a sexual relationship with a fellow sister at her abbey. Because this is a film by genre auteur par excellence Paul Verhoeven (whose movies include ROBOCOP, BASIC INSTINCT, and ELLE), the result is anything but a reverent treatment of an odd footnote in Catholic European history. Forgoing the hallmarks of prestige cinema, this delirious, erotic, and violent melodrama is told with a boundless spirit for scandal, and unabashedly courts blasphemy as it unfolds its tale of religious hypocrisy. Wildly entertaining, and featuring standout performances from Virginie Efira as the title character and Charlotte Rampling as the stoic, conflicted Mother Abbess, BENDETTA maintains both a feverish pitch and a fascinating ambiguity in its depiction of the miraculous and the mundane, the sacred and the profane. - FILM AT LINCOLN CENTER

Screening as apart of our Retro Boutique actor spotlight on Cary Grant over April! "While trying to secure a $1 million donation for his museum, a befuddled palaeontologist is pursued by a flighty and often irritating heiress and her pet leopard, Baby."

Catch this as part of our Boutique Retro Cinema's $5 Wednesday encore screenings playing all through April! 'Casablanca: easy to enter, but much harder to leave, especially if you're wanted by the Nazis. Such a man is Resistance leader Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid), whose only hope is Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), a cynical American who sticks his neck out for no one, especially Victor's wife Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), the ex-lover who broke his heart. Ilsa offers herself in exchange for Laszlo's transport out of the country and bitter Rick must decide what counts more - personal happiness or countless lives hanging in the balance.' A truly perfect movie, the 1942 CASABLANCA still wows viewers today, and for good reason. Its unique story of a love triangle set against terribly high stakes in the war against a monster is sophisticated instead of outlandish, intriguing instead of garish. Humphrey Bogart plays the allegedly apolitical club owner in unoccupied French territory that is nevertheless crawling with Nazis; Ingrid Bergman is the lover who mysteriously deserted him in Paris; and Paul Heinreid is her heroic, slightly bewildered husband. Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Conrad Veidt are among what may be the best supporting cast in the history of Hollywood films. This is certainly among the most spirited and ennobling movies ever made. --Tom Keogh

Playing as part of our Retro Boutique Cinema's SPY FILMS SPOTLIGHT, playing all through February. 'In this comedic thriller, a trio of crooks relentlessly pursue a young American, played by Audrey Hepburn in gorgeous Givenchy, through Paris in an attempt to recover the fortune her dead husband stole from them. The only person she can trust is Cary Grant's suave, mysterious stranger. Director Stanley Donen goes deliciously dark for CHARADE, a glittering emblem of sixties style and macabre wit.'

Catch this as part of our Boutique Retro Cinema's Monday encore screenings playing all through April! The whiplash, double-pronged CHUNGKING EXPRESS is one of the defining works of nineties cinema and the film that made Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar Wai an instant icon. 'Two heartsick Hong Kong cops (Takeshi Kaneshiro and Tony Leung), both jilted by ex-lovers, cross paths at the Midnight Express take-out restaurant stand, where the ethereal pixie waitress Faye (Faye Wong) works.' Anything goes in Wong’s gloriously shot and utterly unexpected charmer, which cemented the sex appeal of its gorgeous stars and forever turned canned pineapple and the Mamas and the Papas’ “California Dreamin’” into tokens of romantic longing.

Mike Nichols' razor-sharp portrait of relationships at their most intoxicating and destructive as four strangers collide in a cycle of desire, betrayal, and brutal honesty, is one of his best - and we're stoked to be screening it as apart of our All At Once festival. "The relationships of two couples become complicated and deceitful when the man from one couple meets the woman of the other."

Catch this as part of our Boutique Retro Cinema's Monday encore screenings playing all through April! For this icily erotic fusion of flesh and machine, David Cronenberg adapted J. G. Ballard’s future-shock novel of the 1970s into one of the most singular and provocative films of the 1990s. 'A traffic collision involving a disaffected commercial producer, James (James Spader), and an enigmatic doctor, Helen (Holly Hunter), brings them, along with James’s wife, Catherine (Deborah Kara Unger, in a sublimely detached performance), together in a crucible of blood and broken glass—and it’s not long before they are all initiated into a kinky, death-obsessed underworld of sadomasochistic car-crash fetishists for whom twisted metal and scar tissue are the ultimate turn-ons.' Controversial from the moment it premiered at Cannes—where it won a Special Jury Prize “for originality, for daring, and for audacity”— CRASH has since taken its place as a key text of late-twentieth-century cinema, a disturbingly seductive treatise on the relationships between humanity and technology, sex and violence, that is as unsettling as it is mesmerizing.

Academy's Cult Night returns with Gaspar Noe's international breakthrough that took Cannes by storm in 2002, presented in a brand new restoration! "A woman’s lover and her ex-boyfriend take justice into their own hands after she becomes the victim of a rapist. Because some acts can’t be undone. Because man is an animal. Because the desire for vengeance is a natural impulse. Because most crimes remain unpunished."

In Věra Chytilová's legendary arthouse classic, chaos becomes a form of rebellion. Two young women drift through a world they refuse to take seriously, indulging in excess, destruction, and playful anarchy. Beneath its surreal humour and vibrant style lies a sharp, subversive portrait of living wildly in the moment. Screening as apart of our All At Once festival. "Two teenage girls embark on a series of destructive pranks in which they consume and destroy the world around them."

Screening as apart of our “Nunspoitation” season in our Retro Boutique auditorium over the month of April! "After her drug pusher boyfriend overdoses on heroin, a cabaret singer finds refuge from the authorities in a convent for fallen women."

Doctor Zhivago sweeps onto the big screen as part of our Sunday Epics season throughout April — a breathtaking romantic epic set against the Russian Revolution, packed with grand emotions, snowy vistas, and pure cinematic spectacle. "The life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship during the First World War and then the October Revolution."

Catch this as part of our Boutique Retro Cinema's $5 Wednesday encore screenings playing all through April! "A New Jersey guy dedicated to his family, friends, and church, develops unrealistic expectations from watching porn and works to find happiness and intimacy with his potential true love."

We're bringing Denis Villeneuve's epic Dune films back to the big screen, in preparation for the final instalment releasing this year! DUNE tells the story of Paul Atreides whose family accepts control of the desert planet Arrakis, which is the only source of coveted spice melange. As the only producer of the highly valuable resource, control of Arrakis is highly contested among the noble families. After Paul and his family are betrayed, the story explores themes of politics, religion, and man’s relationship to nature as Paul leads a rebellion to restore his family’s control of Arrakis.

We're bringing Denis Villeneuve's epic Dune films back to the big screen, in preparation for the final instalment releasing this year! “Dune: Part Two” will explore the mythic journey of Paul Atreides as he unites with Chani and the Fremen while on a path of revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family. Facing a choice between the love of his life and the fate of the known universe, he endeavors to prevent a terrible future only he can foresee.

The Daniels' modern classic that swept the Oscars a few years ago, including Best Picture, is coming back to the big screen as the centrepiece of our All At Once festival! 'An aging Chinese immigrant is swept up in an insane adventure, where she alone can save the world by exploring other universes connecting with the lives she could have led.'

Based on the global hit video game created by KOTAKE CREATE, this mind-bending psychological thriller comes to cinemas on April 23 in Australia and New Zealand. A man becomes increasingly desperate when he finds himself trapped in an endless, sterile subway passageway with no way out. He finds a set of rules: do not overlook anything out of the ordinary. If you discover an anomaly, turn back immediately. If you don’t, carry on. Then leave from Exit 8. When even a single mistake will send him back to the beginning, will he ever escape this purgatory?

John Cassavetes' Faces has stood the test of time since its release almost 60 years ago. Through late-night conversations, drunken confessions, and emotional outbursts, John Cassavetes captures people grasping for intimacy and meaning, even as everything slips through their hands in this brutally honest portrait of human fragility. Screening as apart of our All At Once festival.

We're bringing the Coen Brother's black comedy masterpiece back to the big screen to celebrate it's 30th anniversary! "In this seven-time Oscar®-nominated film, things go terribly awry when small-time Minnesota car salesman Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) hires two thugs (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare) to kidnap his wife so he can collect the ransom from his wealthy father-in-law. Once people start dying, the very chipper and very pregnant Police Chief Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand, who won an Oscar® for her performance) takes the case. Is she up for this challenge? You betcha."

Gone with the Wind returns in all its epic, romantic, and ridiculous glory — sweeping romance, unforgettable lines, and cinema at its most lavish. Screening as apart of our Sunday Epics season across April. "The spoiled daughter of a Georgia plantation owner conducts a tumultuous romance with a cynical profiteer during the American Civil War and Reconstruction Era."

Screening as apart of our “Nunspoitation” season in our Retro Boutique auditorium over the month of April! "Grave robbing, torture, possessed nuns, and a satanic Sabbath: Benjamin Christensen's legendary film uses a series of dramatic vignettes to explore the scientific hypothesis that the witches of the Middle Ages suffered the same hysteria as turn-of-the-century psychiatric patients. But the film itself is far from serious-- instead it's a witches' brew of the scary, gross, and darkly humorous."

Screening as apart of our Retro Boutique actor spotlight on Cary Grant over April! A newspaper editor uses every trick in the book to keep his ace reporter ex-wife from remarrying.

When reclusive novelist Ohm Bauman (Scott) retreats to a remote Irish inn to scatter his parents’ ashes, the staff’s tales of an ancient witch haunting the honeymoon suite take hold of his mind. Soon, disturbing visions and a shocking disappearance draw him into a nightmarish confrontation with the darkest corners of his past. In cinemas April 30.

Our annual Un-Holy Easter double bill is back again! Catch both Alejandro Jodorowsky's THE HOLY MOUNTAIN and Ken Russell's THE DEVILS for Holy Saturday as a double feature - for the price of only one film! At 6:30pm we have the ‘scandal of the Cannes Film Festival’ that was was funded by John Lennon and Yoko: THE HOLY MOUNTAIN. The film presents a corrupt, greed-fueled world, in which a powerful alchemist leads a Christ-like character and seven materialistic figures to the Holy Mountain, where they hope to achieve enlightenment. 115mins After a 20 minute intermission we’ll play the X-rated UK version of Ken Russell’s 1971 magnum opus THE DEVILS about the hysteria which occurs within 17th century Loudon when Father Urbain Grandier is accused of witchcraft by a sexually repressed nun. Warner Brothers still refuses to give this film a proper uncut release after 51 years but never fear, we will be playing the most unholy cut available! 111 mins [X-rated UK cut]

Taika Waititi's iconic Kiwi classic is coming to Academy's $5 Wednesday to celebrate its 10th anniversary! From the director of "Boy and "What We Do In the Shadows", Taika Waititi’s new film is a hilarious and heartfelt adventure based on Barry Crump's novel, "Wild Pork & Watercress". Ricky (Julian Dennison) is a defiant young city kid who finds himself on the run with his grumpy foster uncle (Sam Neill). A national manhunt ensues and the two are forced to work together to survive.

Woody Allen's darkly humorous exploration of two marriages in jeopardy is coming to the big screen as apart of our All At Once festival! When their best friends announce that they're separating, a professor and his wife discover the faults in their own marriage.

Screening as apart of our Retro Boutique director spotlight on Todd Haynes over April! "Six actors portray six personas of music legend Bob Dylan in scenes depicting various stages of his life, chronicling his rise from unknown folksinger to international icon and revealing how Dylan constantly reinvented himself."

Never-before-seen footage, exclusive voice messages, and accounts from Jeff Buckley's inner circle paint a captivating portrait of the gifted musician who died tragically in 1997, having only released one album.

Catch this as part of our Boutique Retro Cinema's Monday encore screenings playing all through April! Three detectives in the corrupt and brutal L.A. policeforce of the 1950s use differing methods to uncover aconspiracy behind the shotgun slayings of the patrons at an all night diner in this lush tribute to tough film noir crime films. Based on James Ellroy’s 1990 neo-noir novel, this Chandler-esque pulp film sneaks behind the scenes of Hollywood’s starlets, production bosses and the notoriously corrupt police department as all their paths violently cross in 1950s Los Angeles. Much like that era’s magazine Confidential—a pioneer in distributing the smut and scandal (both true and made-up) of Hollywood stars to the general public—the film revels in both the real and the mythic grit, grime and glamour. With stellar performances, nuanced characters and complex twists, L.A. CONFIDENTIAL remains a luminary in the noir landscape of the 90s.

Greta Gerwig's now iconic debut, which catapulted her into the highest ranks of directors working today, is screening as apart of our All At Once festival! In Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig reveals herself to be a bold new cinematic voice with her directorial debut, excavating both the humor and pathos in the turbulent bond between a mother and her teenage daughter. Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) fights against but is exactly like her wildly loving, deeply opinionated and strong-willed mom (Laurie Metcalf), a nurse working tirelessly to keep her family afloat after Lady Bird's father (Tracy Letts) loses his job. Set in Sacramento, California in 2002, amidst a rapidly shifting American economic landscape, Lady Bird is an affecting look at the relationships that shape us, the beliefs that define us, and the unmatched beauty of a place called home.

David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia storms onto the big screen as part of our Sunday Epics season across April — a towering masterpiece of scale, spectacle, and sweeping storytelling. Some films are meant for the biggest screen possible. This is one of them. "The story of T.E. Lawrence, the English officer who successfully united and led the diverse, often warring, Arab tribes during World War I in order to fight the Turks."

Kenneth Branagh's epic New York drama, made at the turn of the century but held from release for 6 years by its studio, came and went with no proper theatrical release. We're proud to present this masterpiece on the big screen, as it was intended, as apart of our All At Once festival! "17-year-old Lisa feels certain that she inadvertently played a role in causing a traffic accident that claimed a woman's life. In her attempts to set things right, she meets with opposition at every step. Torn apart with frustration, she begins emotionally brutalizing her family, her friends, her teachers, and, most of all, herself. She has been confronted quite unexpectedly with a basic truth: that her youthful ideals are on a collision course with the realities and compromises of the adult world."

Screening as apart of our Retro Boutique director spotlight on Todd Haynes over April! Elizabeth (Natalie Portman), a popular television star, has arrived in a tight-knit island community in Savannah. Here, she will be doing intimate research for a new part, ingratiating herself into the lives of Gracie (Julianne Moore), whom she’ll be playing on-screen, and her much younger husband, Joe (Charles Melton), to better understand the psychology and circumstances that more than 20 years ago made them notorious tabloid figures. As Elizabeth attempts to get closer to the family, the uncomfortable facts of their scandal unfurl, causing difficult, long-dormant emotions to resurface. From the sensational premise born from first time screenwriter Samy Burch’s brilliant script, director Todd Haynes (SAFE, CAROL) has constructed an American tale of astonishing richness and depth, which touches the pressure and pleasure points of a culture obsessed equally with celebrity and trauma. It’s a feat of storytelling and pinpoint-precise tone that is shrewd in its wicked embrace of melodrama while also genuinely moving in its humane treatment of tricky subject matter. Boasting a trio of bravura, mercurial performances by Moore, Portman, and Melton, MAY DECEMBER is a film about human exploitation, the elusive nature of performance, and the slipperiness of truth that confirms Todd Haynes’s status as one of our consummate movie artists.

Catch this as part of our Boutique Retro Cinema's Monday encore screenings playing all through April! This tense real-life political drama about the 1973 kidnap and murder in Chile of young American journalist Charles Horman, directed by provocateur Costa-Gavras (Z, STATE OF SEIGE, BETRAYAL), follows the efforts of the journalist's wife (Sissy Spacek - CARRIE, COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER) and father (Jack Lemmon - SOME LIKE IT HOT, THE CHINA SYNDROME) to uncover the crime and bring those responsible to justice. Causing controversy upon its release (prompting the US government to condemn the film), this powerful indictment of US foreign policy went on to win an Academy Award® for Best Adapted Screenplay, as well as nominations for Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Picture.

Screening as apart of our “Nunspoitation” season in our Retro Boutique auditorium over the month of April! "After being attacked and raped twice in one day, a timid, mute seamstress becomes a violent agent of revenge for wronged women."

Catch this as part of our Boutique Retro Cinema's $5 Wednesday encore screenings playing all through April! The film that director Ridley Scott said he has seen six times! This 90s comedy smash launched Toni Collette’s career and is a bonfide crowd-pleaser with endless rewatch value. Now BACK on the big screen for our retro $5 Wednesday series. (Also a must for ABBA fans) 'Socially awkward Muriel Heslop (Toni Collette) wants nothing more than to get married. Unfortunately, due to her oppressive politician father (Bill Hunter), Muriel has never even been on a date. Ostracized by her more socially adept friends, Muriel runs into fellow outcast Rhonda Epinstalk (Rachel Griffiths), and the two move from their small Australian town to the big city of Sydney, where Muriel changes her name and begins the arduous task of redesigning her life to match her fantasies.'

Playing for $5 Wednesday. After being unemployed for several years, a man devises a unique plan to secure a new job: eliminate his competition.

Screening as apart of our Retro Boutique actor spotlight on Cary Grant over April! Madison Avenue advertising man Roger Thornhill finds himself thrust into the world of spies when he is mistaken for a man by the name of George Kaplan. Foreign spy Philip Vandamm and his henchman Leonard try to eliminate him but when Thornhill tries to make sense of the case, he is framed for murder. Now on the run from the police, he manages to board the 20th Century Limited bound for Chicago where he meets a beautiful blond, Eve Kendall, who helps him to evade the authorities. His world is turned upside down yet again when he learns that Eve isn't the innocent bystander he thought she was. Not all is as it seems however, leading to a dramatic rescue and escape at the top of Mt. Rushmore.

Bong Joon-ho's smash-hit that swept 6 Oscars including Best Picture in 2020, is returning to the big screen for a one-off screening as apart of our $5 Wednesday's! 'All unemployed, Ki-taek's family takes peculiar interest in the wealthy and glamorous Parks for their livelihood until they get entangled in an unexpected incident.' "When one member of the family gets a job as a tutor in a wealthy household, it sets in motion an ingenious chain of events that Bong tracks with steadily mounting tension and clockwork precision. As an escalating freak show of tension, surprise and class rage, “Parasite” would make a terrific double bill with Jordan Peele’s “Us,” which it matches and perhaps even surpasses in pact. Bong’s movie may be the angriest, most confrontational thing I’ve seen in the competition, the rare parable of haves and have-nots that connects viscerally as well as intellectually." [Justin Chang / LA Times]

Catch this as part of our Boutique Retro Cinema's $5 Wednesday encore screenings playing all through April! Trapped on her family’s isolated farm, Pearl must tend to her ailing father under the bitter and overbearing watch of her devout mother. Lusting for a glamorous life like she’s seen in the movies, Pearl’s ambitions, temptations, and repressions collide.

Jacques Tati’s magnum opus Playtime is a satirical comedy set in Paris, humorously portraying society’s confrontation with Modernism, which we're proud to be screening as apart of our All At Once festival. A full-length feature narratively structured in six sequences, the film follows baffled Frenchman Monsieur Hulot, and a young American tourist named Barbara, who frequently encounter each other over the course of a day. In the film, we observe a city that has been rapidly urbanised and a society whose attitudes towards work and leisure fluctuates in response. Tati’s singular style immerses viewers as architectural inhabitants of a re-imagined, ultra-modern 1960’s Paris, but the audience is nonetheless encouraged to keep a critical eye on the consumer culture that pervades the screen.

Screening as apart of our Retro Boutique director spotlight on Todd Haynes over April! 'Poison is the second feature directed by Todd Haynes, the Oscar®-nominated filmmaker of FAR FROM HEAVEN and CAROL. It is a groundbreaking American Indie and a trailblazing landmark of queer cinema. A work of immense visual invention, Haynes’ spectacular follow-up to his legendary SUPERSTAR: THE KAREN CARPENTER STORY is audacious, disturbing and thrillingly cinematic. Inspired by the writings of Jean Genet, poison deftly interweaves a trio of transgressive tales—“Hero,” “Horror” and “Homo”—that build toward a devastating climax. “Hero,” shot in mock TV-documentary style, tells a bizarre story of suburban patricide and a miraculous flight from justice; “Horror,” filmed like a delirious ’50s B-movie melodrama, is a gothic tale of a mad sex experiment which unleashes a disfiguring plague; while “Homo” explores the obsessive sexual relationship between two prison inmates. A runaway hit which made national headlines when it was attacked by right-wing politicians, POISON is unsettling, unforgettable and thoroughly entertaining.'

Science teacher Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) wakes up on a spaceship light years from home with no recollection of who he is or how he got there. As his memory returns, he begins to uncover his mission: solve the riddle of the mysterious substance causing the sun to die out. He must call on his scientific knowledge and unorthodox ideas to save everything on Earth from extinction… but an unexpected friendship means he may not have to do it alone.

Be among the first to see THE WEED EATERS, the darkly comic, award-winning film already hailed as "the most fun I’ve had at the movies in a long time” (The Spinoff). As part of THE BIG FORKING TOUR of Aotearoa, we’ll be showing a special advance screening of the film, followed by a live Q&A with the creators and cast, including Callum Devlin (director/producer), Finnius Teppett (scriptwriter/producer), and actor-producers Alice May Connolly and Annabel Kean. Cannibalism, murder and betrayal are on the table in this riotous NZ horror comedy. Four holidaying friends come across a strain of weed that gives them the most extreme case of the munchies ever recorded. Jules (Alice May Connolly) is on a New Year's Eve trip with her new boyfriend and his two stoner friends in the wops of North Canterbury when they stumble across a long-abandoned stash in an old shed. After a quick session and an accidental murder, the marijuana turns them into enthusiastic cannibals. To cover the evidence of their murder, they decide to keep toking so they can devour the body. What will happen when the meat runs out? Who will be the next victim? “Everyone needs to see The Weed Eaters… a new comedy horror may be the best local release in years” -The Spinoff

Catch this as part of our Boutique Retro Cinema's Monday encore screenings playing all through April! In Japanese with English subtitles. In Medieval Japan, an elderly warlord retires, handing over his empire to his three sons. However, he vastly underestimates how the new-found power will corrupt them and cause them to turn on each other...and him.

Catch this as part of our Boutique Retro Cinema's $5 Wednesday encore screenings playing all through April! Academy Award Nominee* Darren Aronofsky followed up his acclaimed debut PI with this gritty emotionally charged film set amidst the abandoned beaches and faded glory of Coney Island, Brooklyn. Based upon the novel by celebrated author Hubert Selby Jr., the story intricately links the lives of a lonely widowed mother (Academy Award Winner Ellen Burstyn; ALICE DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE), her son Harry (Academy Award Winner Jared Leto; DALLAS BUYERS CLUB), his beautiful girlfriend Marion (Academy Award Winner Jennifer Connelly; A BEAUTIFUL MIND) and his best friend Tyrone (Marlon Wayans). REQUIEM FOR A DREAM is a hypnotic tale of four human beings each pursuing their vision of happiness. Even as everything begins to fall apart, they refuse to let go, plummeting with their dreams into a nightmarish, gut-wrenching freefall.

Screening as apart of our Retro Boutique director spotlight on Todd Haynes over April! Julianne Moore gives a breakthrough performance as Carol White, a Los Angeles housewife in the late 1980s who comes down with a debilitating illness. After the doctors she sees can give her no clear diagnosis, she comes to believe that she has frighteningly extreme environmental allergies. A profoundly unsettling work from the great American director Todd Haynes, SAFE functions on multiple levels: as a prescient commentary on self-help culture, as a metaphor for the AIDS crisis, as a drama about class and social estrangement, and as a horror film about what you cannot see. This revelatory drama was named the best film of the 1990s in a Village Voice poll of more than fifty critics.

With the recent news of filmmaker Béla Tarr's passing, we're glad to be paying tribute to this master of cinema with his magnum opus, Sátántangó (1994), screening as apart of our All At Once festival. Two 15 minute intermissions included. "In Bela Tarr's seven-hour episodic film, inhabitants of a small village in Hungary deal with the effects of the fall of Communism. The town's source of revenue, a factory, has closed, and the locals, who include a doctor (Putyi Horvath) and three couples, await a cash payment offered in the wake of the shuttering. Irimias (Mihály Vig), a villager thought to be dead, returns and, unbeknownst to the locals, is a police informant. In a scheme, he persuades the villagers to form a commune with him."

A father, accompanied by his son, goes looking for his missing daughter in North Africa.

For Andrei Tarkovsky's birthday, we're excited to be screening his towering, soul-searching epic that explores art, faith, and survival in medieval Russia; as visually hypnotic as it is spiritually overwhelming. 15 minute intermission included. "An expansive Russian drama, this film focuses on the life of revered religious icon painter Andrei Rublev. Drifting from place to place in a tumultuous era, the peace-seeking monk eventually gains a reputation for his art. But after Rublev witnesses a brutal battle and unintentionally becomes involved, he takes a vow of silence and spends time away from his work. As he begins to ease his troubled soul, he takes steps towards becoming a painter once again."

Catch this as part of our Boutique Retro Cinema's $5 Wednesday encore screenings playing all through April! The heroic story of a dictator who risks his life to ensure that democracy would never come to the country he so lovingly oppressed.

A couple, in the days leading up to their wedding, faces a crisis when unexpected revelations derail what one of them thought they knew about the other.

The next instalment in our $5 Wednesday series is the cult classic animated film THE IRON GIANT, now considered one of the greatest animated films ever made! Tickets only $5 - get in quick! Imagine you confront your enemy – a giant, scary robot from outer space – and he becomes your best pal. A young boy befriends a monster in the heartwarming animated feature THE IRON GIANT. October, 1957. Nine-year-old Hogarth Hughes (Eli Marienthal) lives in Rockwell, Maine, a seemingly idyllic town. Hearing stories of a UFO that crashed into the sea, Hogarth, always on the lookout for mutant aliens, finds a huge, metal-eating robot (Vin Diesel) with an insatiable curiosity and equally insatiable appetite. But the extraterrestrial’s presence unleashes a wave of Cold War paranoia that threatens to engulf Rockwell unless Hogarth and his 50-foot friend can stop it. Acclaimed animation director and writer Brad Bird brings his creative talents to the big screen in this unique tale of two heroes. In times like these, you really find out what your friends are made of… sometimes it’s metal, if your best buddy’s THE IRON GIANT. Based on the book The Iron Man by Ted Hughes.

A rising pop sensation (Charli XCX) navigates fame and industry pressures while preparing for her arena tour debut, revealing the transformation of underground culture into mainstream success.

Screening as apart of our Retro Boutique actor spotlight on Cary Grant over April! With this furiously witty comedy of manners, Katharine Hepburn revitalized her career and cemented her status as the era’s most iconic leading lady—thanks in great part to her own shrewd orchestrations. While starring in the Philip Barry stage play The Philadelphia Story, Hepburn acquired the screen rights, handpicking her friend George Cukor to direct. The intoxicating screenplay by Donald Ogden Stewart pits the formidable Philadelphia socialite Tracy Lord (Hepburn, at her most luminous) against various romantic foils, chief among them her charismatic ex-husband (Cary Grant), who disrupts her imminent marriage by paying her family estate a visit, accompanied by a tabloid reporter on assignment to cover the wedding of the year (James Stewart, in his only Academy Award–winning performance). A fast-talking screwball comedy as well as a tale of regret and reconciliation, this convergence of golden-age talent is one of the greatest American films of all time.

Alejandro G. Iñarritu's survival epic that won Leonardo DiCaprio his long overdue Oscar for Best Actor, is coming back to the big screen for it's 10th anniversary for only $5! Inspired by true events, THE REVENANT is an epic story of survival and transformation on the American frontier. While on an expedition into the uncharted wilderness, legendary explorer Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is brutally mauled by a bear, then abandoned by members of his own hunting team. Alone and near death, Glass refuses to succumb. Driven by sheer will and his love for his Native American wife and son, he undertakes a 200-mile odyssey through the vast and untamed West on the trail of the man who betrayed him: John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy). What begins as a relentless quest for revenge becomes a heroic saga against all odds towards home and redemption. THE REVENANT is directed, produced and co-written by Alejandro G. Iñárritu.

Cecil B. DeMille's legendary epic is coming back to the big screen as apart of our Sunday Epics season across April, as well as to celebrate Easter! "The Egyptian Prince, Moses, learns of his true heritage as a Hebrew and his divine mission as the deliverer of his people."

Screening as apart of our “Nunspoitation” season in our Retro Boutique auditorium over the month of April! "Mary and her friend, Rachel, are new students at St. Francis Academy, a boarding school run by the iron fist of Mother Superior. The immature teens grow bored and begin playing pranks on both the unsuspecting nuns and their unpleasant classmates, becoming a constant thorn in Mother Superior's side. However, as the years pass, Mary and Rachel slowly mature and begin to see the nuns in a different light."

Joachim Trier's instant classic that took the film world by storm upon its release and introduced everyone to Renate Reinsve, is returning to the big screen as the opening night screening of our All At Once festival! "Julie is turning thirty and her life is an existential mess. Several of her talents have gone to waste and her older boyfriend, Aksel – a successful graphic novelist – is pushing for them to settle down. One night, she gatecrashes a party and meets the young and charming Eivind. Before long, she has broken up with Aksel and thrown herself into yet another new relationship, hoping for a new perspective on her life. But she will come to realize that some life choices are lready behind her."

Screening as apart of our Retro Boutique actor spotlight on Cary Grant over April! American expatriate John Robie, living in high style on the Riviera, is a retired cat burglar. He must find out who a copycat is to keep a new wave of jewel thefts from being pinned on him. High on the list of prime victims is Jessie Stevens, in Europe to help daughter Frances find a suitable husband. The Lloyds of London insurance agent is using a thief to catch a thief. Take an especially close look at scene where Robie gets Jessie's attention, dropping an expensive casino chip down the décolletage of a French roulette player.

Screening as apart of our “Nunspoitation” season in our Retro Boutique auditorium over the month of April! "An American occult novelist battles to save the soul of a young girl from a group of Satanists, led by an excommunicated priest, who plan on using her as the representative of the Devil on Earth."

The host of a popular paranormal podcast becomes haunted by terrifying recordings mysteriously sent her way.

Screening as apart of our Retro Boutique director spotlight on Todd Haynes over April! Drawing its title from a David Bowie song, writer-director Todd Haynes’ feverish mash-up of glam rock and CITIZEN KANE follows a journalist (Christian Bale) on the trail of an enigmatic U.K. musician (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) and the American performer who influenced him (Ewan McGregor). With a soundtrack packed with vintage and new recordings and Sandy Powell’s Oscar-nominated costume design, this cult favourite is a feast for the senses. Todd Haynes’s second discourse on celebrity culture (after SUPERSTAR: THE KAREN CARPENTER STORY) was as sprawling and multi-tracked as Haynes’s SAFE had been clinically restrained. Working with a stellar cast (Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Eddie Izzard, Toni Collette, Ewan McGregor, Christian Bale) and a staggering roster of musicians, including members of Radiohead, Sonic Youth, Roxy Music, and The Stooges, Haynes crafted one of the most thrilling music movies of the ’90s.

Screening as apart of our Retro Boutique director spotlight on Todd Haynes over April! "The story of a young boy in the Midwest is told simultaneously with a tale about a young girl in New York from fifty years ago as they both seek the same mysterious connection."