Always a favorite around these parts, Mike Nichols and Elaine May’s The Birdcage is returning to The Frida Cinema just in time for some screenings on Santa Ana Pride celebration weekend! Oh, and did we mention we’re playing it totally free of charge!?

Middle-aged gay life partners, Armand Goldman, a Jewish drag club owner, and Albert, the club’s flamboyant star attraction, live in the eclectic community of South Beach and have raised a straight son. Now, their newly engaged son, 20-year-old Val, wants to bring his fiancée, Barbara, and her ultraconservative parents home to meet his family for the first time. By Val’s request, Armand pretends to be straight, not Jewish and attempts to hide his relationship with Albert, in order to please Barbara’s father, controversial right-wing Republican Sen. Kevin Keeley.

Starring the iconic trio of Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, and Gene Hackman, The Birdcage is a rare gem in the realm of mainstream American comedy—a film that manages to be riotously funny, sharply satirical, and quietly groundbreaking all at once.

Join us for some free screenings of The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert as we celebrate Santa Ana’s official Pride weekend!

Two drag queens and a transgender woman contract to perform a drag show at a resort in Alice Springs, a town in the remote Australian desert. As they head west from Sydney aboard their lavender bus, Priscilla, the three friends come to the forefront of a comedy of errors, encountering a number of strange characters, as well as incidents of homophobia, whilst widening comfort zones and exploring new horizons.

Released at a time when positive queer representation in film was still rare, Priscilla broke ground simply by putting LGBTQ+ characters front and center—and letting them shine.

Glitz and glamour has officially entered our Technicolor Summer series as we present a weekend of the 50s classic How To Marry A Millionaire! 

Three ambitious New York models—Schatze Page (Lauren Bacall), Loco Dempsey (Betty Grable), and Pola Debevoise (Marilyn Monroe)—decide to pool their resources and rent a luxurious Manhattan penthouse, not for comfort, but as a strategic base of operations to catch rich husbands.

Beneath the surface, the film gently satirizes postwar materialism and gender roles, while still delivering the charm of a traditional romantic comedy. Each of the three leads brings distinct comedic timing and personality, especially Marilyn Monroe, whose physical comedy as the glasses-averse Pola steals the show.

Up second in our Santo Sundays series is Santo Vs. Hombres Infernales!

Agent Joaquin recalls his latest mission while lying wounded in an ambulance: Joaquin has infiltrated into a band of smugglers. When the villains learn the truth about him, they kidnap Jouqin’s fiancee. Santo comes to her rescue and fights the band.

Trash-Mex is proud to collaborate with Permanencia Voluntaria Archivo Cinematográfico for a special screening series of Mexican icon El Santo. Join us every other Sunday this Summer for a total of eight of his greatest hits! All films will be presented in Spanish with English subtitles. Admission is $9.

It’s not Santa Ana Pride weekend at The Frida without a screening or two of Hedwig And The Angry Inch! And this year, the showings are completely free!

Raised a boy in East Berlin, Hedwig undergoes a personal transformation in order to emigrate to the U.S., where she reinvents herself as an ‘internationally ignored’ but divinely talented rock diva, inhabiting a ‘beautiful gender of one’.

At a time when few films dared to center queer and trans experiences with this much raw honesty and visual style, Hedwig and the Angry Inch carved out a space that felt radical and necessary.

Ridley Scott’s girl trip Thelma & Louise winds down our Pride Month programming with a brand new 4K restoration!

The story follows Thelma (Geena Davis), a timid housewife, and Louise (Susan Sarandon), a no-nonsense waitress, as they embark on what starts as a weekend getaway and turns into a flight from the law. After Louise kills a man who attempts to rape Thelma, the two hit the road, realizing that the justice system is unlikely to see their side. Their journey becomes one of personal awakening, radical defiance, and ultimately, tragic liberation.

Thelma & Louise is more than a road movie—it’s a feminist landmark, a genre-defying tale of friendship, freedom, and fury that still resonates over three decades later.

See It On 16MM is back with another heater as we team up for an encore of the 1974 Tobe Hoober horror masterpiece The Texas Chain Saw Massacre!

When a group of young friends take a detour through rural Texas, what begins as a sun-bleached road trip dissolves into something far more harrowing. In the middle of nowhere, they stumble upon a decaying farmhouse—and a family of cannibals. Chief among them: a towering, masked figure with a roaring chainsaw and a childlike rage. One by one, the travelers are pulled into a waking nightmare of violence, ritual, and bone-deep madness.

No comfort. No escape. Just heat, metal, and the sound of human terror.