Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho, who has gifted us such films as Aquarius (NYFF54) and Bacurau (NYFF57), returns with the thrillingly unpredictable The Secret Agent.

A dynamic, shape-shifting epic set in Mendonça’s hometown of Recife during the late 1970s, The Secret Agent won Best Director award at Cannes. Wagner Moura was also deservedly honored as Best Actor at the festival for his magnetic performance as a widowed former university researcher whose life has been violently upended by the greed and vengeance of a government bureaucrat.

On the run and living under an alias during the country’s military dictatorship, he tries to escape, while also reconnecting with the young son he had to leave behind. Even this brief description cannot fully prepare the viewer for the zigzagging subplots and delights of Mendonça’s eccentric and affectionate ode to the movies and the Brazil of his youth—and to maintaining individuality amid abuses of power.

From director Kaouther Ben Hania comes The Voice Of Hind Rajab, a powerful new docudrama based on real events that is one of the most talked-about films of the 2025–26 festival and awards season.

January 29, 2024. Red Crescent volunteers receive an emergency call. A five-year old girl is trapped in a car under fire in Gaza, pleading for rescue. While trying to keep her on the line, they do everything they can to get an ambulance to her. Her name was Hind Rajab.

The film premiered in competition at the 2025 Venice Film Festival and received a record-breaking standing ovation, one of the longest in festival history.

Kick off your cinematic New Year with the highly-anticipated third film from visionary director Bi Gan: Resurrection.

In a world where humans have forsaken dreams in exchange for immortality, a dreaming monster (Jackson Yee) embarks on a shape-shifting odyssey through illusion, beauty, and terror that takes him across the twentieth century and to the end of time.

Unfolding in five dazzlingly imagined chapters that encompass everything from silent-cinema expressionism to film noir to a delirious vampire love story shot in one of Bi’s signature long takes, Resurrection is a work of breathtaking imagination in which cinema is the ultimate portal to the unconscious mind.

We heard your voices! Or more specifically…we heard one person’s voice that’s been asking us to play Monkeybone every month for the past few years. And now it’s time to celebrate 25 years of Henry Selick’s cult classic!

After a car crash sends repressed cartoonist Stu into a coma, he and the mischievous Monkeybone, his hilarious alter-ego, wake up in a wacked-out waystation for lost souls. When Monkeybone takes over Stu’s body and escapes to wreak havoc on the real world, Stu has to find a way to stop him before his sister pulls the plug on reality forever!

Upon release, Monkeybone was considered a commercial and critical failure. Audiences didn’t know what to make of its surreal blend of live action, stop-motion animation, adult humor, grim fantasy–the list goes on and on. But over time, that same strangeness became its appeal. Fans of “how did a major studio make this?” type of films should be lining up around the block for this one. 

Our award-winning resident performance troupe K.A.O.S. returns for their celebrated all-costumed, all-choreographed, all-leg-kicking live shadowcast presentation of 1975 cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show, performed on stage in front of the film!

Director Jim (Don’t squeeze the…) Sharman’s cult classic stars Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon as Brad and Janet, two virginal small-town lovers whose car breaks down in the shadows of a creepy old castle, where they encounter an odd collective of “unconventional conventionalists” gathered to witness transvestite scientist’s Dr. Frank-N-Furter’s latest creation – a muscular man named Rocky. As their innocence is lost, Brad and Janet meet a houseful of wild characters, including tap-dancing Columbia, rocking biker Eddie, and of course, the castle’s “Sweet Transvestite” himself, Frank-N-Furter!

Adapted from the 1973 stage musical by Richard O’Brien, this glam cult classic is a cinematic experience unlike any other. Sing-along (and shout-along!) to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a classic that still packs houses 50 years after its initial release! Get your tickets now before it sells out!

Doors open at 11:00pm  Official K.A.O.S. preshow starts at 11:30pm!  Movie at midnight!

SENSORY WARNING: Flashing Lights and Fog effects may be used during the event.

This program is a venue rental engagement. The views and opinions expressed in this program do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of The Frida Cinema or its staff. Member discounts and Frida Cinema comp passes not valid.