Before he gave us The Lady Eve, writer-director Preston Sturges delivered one of Hollywood’s great love letters to the movies with Sullivan’s Travels, a hilarious and heartfelt comedy that asks one timeless question: what good are movies in difficult times?

Successful movie director John L. Sullivan, convinced he won’t be able to film his ambitious masterpiece until he has suffered, dons a hobo disguise and sets off on a journey, aiming to “know trouble” first-hand. When all he finds is a train ride back to Hollywood and a beautiful blonde companion, he redoubles his efforts, managing to land himself in more trouble than he bargained for when he loses his memory and ends up a prisoner on a chain gang.

More than eighty years later, Sullivan’s Travels’ message feels as vital as ever. If you’ve ever wondered whether movies can change lives, this is one of the greatest arguments ever put forward! Come see this classic on the big screen!

An auteur emerges from America’s underclass.

From migrant farmworker to revolutionary artist, Luis Valdez changed American culture. His El Teatro Campesino performed on flatbed trucks and helped mobilize California’s farm workers. His Zoot Suit was the first Chicano play on Broadway. Despite critical rejection that killed the show’s New York run, he persevered, creating La Bamba, a blockbuster that brought Mexican-American life to a global audience.

Now in its 60th year, El Teatro continues to be a beacon for Latino creators. American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez is the first feature documentary about this American original, narrated by Edward James Olmos reprising his legendary El Pachuco role, featuring Cheech Marin, Lou Diamond Phillips, Dolores Huerta, and Linda Ronstadt. The film weaves 4K-restored archival footage, including over 80,000 feet of deteriorating 1970s celluloid rescued and digitized for the first time, with the story of a man who proved that Chicanos have always been America.

Don’t worry, you’ll like it.

Gregg Araki’s long-awaited return to the big screen, I Want Your Sex, is coming to The Frida Cinema!

When fresh-faced Elliot (Cooper Hoffman) lands an exciting job for renowned artist, icon and provocateur Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde), his fantasies come true as Erika taps him to become her sexual muse. But Elliot soon finds himself out of his depth as Erika takes him on a journey more profound than he ever could have imagined, into a world of sex, obsession, power, betrayal and murder.

More than thirty years after the Teen Apocalypse Trilogy shocked independent cinema, I Want Your Sex proves Araki hasn’t lost his appetite for challenging audiences, reminding us why he is one of American cinema’s most fearless and singular voices.

Frida Cinema favorite Kiyoshi Kurosawa is back, yet again, with his latest epic: The Samurai and the Prisoner!

When Lord Murashige (Masahiro Motoki) rises up against the tyrannical Oda (Bando Shingo), he finds himself besieged within the walls of his own castle. Isolated, he is confronted with a series of mysterious crimes that shatter the fragile order of his court, plunging the fortress into fear and suspicion. With Oda’s army closing in and a traitor hiding among his ranks, Murashige is forced into an uneasy alliance with Kanbei Kuroda (Masaki Suda), a brilliant yet dangerous strategist held prisoner in the dungeon. Helped by his wife Chiyoho (Yuriko Yoshitaka) and his most loyal generals, Murashige must uncover the truth before the castle falls.

A restrained samurai mystery that uses the genre to explore morality, The Samurai and the Prisoner boasts an impressive 94% on Rotten Tomatoesand was one of the major standouts at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Don’t miss your chance to see it on the big screen!

The second film in our Broadway Thursdays: Segerstrom Center at The Frida is Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation of The Outsiders! 

In 1960s Tulsa, class divisions ignite a violent rivalry between the working-class Greasers and the privileged Socs. When a deadly encounter forces two Greasers, Ponyboy and Johnny, to flee, their struggle for survival and redemption exposes the fragile innocence and enduring bonds of youth on the wrong side of town.

Featuring an astonishing ensemble cast before they became Hollywood legends, including C. Thomas Howell, Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Ralph Macchio, Rob Lowe, Tom Cruise, and Emilio Estevez—The Outsiders remains one of the defining coming-of-age films of the 1980s.

Nu-Classics is back at The Frida Cinema, as this time around, our beloved host Maggie Mae Fish is joined by novelist and video essayist Lindsay Ellis for a very special screening celebrating thirty years since the release of Independence Day! 

Strange phenomena surface around the globe. The skies ignite. Terror races through the world’s major cities. As these extraordinary events unfold, it becomes increasingly clear that a force of incredible magnitude has arrived. Its mission: total annihilation over the Fourth of July weekend. The last hope to stop the destruction is an unlikely group of people united by fate and unimaginable circumstances.

Upon its release in 1996, Independence Day became a global phenomenon, redefining what audiences expected from summer movie spectacle. Its earnest patriotism and larger-than-life action paved the way for many blockbusters that came after. Whether you’re revisiting it for the hundredth time or experiencing it on the big screen for the first time, this is the kind of movie that reminds us why theaters were built to be loud! Also…come on, a movie with Bill Pullman and Jeff Goldblum?

Lindsay Ellis is a novelist and video essayist residing in Long Beach, CA. After studying Cinema Studies from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, she earned her MFA in Film and Television Production from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts with a focus in documentary and screenwriting. As a video essayist she wrote and co-hosted the fiction-focused web series It’s Lit! for PBS Digital Studios. She continues to make video essay and documentary content for YouTube and the streaming service Nebula. Her novels include Apostles of Mercy, Truth of the Divine and Axiom’s End, which was a New York Times best seller. Her nonfiction debut, Degenerates, a survey of how fascists and authoritarians appropriate and censor the arts, is slated for release in 2028.