Yeon Sang-ho’s global phenomenon Train to Busan is coming back to The Frida Cinema to celebrate its 10th Anniversary!

What begins as a simple birthday trip for a father and daughter turns into a high-octane fight for survival when a zombie outbreak ravages South Korea. Trapped on a speeding train, they must navigate a landscape of terror to reach safety. Experience the relentless action and heart-wrenching drama on the big screen like never before.

A pure action spectacle that secretly doubles as an emotional family drama, Train to Busan succeeds because it never loses sight of the people at its center. Its breakneck pacing and inventive set pieces make it one of the great zombie films of the 21st century and one hell of a time on the big screen! 

Silence affects everyone in the end.

The Piano is back on the big on the big screen in a stunning 4K restoration supervised and approved by writer-director Jane Campion and cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh.

Set in the rugged wilderness of 19th-century New Zealand, the film follows Ada McGrath, a mute Scottish pianist who is sent halfway across the world for an arranged marriage. Accompanied only by her young daughter and her beloved piano, Ada finds herself caught between duty, desire, and self-discovery in a story as emotionally overwhelming as the landscape that surrounds her.

Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes and three Academy Awards, including Best Actress for Holly Hunter and Best Supporting Actress for Anna Paquin, The Piano is one of cinema’s most haunting and unforgettable romances ever made.

She’s not “a lot”. You’re just underprepared.

Horsegirls, an official selection of the Tribeca Film Festival in 2025, is coming to The Frida Cinema! And make sure to stick around after the screening for a very special Q&A with the films writer and director, Lauren Meyering!

The film stars Lillian Carrier as Margarita, a 22-year-old autistic woman navigating early adulthood, a new job, and her mother’s uncertain health diagnosis. When she discovers the world of competitive hobby horsing, it becomes the unexpected lifeline that helps her find her footing and grow into her independence.

It’s laugh-vacation time as our Art House for Families series presents Jacques Tati’s gentle comic masterpiece Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday!

Monsieur Hulot, Jacques Tati’s endearing clown, takes a holiday at a seaside resort, where his presence provokes one catastrophe after another.

Tati’s masterpiece of gentle slapstick is a series of effortlessly well-choreographed sight gags involving dogs, boats, and firecrackers; it was the first entry in the Hulot series and the film that launched its maker to international stardom. Decades later, still feels fresh in ways that modern comedies rarely do. 

This film will be presented in its original French language, with English subtitles.

Our Art House for Families series celebrates the magic of moviegoing across generations all summer long. From silent comedy and international classics to science fiction and fantasy adventures, the series invites longtime cinephiles and first-time art house audiences of all ages to discover some of cinema’s most enduring films together on the big screen. This event is sponsored in part by the City of Santa Ana. 

He is afraid. He is totally alone. He is 3,000,000 light years from home.

Our Spielberg Summer series phones home with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, one of the most beloved family films ever made and a landmark of modern American cinema.

When a lonely young boy named Elliott discovers a stranded alien hiding near his home, the two form an unlikely friendship that changes both of their lives. As E.T. becomes part of Elliott’s family, the children must help their otherworldly companion evade government authorities and find a way back home before it’s too late.

Few films capture the wonder of childhood as beautifully as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Spielberg transforms a simple story of friendship into something genuinely magical. Decades after audiences first watched that bicycle lift off against the moonlit sky, the film, like so many others from Spielberg, continues to inspire awe from audiences across the globe.

He’s strong to the finish ’cause he eats his spinach! Join us for Popeye Fest, a celebration of everyone’s favorite sailor man featuring a hand-picked block of the very best Popeye cartoons ever put to film!

Produced by the legendary Fleischer Studios during animation’s golden age, these groundbreaking shorts remain some of the funniest, most inventive cartoons ever made, and they’re rarely screened on the big screen. Before the cartoons begin, we’ll kick things off with a special presentation exploring the history and lasting influence of one of animation’s most iconic characters.

Whether you’re a lifelong Popeye fan or discovering these classics for the very first time, Popeye Fest is the perfect way to experience these timeless treasures as they were meant to be seen: on the big screen with an audience!

If you think it’s safe to go to sleep, think again.

Wes Craven’s A Nightmare On Elm Street is the first event in our Sunday Scaries lineup for August, presented by Play It By Fear!

Teenagers in a small town are dropping like flies, apparently in the grip of mass hysteria causing their suicides. A cop’s daughter, Nancy Thompson, traces the cause to child molester Fred Krueger, who was burned alive by angry parents many years before. Krueger has now come back in the dreams of his killers’ children, claiming their lives as his revenge. Nancy and her boyfriend, Glen, must devise a plan to lure the monster out of the realm of nightmares and into the real world…

Nearly four decades later, ANOES remains as unsettling and wildly entertaining as ever. Just based on its premise alone, the movie still shocks audiences on a primal level, and dare we say it’s become actually a bit underrated as years have gone by. Come see one of the all time greats on the big screen with a crowd of fellow Freddy lovers! 

Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 7
Original Air Date: June 18, 2017

The investigation begins to gather momentum as Gordon, Albert, and Tammy work through evidence tied to Cooper’s doppelgänger, while Sheriff Truman and Hawk continue following clues buried deep in Twin Peaks history. Ben and Beverly’s emotionally charged scenes introduce yet another complicated relationship into the mix, and several mysteries begin to hint at patterns to be resolved as, piece by piece, the larger shape of the story starts coming into view.

Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8
Original Air Date: June 25, 2017

One of the most audacious episodes in television history, Part 8 detours into the origins of terror, violence, and perhaps evil itself, using a dazzling blend of sound, image, and nightmare logic. The doppelgänger’s fate intersects with forces that feel cosmic in scale, and the episode reaches backward into mid-century America to suggest how long these shadows have been gathering. It is both a mythic expansion of Twin Peaks, and a singular audiovisual experience we can’t wait to share on the big screen.

This time the terror doesn’t stop at the screen.

The second film in our Sunday Scaries lineup for August is Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, presented by Play It By Fear!

Partially a sequel and partially a satire, New Nightmare follows Heather Langenkamp as a fictionalized version of herself as she discovers that Freddy Krueger has escaped the world of movies and entered our own. What unfolds is one of the smartest and most ambitious horror films of the 1990s about the monsters we create for ourselves.

Only two years after the release of this movie, Craven would make Scream, which is where Hollywood really became obsessed with meta-horror. But New Nightmare is a much more unsettling beast that deserves to be re-discovered on the big screen!