From acclaimed filmmaker Paweł Pawlikowski (Ida, Cold War) comes Fatherland, a striking new black-and-white portrait of postwar Germany, starring Sandra Hüller and Hanns Zischler.

In the summer of 1949, Nobel Prize-winning author Thomas Mann returns to Germany after years of exile, embarking on a road trip with his daughter Erika across a country split between East and West. As they travel from American-occupied Frankfurt to Soviet-controlled Weimar, old wounds resurface and difficult questions emerge about national identity, artistic responsibility, and what it means to return home when the place you remember no longer exists.

With Pawlikowski’s signature visual precision and Hüller’s quietly commanding performance, Fatherland transforms a journey across a fractured nation into an intimate reckoning of guilt and the complicated bonds between parents and children. A true standout at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Pawlikowski once again finds extraordinary emotional weight in what remains unsaid.

The new film On The Road (En el camino) from director David Pablos is coming to The Frida Cinema!

Veneno, a rebellious young drifter, frequents roadside diners where he sleeps with truck drivers. Urgently needing a ride, he meets Muñeco, a hard-edged driver who keeps to himself. He convinces Muñeco to take him deep into the hyper-masculine world of long-haul trucking across the north of Mexico. As they travel together and an unexpected intimacy builds between them, shadows from Veneno’s past resurface, putting both their lives at risk.

Winner of the 2025 Venice Horizons best film and Queer Lion awards, On The Road has been described as a racy, turbo-charged thriller that scorches up the big screen! Don’t miss your chance to see it!

Just added: Helena Odeh, daughter of Alex Odeh, will be joining us before the 8:30PM screening on 11/5 to introduce the film! 

Who Killed Alex Odeh?, the powerful new documentary from directors Jason Osder and William Lafi Youmans, is coming to The Frida Cinema for a limited run on November 5th-10th.

In October 1985, Santa Ana, California was shaken by a brazen act of political violence when Palestinian American Alex Odeh, a beloved teacher and community leader, was killed by a tripwire bomb planted in his office. Despite substantial evidence and identified suspects, the case was never solved. Who Killed Alex Odeh? reopens the mystery, tracking a renewed investigation in real time as new leads emerge, long-buried records come to light, and the forces behind a political assassination are finally confronted.

Alex Odeh was a Palestinian-born American citizen, a father of three, a teacher, a poet, and an advocate for Arab American civil rights and peaceful coexistence.

According to Carnegie Mellon University and Grand Central Art Center, the statue of Alex that sits outside of the Santa Ana Public Library (just a ten minute walk from The Frida Cinema) is the only public monument to an Arab American in the United States.

Just added: film critic and author Alonso Duralde will be joining us for the 8:00PM screening on November 9th to introduce the film and sign copies of his book Hollywood Pride!

Few filmmakers have embraced queer desire with as much style, humor, and glorious melodrama as Pedro Almodóvar. So of course we had to include his work in our Art House 101: Global Queer Cinema series! We’ve played the hits before, so now we’re diving headfirst into one of his earliest and most deliriously queer films: Law of Desire.

Pablo Quintero is a successful filmmaker whose latest movie has just premiered to acclaim, but his personal life is considerably less orderly. His former lover has disappeared from his life, his trans sister Tina is dealing with her own complicated romantic history, and a handsome young admirer named Antonio has become dangerously obsessed with him. When Pablo rejects Antonio’s advances, desire quickly curdles into jealousy…and so much more.

Made just a few years after Spain emerged from Franco’s dictatorship, Law of Desire finds Almodóvar throwing open the doors to a world of queer sexuality, gender fluidity, artistic ambition, and unapologetic excess. Anchored by unforgettable performances from Eusebio Poncela, Carmen Maura, and Antonio Banderas, the film is a feverishly funny and dare we say…very sexy. Don’t miss your chance to see it on the big screen!

Just added: our friends at Hong Kong Cinema Club will be intro’ing the 7:30PM screening on Sunday, November 8th! 

The penultimate film in our Hong Kong Action Essentials series is Bullet In The Head, which also happens to be our final John Woo film in the series, as well. There’s no better way to end his chapter in this lineup than with his most brutal and personal film to date.

Three friends fleeing Hong Kong after a violent crime find themselves trapped in the chaos of the Vietnam War, where their loyalty and morality are tested beyond repair. What begins as a desperate bid for escape descends into a harrowing portrait of friendship under unimaginable pressure. As war strips away ideals and innocence, the bonds between the men fracture, leading to betrayals that cut deeper than any bullet.

Fueled by rage and grief Bullet in the Head trades balletic elegance for raw emotional devastation. This is heroic bloodshed turned inward, and a legendary filmmaker pushing himself into completely new territory.

Our Spielberg Summer series ventures off-path and into the Fall as we visit the future in A.I. Artificial Intelligence, a haunting Science Fiction fairy tale that stands among the director’s most ambitious and deeply misunderstood works.

In a world where advanced robots live alongside humans, a young android named David (Haley Joel Osment) is programmed with the ability to love. When he is abandoned by the family he was created to join, David embarks on an extraordinary journey to become “real,” believing it is the only way to win back the affection he longs for.

Originally developed by Stanley Kubrick and ultimately realized by Spielberg, A.I. is an unsettling vision of technological loneliness. Over two decades later, its questions about what it means to love feel more relevant than ever, revealing a far more profound than many audiences recognized upon its release.