Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Posted on February 9, 2026

Hey dude, this is no cartoon! We’re rolling out some encores of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from 1990!

Before superheroes ruled the multiplex, four brothers from the New York sewers saved the world with martial arts and heart. Director Steve Barron’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was a box-office surprise and a practical-effects marvel. Produced on the edge of indie ingenuity, the film blended Jim Henson’s Creature Shop wizardry with street-level grit, creating a tone that felt mythic. Beneath the pizza jokes and wisecracks was something sincere…growing up in a hard (shelled?) city.

Leprechaun + Virtual Q&A w/ Mark Holton: Presented by Nostalgic Nebula

Posted on February 5, 2026

Your luck just ran out.

Celebrate St. Patrick’s day at The Frida Cinema with a special screening of Leprechaun, presented by our friends at Nostalgic Nebula! Arrive early for a retrospective pre-show video, Leprechaun trivia with prizes, a spooky photo op, chocolate gold coins! But beware of the Leprechaun…try as you may, try as you might, who steals his gold won’t live through the night!

As a special treat, there will be a tele-Q&A with actor Mark Holton at the start of the show, so prep those Leprechaun questions!

Dan O’Grady (Shay Duffin) steals 100 gold coins from a leprechaun (Warwick Davis) while on vacation in Ireland. The leprechaun follows him home, but Dan locks him in a crate, held at bay by a four-leaf clover. Ten years later, J.D. Redding (John Sanderford) and his daughter, Tory (Jennifer Aniston), rent O’Grady’s property for the summer. When their new neighbors accidentally release the leprechaun, he goes on a murderous rampage to reclaim his gold.

Doors open and pre-show begins at 7:15PM! Movie and Q&A starts at 7:30PM!

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.

Tiger on the Beat

Posted on January 30, 2026

“Like Lethal Weapon only far funnier and with more chainsaw action.” -Total DVD

After so much emotion and violence, we are choosing to close our Hong Kong Action Essentials series by cutting loose with little bit laughter and…uhhh…more violence.

Directed by Lau Kar-leung and starring Chow Yun-fat, Tiger on the Beat follows a pair of mismatched cops on the trail of a violent drug dealer, a case that escalates from street-level comedy into something far more savage and unhinged. What begins as a rambunctious action/comedy steadily sheds its humor, morphing into a full-throttle collision of gunplay, hand-to-hand combat, and sheer physical excess. By the time it reaches its infamous finale, the film has abandoned restraint entirely, delivering the perfectly brutal and messy ending to our series.

Our Hong Kong Action Essentials series explores the time from the mid-’80s through the early ’90s, where Hong Kong filmmakers rewrote the grammar of action cinema forever. Directors like John Woo, Tsui Hark, Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Ringo Lam, and Lau Kar-Leung fused balletic gunplay, risky stunts, martial arts virtuosity, and raw emotional intensity into a new cinematic language that would be oft-imitated but never replicated. (sorry, The Matrix, we love you too!) Join us every month in 2026 as we explore this golden age where style and emotion collided to change movies forever.

Police Story + Police Story 2 Double Feature

Posted on January 30, 2026

Witness action cinema pushed to its absolute physical limits with Police Story + Police Story, a double featuring Jackie Chan, the filmmaker-performer who redefined what a movie star would risk for the camera.

A smash hit that made him a worldwide icon of daredevil action spectacle, the director/star/one-man stunt machine plays Ka-Kui, a Hong Kong police inspector who goes rogue to bring down a drug kingpin and protect the case’s star witness (Chinese cinema legend Brigitte Lin) from retribution. Packed wall-to-wall with charmingly goofball slapstick and astoundingly acrobatic fight choreography, including an epic shopping-mall melee of flying fists and shattered glass, Police Story set a new standard for rock-’em-sock-’em mayhem.

Then, after a quick ten minute intermission, Jackie is back! Having been demoted to a lowly traffic cop for his, ahem, unorthodox policing methods, Chan’s go-it-alone officer Ka-Kui quits the force in protest. But it isn’t long before he’s back in action, racing the clock to stop a band of serial bombers and win back his much-put-upon girlfriend May (the phenomenal Maggie Cheung, reprising her star-making role). Boasting epic explosions, an awesomely 1980s electro soundtrack, and a showstopping finale that turns an abandoned warehouse into a life-size pinball machine of cascading oil drums, collapsing scaffolds, and shooting fireworks, Police Story 2 confirmed Chan’s status as a performer of unparalleled grace and daring.

There will be a ten minute intermission between each film. One ticket gets you access to both movies!

Nothing Ever Happens in Burbank, CA + Q&A with Emmanuel Duga

Posted on January 30, 2026

Does anything ever happen in Burbank, CA? Find out at Frida Cinema, followed by a Q&A with director Emmanuel Duga at both screenings.

Ever sat down with a couple of friends, doing nothing? Where nothing gets accomplished and having conversations? Those conversations don’t really lead to anything significant, just totally random. Yet…you don’t seem to mind. You enjoy the sensation of being in good company with your friends. This is a day in a life in Burbank, CA, for young Gen-Z. Through a series of short vignettes, we get a glimpse of the anxieties, joys, hopes, dreams and expectations from today’s young adults.

Nothing Ever Happens in Burbank, CA is a quietly funny, intimate portrait of a single day in the lives of Gen-Z young adults. Told through a series of short vignettes, the film captures the anxieties, small joys, drifting hopes, and unspoken expectations of growing up in Los Angeles.

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.

Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie

Posted on January 28, 2026

One…last…plan.

At long last, Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie is finally going to play at The Frida Cinema!

As the long-gestating feature expansion of the cult Canadian series Nirvanna the Band the Show, created by and starring Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol, the film continues the misadventures of the two best friends. As relentlessly delusional Toronto musicians, their main goal in life is to “play a show at the Rivoli.” When their plan goes horribly wrong, Matt and Jay accidentally travel back to the year 2008. Yes, that is the plot synopsis of this feature film we are running for a full week at our theater.

Like the series, the movie blurs fiction and reality, staging elaborate public pranks with unsuspecting bystanders while escalating the characters’ schemes to increasingly absurd and self-destructive extremes. If you love comedy that feels like it might collapse at any second, or perhaps maybe even get its creators thrown in jail, boy do we have a movie for you and your friends to come see!

Grease 2

Posted on January 23, 2026

Join us on Saturday night, February 28th, as we screen Grease 2, the Michelle Pfeiffer star-making sequel to the iconic 1978 musical.

It’s 1961, two years after the original Grease gang graduated, and there’s a new crop of seniors and new members of the coolest cliques on campus, the Pink Ladies and T-Birds. Michael Carrington is the new kid in school…but he’s been branded a brainiac. Can he fix up an old motorcycle, don a leather jacket, avoid a rumble with the leader of the T-Birds, and win the heart of Pink Lady Stephanie?

Grease 2 isn’t Grease. We get it. But we love it because it’s louder and messier, two adjectives used to throw it under the bus upon its initial release. But what was once a punchline has become a midnight movie favorite: a sequel that failed on release but succeeded, decades later, as gloriously ridiculous cult entertainment. The music and feeling go on forever!

I Wanna Hold Your Hand

Posted on January 23, 2026

Some girls will do anything to meet their idols.

We’re doing an encore of Isa’s Staff Pick from February as she presents another screening of Robert Zemekis’ I Wanna Hold Your Hand!

The story follows a group of wide-eyed New Jersey teenagers who descend on New York City in hopes of getting close to their idols. What begins as a simple plan (to see The Beatles) spirals into a chaotic, cross-town odyssey filled with manic Beatlemania-fueled hijinks.

More than just a period comedy, I Wanna Hold Your Hand is a joyous time capsule of a cultural turning point. Come see this rarely screened gem on the big screen with fellow Beatles fans!

The Annihilation of Fish + Pre-Recorded Introduction by Robert Daniels

Posted on January 23, 2026

Just added: Robert Daniels, the Associate Editor at RogerEbert.com, will be giving a pre-recorded introduction before each screening of The Annihilation Of Fish!

Robert has also written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Reverse Shot, Screen Daily, and the Criterion Collection. He has covered film festivals ranging from Cannes to Sundance to Toronto to the Berlinale and Locarno. He lives in Chicago, and is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association

The final film in our Three By Charles Burnett series is his charming 1999 drama The Annihilation Of Fish, now restored in a beautiful 4K restoration!

Lynn Redgrave plays Poinsettia, a former housewife with an imagined lover in the form of 19th-century composer Giacomo Puccini. She moves into a Los Angeles boarding house with an energetic landlady (Margot Kidder) where she meets a Jamaican widower, Fish (James Earl Jones), who has recently been released from a mental institution despite his continued battles against unseen demons. In the face of personal challenges and differences, the couple grows together and begins to discover new things about themselves and the nuances of love and happiness.

Released in partnership with Milestone Films, restoration by UCLA Film & Television Archive and The Film Foundation with funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation.

Ever After: A Cinderella Story

Posted on January 23, 2026

You sold it out, so we’re bringing it back! Join us for a couple additional screenings of the Drew Barrymore-starring Cinderella adaptation: Ever After.

Danielle, a vibrant young woman, was forced into servitude after the death of her father when she was a young girl. Danielle’s stepmother, Rodmilla, is a heartless woman who forces Danielle to do the cooking and cleaning, while she tries to marry off the eldest of her two daughters to the prince. But Danielle’s life takes a wonderful turn when, under the guise of a visiting royal, she meets the charming Prince Henry.

Over the past 25 years, Ever After has earned a reputation as the definitive grounded, feminist retelling of Cinderella. Many viewers, especially our beloved Millenial moviegoers, consider it the best non-animated version of the fairy tale ever put to screen.