As groundbreaking now as it was when it was released 25 years ago, By Hook or by Crook is coming to The Frida Cinema with a brand new 4K restoration via our friends at Altered Innocence!
Shy, a handsome, gender-bending, small town dreamer with a nagging messiah complex, and Valentine, a deliriously expressive, wise-acre adoptee on a misguided search for her birth mother. The two freaky grifters join forces and learn the true meaning of “poise under pressure” in this visually stunning and wonderfully acted, anti-authoritarian tale of friendship, trust and redemption.
Provocatively exploring issues of queer representation, gender and trans identity in ways that contemporary LGBTQIA+ culture and cinema are still catching up with, By Hook or by Crook has created a powerful cultural impact that endures today. The film has been digitally restored in 4K by the Academy Film Archive and UCLA Film & Television Archive in conjunction with Frameline, Outfest, Steakhaus Productions, Inc., and the Sundance Institute.
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Cutter does everything his way. Fighting. Loving. Working. Tracking down a killer.
Our Hallucinations series is detouring to the world of sun-soaked neo-Noir with Cutter’s Way!
Alex Cutter is a boozy, belligerent and deeply cynical Vietnam veteran whose encounter with a landmine during the war has left him minus an eye, a leg and an arm. When his drifter playboy friend Richard Bone is falsely accused of murder, Cutter sets out for revenge in his own inimitable style.
Cutter’s Way is one of the great overlooked neo-Noirs of the 1980s and an extremely cynical portrait of a country where power always seems untouchable.
Hosted by Polygon’s editor-in-chief Chris Plante, Hallucinations is a monthly event that spotlights movies that challenge our expectations of story, style, and “good taste”. We invite guests to bond over films that change what we expect from the medium, the world, and themselves. So come early, stay late, make friends, and watch something strange, surprising, or just shamelessly sick.
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Our second Volunteer of the Month is courtesy of Jonathan V., who has chosen Steven Soderbergh’s star-studded heist comedy Logan Lucky!
Channing Tatum stars as Jimmy Logan, a West Virginia construction worker who recruits his brother Clyde (Adam Driver) and an eccentric crew to rob the Charlotte Motor Speedway during the Coca-Cola 600. Their plan hinges on the help of Joe Bang, a bombastic explosives expert played by Daniel Craig in one of the funniest performances of his career.
A caper comedy mixed with an underdog story in only the way Soderbergh can deliver, Logan Lucky swaps the sleek glamour of traditional heist films for dive bars and race tracks, making it warmhearted crowd-pleaser that plays best…where else? The big screen!
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Trainspotting is turning 30 years old, and we’re celebrating with some anniversary screenings of a brand new 4K restoration via our friends at Sony Picture Classics!
Smart, funny, sickly and sometimes just plain unconscious, Mark Renton is a hero for our times. Set in an underbelly of Edinburg the city fathers never dreamed of, Trainspotting is the story of Mark and his so-called friends…a bunch of losers, liars, psychos, thieves and junkies. Hilarious but harrowing, the film charts the disintegration of their friendship as they proceed, seemingly inevitably, towards self-destruction. Mark alone has the insight and opportunity to escape his fate…but then again, does he really want to ‘choose life’?
Restoration notes: Supervised and approved by director Danny Boyle, this 4K digital restoration was undertaken by the Criterion Collection from a scan of the 35mm original negative. The 5.1 surround soundtrack was remastered from the original six-track magnetic masters by Ted Hall at Pacific Ocean Post in Santa Monica, California, in 1997.
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Live by the code. Die by the code.
Our second Volunteer of the Month pick for May 2026 comes courtesy of Rose, who has chosen Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai!
In one of his defining roles, Forest Whitaker brings a commanding serenity to his portrayal of a Zen contract killer working for a bumbling mob outfit, a modern man who adheres steadfastly to the ideals of the Japanese warrior code even as chaos and violence spiral around him.
Featuring moody cinematography by the great Robby Müller, a mesmerizing score by the Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA, and a host of colorful character actors (including a memorably stone-faced Henry Silva), Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai plays like a pop-culture-sampling cinematic mixtape built around a one-of-a-kind tragic hero.
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Fear and fury are sizzling in the Florida Keys!
We’re attempting to ride out the storm with our next Bogie Fest entry: Key Largo! This hurricane-lashed drama brings Humphrey Bogart together once more with Lauren Bacall in a story where danger rises with the tide.
Set in a remote Florida Keys hotel, war veteran Frank McCloud (Bogie himself) arrives to visit the family of a fallen comrade, only to find himself trapped as a powerful storm bears down. The hotel is then seized by a gang of mobsters led by the ruthless Johnny Rocco (Edward G. Robinson doing his very best Edward G. Robinson impression), a larger-than-life crime boss whose presence turns the claustrophobic setting into a pressure cooker of fear and defiance.
As the winds howl outside, tensions escalate within, and McCloud must decide whether to remain the detached observer he claims to be…or take a stand against tyranny. Anchored by crackling dialogue and powerhouse performances, Key Largo is a bit underrated these days, sometimes lost in the sea of masterpieces that director John Huston bestowed upon us.
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He killed…and there on the crest of Sierra’s highest crag…he must be killed!
We’re hitting the road with one of the defining films of Humphrey Bogart’s early stardom: High Sierra! This gritty crime drama finds Bogie stepping into a role that helped transform him from supporting heavy into full-fledged leading man.
Bogart stars as Roy “Mad Dog” Earle, a hardened criminal freshly released from prison and pulled into one last heist in the mountains of California. As he assembles his crew and plans the job, Roy crosses paths with Velma (Joan Leslie), an innocent young woman he becomes unexpectedly devoted to, and Marie (Ida Lupino), a tough, world-weary drifter who sees through him more clearly than anyone else.
Successfully mixing a gangster film intensity with a tragic romance, High Sierra builds toward a tense and unforgettable finale high in the Sierra Nevada. The film cemented Bogart’s ability to bring depth and vulnerability to dangerous men, hinting at the layered performances that would define his greatest roles.
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Memory is a mirror.
Join us for a free screening of the award-winning indie film, I’ve Seen All I Need To See, from writer/director Zeshaan Younus. After the screening we will be joined by various cast and crew for an in-depth Q&A about the making of the film!
The film follows Parker (Renee Gagner), an actress living in Los Angeles, who returns to her hometown after the sudden and violent death of her estranged sister, Indiana (Rosie McDonald).
An experimental ghost story noir, I’ve Seen All I Need To See has screened at the Glasgow Film Festival, Manchester Film Festival, Rhode Island International Film Festival, and many more. For fans of Mulholland Drive, A Ghost Story, Personal Shopper, and Memoria.
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Bogie Fest, our 14-film retrospective on the films of the incomparable Humprey Bogart, continues with one of the all time great films from the Noir genre: John Huston’s debut film The Maltese Falcon!
In shadow-drenched San Francisco, private detective Sam Spade (Bogart) is pulled into a deadly web after his partner is murdered. What begins as a routine case spirals into a hunt for a priceless, jewel-encrusted statuette: the elusive Maltese Falcon. Surrounded by liars, thieves, and the dangerously alluring Brigid O’Shaughnessy, Spade must navigate shifting loyalties and his own code of ethics to uncover the truth.
The Maltese Falcon is widely regarded as the blueprint for Film Noir. Its hard-edged dialogue and stark visual style set the tone for an entire movement in American cinema.
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We’re presenting a Kiyoshi Kurosawa double feature of the new restoration of 1998’s Serpent’s Path and his 2024 film Chime!
Serpent’s Path: Straight off Cure (1997), his international breakthrough, Kiyoshi Kurosawa directed two low-budget films using the same basic premise and the same lead actor (Sho Aikawa) to completely different ends. The experiment first resulted in Serpent’s Path (1998, later remade in 2024), a dark gangland thriller with philosophical overtones. Obsessed with avenging his young daughter’s murder, yakuza subordinate Miyashita (Teruyuki Kagawa) recruits Nijima (Aikawa), a brilliant yet strangely detached math teacher, to help carry outcarry out a scheme to kidnap and torture the man allegedly responsible. But the plan goes awry when their target, Otsuki (Yurei Yanagi), fingers another mobster as the mastermind behind Miyashita’s tragedy. As the two partners ascend the yakuza chain of command in search of the true culprit, Miyashita and Nijima follow the cold, calculating logic of revenge, descending into a moral abyss from which they may never surface.
Chime: A masterclass in escalating dread and shocking violence, Chime reaffirms Kiyoshi Kurosawa as one of modern horror’s most innovative and unpredictable visionaries. During a class, culinary instructor Matsuoka (Mutsuo Yoshioka) witnesses the suicide of a young student (Seiichi Kohinata), driven to insanity by what he claims is a chiming sound that controls his mind. Soon, Matsuoka begins hearing it, too, and descends into a mental abyss that warps his perception of reality and gives vent to his darkest impulses.
There will be a 10 minute intermission between each film. One ticket gets you access to both films!
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