Based on the real-life story of serial murderer Akira Nishiguchi, Vengeance Is Mine is the next film in our Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema series! The story follows Iwao Enokizu, a charming drifter and remorseless killer who leaves a trail of death and deception across Japan. But this is not a crime thriller—it’s a forensic excavation of a man’s broken psyche and a nation’s suppressed demons.
Director Shohei Imamura—known for his fascination with society’s underbelly—eschews sensationalism for something more disturbing: a portrait of evil not as anomaly, but as a product of postwar dislocation, generational trauma, and cultural repression. This is Japan far removed from the poetics of Ozu or the mythic ghosts of Kobayashi.
Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema is a curated 12-film trip through the evolution of Japan—from the quiet post-war resilience of the 1940s all the way to the radical reinventions of the 1990s. Each Monday this July-September, we will explore a new facet of this incredible nation’s cinematic journey throughout the 20th century! All films will be presented in their original Japanese language with English subtitles!
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Equal parts Spaghetti Western, French New Wave, and hard-boiled noir, A Colt Is My Passport is the next film in our Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema series. It’s a lean, moody crime film that oozes cool. Joe Shishido (with his famously surgically enhanced cheeks) stars as a stoic gun-for-hire navigating a botched assassination, double-crosses, and a bloody standoff at the edge of town.
With stark black-and-white cinematography, stylized action, and a jazzy score, the film plays like a fusion of Jean-Pierre Melville and Sergio Leone, all filtered through the lens of late-’60s Japanese cynicism. It represents the turn in Japanese cinema from introspective postwar realism to a new wave of genre experimentation and rebellion.
Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema is a curated 12-film trip through the evolution of Japan—from the quiet post-war resilience of the 1940s all the way to the radical reinventions of the 1990s. Each Monday this July-September, we will explore a new facet of this incredible nation’s cinematic journey throughout the 20th century! All films will be presented in their original Japanese language with English subtitles!
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This year’s Segerstrom at The Frida series kicks off with Some Like it Hot, Billy Wilder’s hilarious 1959 screwball comedy that follows two down-on-their-luck musicians, Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon), who witness a gangland massacre and flee Chicago disguised as women in an all-female band on their way to a Florida resort. On the run, they become Josephine and Daphne, traveling with the enchanting Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe), a singer with dreams of marrying a millionaire. Romantic entanglements and mistaken identities spiral out of control in a Florida resort, culminating in what many consider to be one of the funniest comedies of all time.
See the movie. then experience the brand new Tony and Grammy Award-winning stage musical! Running October 7 – 19 at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, experience the “glorious, toe-tapping, razzle-dazzling” (Deadline) Some Like it Hot! Visit scfta.org/events/2025/some-like-it-hot for info and tickets!
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Ridley Scott’s girl trip Thelma & Louise winds down our Pride Month programming with a brand new 4K restoration!
The story follows Thelma (Geena Davis), a timid housewife, and Louise (Susan Sarandon), a no-nonsense waitress, as they embark on what starts as a weekend getaway and turns into a flight from the law. After Louise kills a man who attempts to rape Thelma, the two hit the road, realizing that the justice system is unlikely to see their side. Their journey becomes one of personal awakening, radical defiance, and ultimately, tragic liberation.
Thelma & Louise is more than a road movie—it’s a feminist landmark, a genre-defying tale of friendship, freedom, and fury that still resonates over three decades later.
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Join us for two screenings of James Wan’s 2004 horror classic Saw, playing this year as part of our Pride Month programming!
Two men wake up to find themselves shackled in a grimy, abandoned bathroom. As they struggle to comprehend their predicament, they discover a disturbing tape left behind by the sadistic mastermind known as Jigsaw. With a chilling voice and cryptic instructions, Jigsaw informs them that they must partake in a gruesome game in order to secure their freedom.
Join us for two screenings of James Wan’s 2004 horror classic Saw, playing this year as part of our Pride Month programming!
Two men wake up to find themselves shackled in a grimy, abandoned bathroom. As they struggle to comprehend their predicament, they discover a disturbing tape left behind by the sadistic mastermind known as Jigsaw. With a chilling voice and cryptic instructions, Jigsaw informs them that they must partake in a gruesome game in order to secure their freedom.
Saw may not wave a rainbow flag, but in the best tradition of horror, it’s deeply, delightfully queer. From its sadomasochistic aesthetics to its fixation on secrets, guilt, and transformation, Saw taps into queer-coded themes of repression and revelation. The entire franchise revolves around hidden lives, bodies under pressure, and moral tests imposed by a voyeuristic authority. Watch it again and make the choice for yourself!
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Our Hallucinations series continues in June with the mash-up of historical drama, exploitation cinema, and art-house in Toshiya Fujita’s revenge tale Lady Snowblood!
Yuki’s family is nearly wiped out before she is born due to the machinations of a band of criminals. These criminals kidnap and brutalize her mother but leave her alive. Later her mother ends up in prison with only revenge to keep her alive. She creates an instrument for this revenge by purposefully getting pregnant. Yuki never knows the love of a family but only killing and revenge.
A cult sensation upon release, Lady Snowblood gained international fame in the decades that followed, particularly after Quentin Tarantino cited it as a major influence on Kill Bill, borrowing both stylistic elements and its iconic theme song (“Shura no Hana,” performed by Kaji herself).
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Edit: due to the ongoing situation in both Los Angeles and Santa Ana, Freddy Macdonald will no longer be able to join us for the Q&A at this screening. Apologies in advance!
An official selection at SXSW and SITGES, the clever new caper film Sew Torn is making its way to The Frida Cinema for one night only! And make sure to stick around after the screening for a Q&A with writer/director Freddy Macdonald!
A seamstress gets tangled in her own thread after stealing a briefcase from a drug deal gone bad. In an escalating game of cat and mouse, her different choices lead to drastically different outcomes along the way.
In 2021, Freddy Macdonald graduated as the youngest Directing Fellow to ever attend AFI. His AFI thesis film, Shedding Angels, won a Student Academy Award and was shortlisted for a student BAFTA.
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Just added: actor Ed Begley Jr. will also be joining us for the Q&A after the film!
You’re invited to a special screening of 1995’s Batman Forever, the third film in the original Batman series, with the film’s writers, Lee Batchler and Janet Scott Batchler appearing for a post-screening on-stage Q&A, moderated by Scott Zillner!
Before the Dark Knight brooded in grayscale and before Gotham became “grounded,” there was Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever—a neon-drenched pop spectacle with a gothic heart and, at its center, a genuinely legendary performance by the late, great Val Kilmer as the Caped Crusader.
6:45PM – Doors Open
7:30PM – Start Batman Forever
9:45pm – Start Q&A
Celebrate the 30th anniversary of Batman Forever on the big screen and let’s give Kilmer’s Batman the flowers he’s long deserved.
This program is a venue rental engagement. Member discounts and Frida Cinema comp passes not valid. The views and opinions expressed in this program do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of The Frida Cinema or its staff.
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We’ve added encore screenings of the Southern Gothic black-and-white masterpiece The Night of the Hunter, one of the most haunting films ever made. The only movie ever directed by actor Charles Laughton, we’re celebrating its 70th birthday this year with a brand new 4K restoration!
Robert Mitchum is unforgettable as Reverend Harry Powell, a preacher with a forked tongue, a switchblade in his pocket, and “LOVE” and “HATE” tattooed across his knuckles. Posing as a man of God, he hunts two children across a dreamlike rural landscape, believing they hold the secret to a hidden fortune. What unfolds is a shadow-drenched tale of survival, spiritual terror, and the strange, luminous resilience of children in a world gone cold.
A box office failure on release, it’s now hailed as one of the most daring American films of the 20th century—an extremely unique vision that has permeated through pop culture until this very day.
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Mary Harron’s pitch-black adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s controversial novel turns the horror of capitalism into literal bloodsport with American Psycho, the pick for our Page To Screen series this month!
Set in a world of business cards, designer suits, and haute cuisine no one actually eats, American Psycho is as much a razor-wire satire as it is a psychological thriller. Harron directs with icy precision, peeling back the layers of toxic masculinity, status obsession, and moral decay with wit as sharp as an ax to the face.
Stylish, savage, and deeply quotable, this cult classic remains disturbingly relevant and feature’s a star-making performance from legendary actor Christian Bale.
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