Four Rational People: Presented by Segerstrom Center for the Arts

Posted on February 27, 2026

Segerstrom Center for the Arts is proud to present a completely free screening of the new documentary Four Rational People!

The story follows the Emerson String Quartet as they embark on the final season of a fifty-year history that includes 9 GRAMMYS and thousands of concerts. Interweaving vivid memories with delicate observations of life on the road, the film explores the difficult decision to walk away from the things they cherish: the music they play and the friends they hold dear.

At once a frank examination of the tyranny of aging and a cri de cœur to pass the torch to a new generation, the film culminates with one final performance, leaving all to ponder what happens to us after the final curtain.

RSVP to get your tickets now!

Billy Idol Should Be Dead

Posted on February 20, 2026

Billy Idol Should Be Dead, the brand new feature-length documentary tracing the life and career of the punk pioneer turned rock ‘n’ roll icon, is coming to The Frida Cinema for two nights only!

Through never-before-seen archival and personal interviews with Idol, his family, peers and collaborators, the documentary digs deep intoBilly Idol’s emergence as a prototypical punk rocker, his meteoric rise as a global superstar in the MTV era and the myriad of challenges Idol had to overcome to not just survive, but to remain one of the most beloved figures in rock n roll, almost fifty years into his career and still selling out arenas around the world.

“[A] harrowing redemption story…the Billy Idol documentary is an excellent and expansively researched two-hour deep dive that traces Idol’s life and career in the familiar ‘Behind the Music’ format, but with long looks at peak eras and a depth of detail, both factual and emotional, that elevate it above that standard.”—Variety

“[A]wild and surprisingly heartfelt documentary…the film leaves no stone unturned in telling Idol’s improbable story.”—The Ankler

“A story about survival”—USA Today

André Is an Idiot

Posted on February 17, 2026

The unexpected, irreverent, and heartfelt new documentary André Is An Idiot is coming to The Frida Cinema for a limited engagement the last weekend of March!

When André Ricciardi, a self-proclaimed “idiot” for skipping the colonoscopy that could have saved him, learns he is dying, he turns his final chapter into an experiment in radical honesty, humor, and curiosity. A lifelong iconoclast and ad-industry provocateur, André has never done anything the conventional way, and confronting mortality proves no different: he picks up a camera, cracks a joke, and begins to ask the biggest questions of his life with disarming candor.

Winner of both the Audience Award and the Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award in the U.S. Documentary category at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Andre Is An Idiot is a wildly life-affirming film about death and about the strange clarity that arrives when time suddenly becomes finite.

18th & Grand: The Olympic Auditorium Story: Presented by FanMail Cinema Club and 18th & Grand

Posted on February 6, 2026

Join 18th & Grand and FanMail Cinema Club in a special event screening and the Santa Ana Premiere of 18th & Grand: The Olympic Auditorium Story. The documentary delves into the history and cultural significance of an infamous downtown Los Angeles arena through first-hand accounts from attendees and stars of the Olympic’s ring, rink, and stage!

The Olympic was a hub of outrageous entertainment for generations, where heroes and villains often came from the neighborhoods of the city. 18th & Grand was the closing film for Slamdance, lauded in Hyperallergic and Film Threat, and the inspiration for a major museum exhibition at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes.

Told through the distinctive voices of wrestlers, boxers, punks and skaters, 18th & Grand: The Olympic Auditorium Story remembers a lost, and more interesting L.A. Featuring John Doe (X), Julio César Chávez, Carlos Palomino, Mando Guerrero, The Destroyer, Gene LeBell, Roddy Piper and more!

Enjoy a post-film Q&A, meet World Champion boxer Carlos Palomino and shop from themed-vendors, including Keely’s Cake Studio, VideoHero VHS, facepainting from La Rainbow Fiesta, and take photos in our boxing-themed photo-op.

Q&A to follow the film including World Champion Boxer Carlos Palomino, Boxing Historian Gene Aguilera, family of luchador Mando “Superstar” Lopez!

Moderated by LA Times Columnist and Reporter Gustavo Arellano!

Doors: 1:00PM

Vending: 1:00PM-6:00PM

Film: 2:00PM

Q&A: Right after the film!

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.

Just Our Heart + Introduction by Maartje Nevejan & Mahyar Alayari

Posted on January 27, 2026

Just Our Heart collects rituals and stories of human, ecological and colonial grief in order to set the experience of loss in a context of meaning for us who remain. Please join us for a special screening of the film, introduced by director Maartje Nevejan, on February 19th at 5:30PM!

This feature documentary by Amsterdam-based filmmaker Maartje Nevejan dives into the deep waters of grief—not only personal, but ecological, colonial, and spiritual. Sparked by the loss of her partner and the grief of her children in the face of ecological collapse, Nevejan resists centering her own story. Instead, she opens a space for something larger: a cinematic ritual that gathers four remarkable women—grief doulas, ritualists, spiritual disruptors—who guide others not toward closure, but transformation.

In collaboration with visionary ecologist Dr. Monica Gagliano and Zen priest and grief pioneer Roshi Joan Halifax, Just Our Heart expands the mourning room. It invites voices that are usually silenced: the dead, the exploited, the Earth herself. This is a film that doesn’t offer answers—it invites participation in something older than language: ritual as a way of relating to loss, and as a method of resistance.

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.

Earth’s Greatest Enemy + Q&A w/ Abby Martin

Posted on January 3, 2026

Join us at The Frida Cinema for the Orange County premiere of the new documentary Earth’s Greatest Enemy, followed by a Q&A with co-director Abby Martin!

In Abby Martin’s second feature documentary, Earth’s Greatest Enemy suggests a hidden truth behind the climate crisis: the role of the U.S. military as the world’s largest institutional polluter. Drawing on powerful testimonies from veterans, scientists, and frontline communities, it explores how military operations poison ecosystems, accelerate global warming, and sacrifice the future for endless expansion. From Alaska’s melting glaciers to contaminated bases across the U.S. and toxic battlefields abroad, Earth’s Greatest Enemy delivers a provocative and unflinching examination of the untouchable institution playing an outsized role in the climate crisis.

Combining investigative journalism, striking visuals, and stories from impacted communities, the film challenges audiences to re-think the hidden costs of a global military empire and its planetary consequences.

To learn more about the film, watch the trailer, or buy tickets to this screening, go to: EarthsGreatestEnemy.com

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.

The Last Class: Presented By WAVE and OC Indivisible Coalition

Posted on November 25, 2025

The Last Class is a nuanced and deeply personal portrait of master educator Robert Reich teaching his final course and reflecting on a period of immense transformation, personally and globally. It is a love letter to education. The former Secretary of Labor might be famous for his public service, best-selling books, and viral social media posts, but he always considered teaching his true calling. Now, after over 40 years and an extraordinary 40,000 students, Reich is preparing for his last class.

Over the course of the film, Reich confronts the impending finality, and his own aging, with increasing candor, introspection, and, ultimately, emotion. He displays a rawness of feeling he has never shared publicly before. Drawing on his lifetime in politics, he uses his class, “Wealth and Poverty,” to offer us all a deeper look at why inequalities of income and wealth have widened significantly since the late 1970s, and why this poses dangerous risks to our society. One thousand students fill the biggest lecture hall on the UC Berkeley campus, the last class to receive Reich’s wisdom and exhortations not to accept that the world has to stay the way it is. His belief in the next generation’s ability to take on the fight is inspiring.

The Painter and the Thief

Posted on November 11, 2025

Our Lost Films Of Covid series is delving into many of the films that we wished we played on the big screen during the years of 2020 and 2021, but with The Painter And The Thief , we get to explore titles that weren’t even on our radar at that time!

When two of artist Barbora Kysilkova’s most valuable paintings are stolen from a gallery at Frogner in Oslo, the police are able to find the thief after a few days, but the paintings are nowhere to be found. Barbora goes to the trial in hopes of finding clues, but instead she ends up asking the thief if she can paint a portrait of him. This will be the start of a very unusual friendship. Over three years, the cinematic documentary follows the incredible story of the artist looking for her stolen paintings, while at the same time turning the thief into art.

The Painter and the Thief asks whether understanding another person can ever truly heal them—or ourselves. We can’t think of a better way to end our series on films of the Covid era that never got to be seen on the big screen.

Thank you to our friends at Filmbot for their support in presenting this amazing series.

Megadoc

Posted on October 22, 2025

Megadoc is coming to The Frida Cinema for a special two-night presentation. Director Mike Figgis’ behind-the-scenes documentary chronicling the ambitious and often chaotic making of Francis Ford Coppola’s long-gestating passion project Megalopolis.

Shot over several years, the film follows Coppola—now in his 80s—as he self-finances a massive, decades-in-the-making science-fiction epic about rebuilding civilization. Through intimate footage, production meetings, and candid on-set moments, Megadoc captures the enormous creative and logistical challenges of realizing a dream that has obsessed Coppola for more than forty years.

Rather than presenting a tidy “making-of,” Figgis’s film becomes a portrait of obsession, creativity, and artistic risk. The result is as much about the filmmaker himself as it is about the film he’s trying to make—a meditation on the uncompromising pursuit of art.

Chain Reactions

Posted on October 20, 2025

Fifty years after Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre shocked the world and forever changed the face of global cinema and popular culture, Chain Reactions charts the film’s profound impact and lasting influence on five great artists–Patton Oswalt, Takashi Miike, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Stephen King, and Karyn Kusama.

Through early memories, sensory experiences, and childhood trauma, the film creates a dynamic dialogue between contemporary footage and never-before-seen outtakes and delving into personal impressions triggered by distinct audiovisual formats (16mm, 35mm, VHS, digital), Chain Reactions goes to the heart of how a scruffy, no-budget independent film wormed its way into our collective nightmares and permanently altered the zeitgeist.

Pair this up before or after our screenings of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre during our Halloween Hangover Weekend series for the ultimate deep dive into the 70s horror phenomenon!