No miracle is ever too small.
Our Page To Screen series in March goes towards dark-edged fantasy with A Little Princess, director Alfonso Cuarón’s lush and emotional adaptation of A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
When her father enlists to fight for the British in WWI, young Sara Crewe goes to New York to attend the same boarding school her late mother attended. She soon clashes with the severe headmistress, Miss Minchin, who attempts to stifle Sara’s creativity and sense of self-worth.
Visually rich and deeply felt, A Little Princess has grown into a beloved 90s classic, a reminder that a little bit of fantasy can transform even the darkest circumstances.
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She climbed the ladder of success…wrong by wrong!
Kick off our Pre-Code Day celebration with a matinee screening of Baby Face, starring Frida Cinema favorite Barbara Stanwyck in one of her defining roles! And make sure to get their early as the co-author of Pre-Code Essentials: Must-See Cinema from Hollywood’s Untamed Era, 1930-1934, Kim Luperi, will be joining us to introduce the film and sign copies of her book in the lobby!
Stanwyck plays a young woman who, after a brutal upbringing, heads to New York and deliberately sleeps her way up the corporate ladder of a bank, using sex, charm, and sharp intelligence as tools for survival. The film is startlingly frank about exploitation and capitalism, barely bothering to moralize the lead character’s methods, which is exactly why censors cracked down on it soon after release!
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“I just killed a rat!”
Join us for our Pre-Code Day celebration of Heat Lightning, preceded by an in-person introduction by Kim Luperi, co-author of the TCM/Running Press book Pre-Code Essentials: Must-See Cinema from Hollywood’s Untamed Era, 1930-1934! Kim will also be signing and selling copies of her book in the lobby!
Set almost entirely at a desert roadside diner and gas station, the film follows two sisters running the business when a group of suspicious travelers arrives during a stormy night. What starts as a character drama about past regrets and hard-earned independence gradually turns into a pressure-cooker thriller involving crime and rekindled emotions.
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Four vignettes, each set in different decades from the 1950s through the 1980s, deal with protagonists at different stages of life between childhood and young adulthood. This is In Our Time, an anthology film from 1982, directed by Edward Yang, Ko I-chen, Jim Tao, and Chang Yi.
Often seen as a starting point for Taiwan’s great art house wave of the 1980s and marking a shift toward more realistic and socially grounded filmmaking, this landmark anthology is rarely seen, on the big screen or not. Focused on small emotional moments like family life, school, work, and the quiet anxieties of growing up, it’s this exact type of naturalism became a defining trait of the movement that followed and established the career directors who later defined the entirety of new-age Asian cinema.
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Some wars never end.
Our first Volunteer Of The Month pick comes courtesy of Nick V, as he has selected Spike Lee’s thought-provoking after-war drama Da 5 Bloods.
Four African-American Vietnam veterans return to Vietnam in search of the remains of their fallen squad leader and the promise of buried treasure. They battle forces of humanity and nature while confronted by the lasting ravages of the immorality of the Vietnam War.
Widely seen as one of his most passionate, politically urgent, and performance-driven films (specifically by Delroy Lindo, who should have been nominated for an Oscar), Da 5 Bloods is Spike Lee firing on all cylinders, delivering a deeply personal project that sparks debate and sticks with people long after the credits role.
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Just added: Frida Board Member/Trivia Night host Atalia Lopez (Chapman University) and Porter Gilberg (Frida Director of Development) are back on Thursday 3/19 at the 8:15PM screening for another special pre-screening presentation on The Handmaiden’s literary history and cinematic influences. An interactive discussion will take place immediately following the film.
We’re getting revenge for Park Chan-Wook’s Academy Award snubs this year the only way we know how: bringing back a bona fide Frida Cinema classic–his 2016 twist-filled psychological drama The Handmaiden.
1930s Korea, in the period of Japanese occupation, a new girl, Sookee, is hired as a handmaiden to a Japanese heiress, Hideko, who lives a secluded life on a large countryside estate with her domineering Uncle Kouzuki. But the maid has a secret. She is a pickpocket recruited by a swindler posing as a Japanese Count to help him seduce the Lady to steal her fortune.
A meticulously-crafted and lush tale of deception, The Handmaiden is the ultimate film about desire amongst shifting loyalties.
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Adapted from Sunil Gangopadhyay’s celebrated 1968 novel, Days and Nights in the Forest is one of director Satyajit Ray’s greatest achievements, a modern search for connection that conjures the timeless resonance of a folktale.
Desperate to flee Calcutta’s rat race, four friends, Ashim (Soumitra Chatterjee), Sanjoy (Subhendu Chatterjee), Hari (Samit Bhanja), and Shekhar (Rabi Ghosh), drive to Palamu, one of India’s rural “tribal lands,” where they bribe a watchman into letting them stay at a sylvan guesthouse. Despite vowing to get away from it all, the crew soon mixes with the locals, including a woodland family: the soulful yet mischievous Aparna (Sharmila Tagore) takes to the overconfident Ashim, while her widowed sister-in-law Jaya (Kaberi Bose) grows closer to the bookish Sanjoy. At the same time, Hari, fresh off a break-up, woos a Santal girl named Duli (Simi Garewal); and Shekhar, despite his own penchant for gambling, tries to rein in his companions’ boozy hedonism.
Filled with some of Ray’s most indelible characterizations and lavish images (shot by longtime cinematographer Soumendu Roy), Days and Nights in the Forest touches on masculine vulnerabilities and Indian class divisions with the graceful complexity of a master at his peak.
Restored in 4K in 2025 by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project and Film Heritage Foundation in collaboration with Janus Films – The Criterion Collection at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, from the original camera and sound negatives provided by Purnima Dutta and the magnetic track preserved by BFI National Archive. Funding provided by the Golden Globe Foundation. Special thanks to Wes Anderson and Sandip Ray.
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Please note: the McManus Brothers will no longer be joining us for this screening! Sorry for any inconvenience this might cause.
Revenge is a vicious cycle.
The slick sci-fi multiverse revenge action thriller Redux Redux is coming to The Frida Cinema for one night only!
In an attempt to avenge her daughter’s death, Irene Kelly travels across parallel universes, killing her daughter’s murderer again and again. As she becomes consumed by her quest for revenge, her humanity begins to slip away—until the cycle is disrupted when she rescues Mia, a sharp-witted teenager already marked by the killer.
The film received great reviews hot off of its premiere at SXSW in 2025 and sports an insanely impressive 98% on Rotten Tomatoes!
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Sirât, the buzzy new film from director Oliver Laxe, is making its way to The Frida Cinema hot off of the heels of getting nominated for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film!
The story follows a man and his son arrive at a rave lost in the mountains of Morocco. They are looking for Marina, their daughter and sister, who disappeared months ago at another rave. Driven by fate, they decide to follow a group of ravers in search of one last party, in hopes Marina will be there.
Sirât won the prestigious Jury Prize at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival and continues to stack up awards worldwide. Critics are praising the film for being one of the most intense and original films of 2025, with many noting that it demands to be seen on the big screen. Now’s your chance!
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Baz Luhrmann’s electrifying reimagining of William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet is bursting back onto the big screen at The Frida Cinema!
In this contemporary (to 1996, at least) take on William Shakespeare’s classic tragedy, the Montagues and Capulets have moved their ongoing feud to the sweltering suburb of Verona Beach, where Romeo and Juliet fall in love and secretly wed. Though the film is visually modern, the bard’s dialogue remains.
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes at the height of ’90s stardom, Romeo + Juliet is a charming MTV-era style take on the timeless tragedy with a proper pop soundtrack and a love that burns eternal.
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