The Vanishing (1988) is our second Volunteer Of The Month pick for February, courtesy of the wonderful Julia!
A young man embarks on an obsessive search for the girlfriend who mysteriously disappeared while the couple were taking a sunny vacation trip, and his three-year investigation draws the attention of her abductor, a mild-mannered professor with a clinically diabolical mind.
An unorthodox love story and a truly unsettling thriller, Dutch filmmaker George Sluizer’s The Vanishing unfolds with meticulous intensity, leading to an unforgettable finale that has unnerved audiences around the world.
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In this twisty thriller, a tennis coach at a tropical resort finds himself at the center of a missing persons mystery. Tom (Sam Riley) teaches tennis during the day and parties at night. When an enigmatic tourist (Stacy Martin) arrives, Tom is unable to shake the feeling he has met her before. Tension and attraction grow, until her husband (Jack Farthing) disappears, and the police suspect Tom.
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Frida Cinema Film Club Members are invited to special 60th anniversary screening of Michelangelo Antonioni’s voyeuristic masterwork Blow-Up!
Set amid the hum of Swinging London, Blow-Up follows Thomas, a coolly detached fashion photographer played by David Hemmings. After casually photographing a couple in a park, Thomas enlarges (hmm is there another word for this?) his images and begins to suspect he has captured evidence of a murder.
Sixty years after its release, Blow-Up remains one of cinema’s most intoxicating riddles and must be seen up crystal clear on the big screen. Happy New Year to our members that have been waiting for us to screen this art house classic.
Not a member yet and want to gain access to this screening? Sign up here to become one!
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A long-awaited dream to play on the big screen, god-level director John Woo’s Hong Kong action masterpiece, Hard Boiled, is finally coming to The Frida Cinema with a brand new 4K restoration!
Mobsters are smuggling guns into Hong Kong. The police orchestrate a raid at a teahouse where an ace detective loses his partner. Meanwhile, the two main gun smugglers are having a war over territory, and a young new gun is enlisted to wipe out informants and overcome barriers to growth. The detective, acting from inside sources, gets closer to the ring leaders and eventually must work with the inside man directly.
Hard Boiled is routinely placed in the top tier of action cinema, not just of the 1990s, not just of Hong Kong, but of all time. For many critics and fans, it represents the peak of John Woo’s “heroic bloodshed” era, combining balletic gunplay and emotional melodrama that filmmakers ripped off for decades to come.
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.
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As we celebrate the extraordinary career of Rob Reiner, we return to one of his boldest transformations as a filmmaker: the leap from romantic comedy and fantasy adventure into pure, white-knuckle psychological terror. In 1990, Reiner adapted Stephen King’s claustrophobic novel Misery, which we are bringing back to our big screen!
After an accident, acclaimed novelist Paul Sheldon is rescued by a nurse who claims to be his biggest fan. Her obsession takes a dark turn when she holds him captive in her remote Colorado home and forces him to write back to life the popular literary character he killed off.
The last thing audiences expected in the late 80s after the incredible run of Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, and When Harry Met Sally…, was for Reiner to set the new standard for the claustrophobic Horror genre. And yet, he made it look easy!
Few filmmakers moved so effortlessly between genres as Rob Reiner. From coming-of-age classics to sharp-edged comedy to pulse-pounding thrillers, his filmography is a tour of American movie magic. Tickets to the Remembering Ron Reiner are all discounted to $9.
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Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho, who has gifted us such films as Aquarius (NYFF54) and Bacurau (NYFF57), returns with the thrillingly unpredictable The Secret Agent.
A dynamic, shape-shifting epic set in Mendonça’s hometown of Recife during the late 1970s, The Secret Agent won Best Director award at Cannes. Wagner Moura was also deservedly honored as Best Actor at the festival for his magnetic performance as a widowed former university researcher whose life has been violently upended by the greed and vengeance of a government bureaucrat.
On the run and living under an alias during the country’s military dictatorship, he tries to escape, while also reconnecting with the young son he had to leave behind. Even this brief description cannot fully prepare the viewer for the zigzagging subplots and delights of Mendonça’s eccentric and affectionate ode to the movies and the Brazil of his youth—and to maintaining individuality amid abuses of power.
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He’s not Freddy, he’s not Jason…he’s real. HorrorBuzz continues its 2026 series with the 40th anniversary of one of the most unsettling and influential films of the 1980s: Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.
Viewer discretion is strongly advised.
Loosely inspired by the confessions of real-life murderer Henry Lee Lucas, the movie follows drifter Henry (played by iconic silver screen “that guy” Michael Rooker) and his volatile accomplice Otis as they navigate a bleak Chicago landscape. When Otis’s sister Becky moves in, Henry’s flat affect and unpredictable behavior begin to reveal something far darker beneath the surface.
Horror Movie Night takes filmgoing to another level with a full night of entertainment, including a themed HMN Video Pres-how, Trivia, Games, Prizes, and another outstanding horror short from HorrorBuzz’s The Screaming Room Film Festival at Midsummer Scream.
Doors open and video pre-show video begins promptly at 7:30 pm. Games, prizes, and short film begin at 8:00PM. Feature starts at 8:30PM.
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.
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The second film presented by Cinematic Void as part of this year’s January Giallo at The Frida is a free screening of A Hyena In The Safe, now with a brand new 4K restoration courtesy of Celluloid Dreams!
One safe. Six keys. Six robbers, each expecting their cut of a diamond heist when they finally meet to divide their spoils after months in hiding. But before they can open the safe that guards their glittering hoard, they are mysteriously killed, one by one. With fear and suspicion growing among the shrinking group of survivors, it becomes clear that one of them is trying to take all the diamonds for themselves!
Thank you to Celluloid Dreams for letting us present this beautifully restored version, bringing the film in high definition to the big screen for the first time!
This event is being co-presented by the fine folks at the American Cinematheque!
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Cinematic Void is back to invade The Frida Cinema with their annual January Giallo festivities, and this time they’ve presenting Mario Bava’s 1971 proto-Slasher A Bay Of Blood! This will be the brand new 4K restoration done by Severin Films!
The story follows an elderly heiress that is killed by her husband who wants control of her fortunes. What ensues is an all-out murder spree as relatives and friends attempt to reduce the inheritance playing field, complicated by some teenagers who decide to camp out in a dilapidated building on the estate.
Few films in the Giallo canon cut as deep as A Bay Of Blood. Often cited as a major influence on Friday the 13th and a dozen other slashers, it’s Bava’s most cold-blooded (red-blooded?) masterpiece. Don’t miss your chance to see this newly restored cult classic on the silver screen!
This event is being co-presented by the fine folks at the American Cinematheque!
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From Chinese filmmaker Diao Yinan (Black Coal, Thin Ice), The Wild Goose Lake is a sleek, moody neo-noir that is headlining our Lost Films Of Covid series.
The story follows a gangster that ends up making a mistake that causes every gun on both sides of the law to point at him. While on the run, he comes across a mysterious woman who might get him out of trouble or make things worse.
The Wild Goose Lake is a fatalist love sotry that’s also a portrait of outcasts looking for a way out in a city that won’t stop closing in. Back in 2020, we streamed it online at our website during lockdown. But now is finally the time to see it on the big screen.
Thank you to our friends at Filmbot for their support in presenting this amazing series.
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