Car Wash
- Thu, Jul 30
The Frida Cinema's seating is first-come, first-serve. For our Midnight Screenings, please plan on arriving by 11:30pm to ensure ample time for parking, picking up concessions, and securing optimal seats. Screening will begin promptly at midnight.
Director: Michael Schultz Run Time: 97 min. Release Year: 1976
Starring: Bill Duke, DeWayne Jessie, Franklyn Ajaye, Ivan Dixon, Sully Boyar
Celebrate Art House Theater Day 2026 with a 4K restoration of Car Wash, also celebrating 50 years since its initial release!
This day-in-the-life cult comedy focuses on a group of friends working at Sully Boyar’s Car Wash in the Los Angeles ghetto. The team meets dozens of eccentric customers — including a smooth-talking preacher, a wacky cab driver and an ex-convict, while cracking politically incorrect jokes to a constant soundtrack of disco and funk. Some of the workers find romance as the day moves along, but most are just happy to get through another shift.
Fueled by a stacked cast that includes standout comedic turns from Richard Pryor and George Carlin, the film moves to the rhythm of its era’s funk-infused soundtrack and loose, improvisational energy. Light on its feet but rich in character, Car Wash turns an ordinary job into a day-long portrait of exhaustion and unexpected joy.
Art House Theater Day (AHTD) is an annual program of AHC that brings audiences together to celebrate all that art house theaters, and independent film, contribute to our cultural landscape: ambitious and innovative art that provokes, challenges, entertains, and inspires.