Every Saturday at 11:30am, Monday at 7pm and Thursday at 9pm, the Charles presents repertory films in DCP format (and from time to time on 35mm film) in The Charles’ original 360 seat theatre.
| La Dolce Vita | Monday, March 24 |
| Early Spring | Monday, March 31 |
| Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat | Monday, April 7 |
| Mildred Pierce | Monday, May 5 |
| Heavy Metal | Thursday, May 8 |
| Let’s Get Lost | Monday, May 12 |
| The Magnificent Ambersons | Monday, May 19 |
| River’s Edge | Thursday, May 22 |
| Last Year at Marienbad | Saturday, May 24 |
| All About My Mother | Thursday, May 29 |
| Two by Herzog | Monday, June 2 |
| Tenebrae | Thursday, June 5 |
| The Wages of Fear | Monday, June 9 |
| Latcho Drom | Thursday, June 12 |
| Lifeboat | Monday, June 16 |
| Showgirls | Thursday, June 19 |
| The Elephant Man | Thursday, June 26 |
| A Tale of Summer | Monday, June 30 |
| Crash | Thursday, July 3 |
| Journey to Italy | Monday, July 7 |
| Wild at Heart | Thursday, July 10 |
| Act of Violence | Monday, July 14 |
| Idiocracy | Thursday, July 17 |
| The Gang’s All Here | Monday, July 21 |
| Hackers | Thursday, July 24 |
| The Empire Strikes Back | Saturday, July 26 |
| The Thin Red Line | Monday, July 28 |
| Commando | Thursday, July 31 |
| ÉL | Monday, August 4 |
| The Fly | Thursday, August 7 |
| Picnic at Hanging Rock | Monday, August 11 |
| The Hills Have Eyes | Thursday, August 14 |
| Yojimbo | Monday, August 18 |
| True Romance | Thursday, August 21 |
| The Jungle Book | Saturday, August 23 |
| Short Cuts | Monday, August 25 |
| Polyester | Thursday, August 28 |
| Don’t Look Now | Saturday, August 30 |
| 2001: A Space Odyssey | Thursday, September 4 |
| A Man and a Woman | Monday, September 8 |
| Mean Streets | Thursday, September 11 |
| The Color of Pomegranates | Monday, September 15 |
| Persepolis | Thursday, September 18 |
| Withnail and I | Saturday, September 20 |
| The French Connection | Thursday, September 25 |
| SANJURO | Saturday, September 27 |
| HEAT | Monday, October 6 |
| All That Heaven Allows | Monday, October 13 |
| Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion | Thursday, October 16 |
| The Devil, Probably | Saturday, October 18 |
| Vampire’s Kiss | Thursday, October 23 |
| The Black Cat | Saturday, October 25 |
| A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS | Thursday, October 30 |
| Pinocchio | Saturday, November 1 |
| Barry Lyndon | Monday, November 3 |
| Performance | Thursday, November 6 |
| Scarface (1932) | Saturday, November 8 |
| Scarface (1983) | Thursday, November 13 |
| Return of the Jedi | Saturday, November 15 |
| Andrei Rublev | Monday, November 17 |
| BRAZIL | Thursday, November 20 |
| Marathon Man | Saturday, November 22 |
| The Last Waltz | Thursday, November 27 |
| Stray Dog | Saturday, November 29 |
| Lifeforce | Thursday, December 4 |
| Ball of Fire | Saturday, December 6 |
| CURE | Thursday, December 11 |
One Show Only! It’s become a shorthand reference for swinging Rome and the louche early ‘60s, but then Moby Dick isn’t really about a whale. Marcello Mastroianni’s playboy journalist cavorts through the city, chasing celebrities and women and eroding his soul in the process. Speaking of shorthand, this is where the full floweri more »
Yasujirō Ozu gets a bit soapy here, albeit in an Ozu kind of way. A bored salaryman (Ryō Ikebe) feeling distanced from his wife (Chikage Awashima) starts an affair with a young colleague (Keiko Kishi). Really, just admiring the director’s trademark three-or-four-shot transitions is almost worth the price of admission alone. -Lee more »
The United States’ involvement in the 1960 assassination of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba and the country’s subsequent decline into decades of dictatorship and ongoing instability is well-established. Filmmaker John Grimonprez creates a stylish and verve-y account of that history by infusing his 2024 documentary with the musi more »
Michael Curtiz out-pulps James M. Cain’s original novel, staging a murder in the very first scene and streamlining the melodrama. The resulting adaptation not only brings the noir, it amps up the class division and the mother/daughter love/hate. If you ever wondered why Joan Crawford was a big deal, this is an excellent way to f more »
For 13-year-old boys of all ages. Back in the day, the titular comic brought European artists like Jean “Moebius” Giraud and “adult” themes to newstands. The titular film brings a brace of the comic’s stories to life through budget animation and a soundtrack crammed with bespoke tunes from classic rockers. Content warning: many, more »
It’s a genuine shock when Chet Baker cops to being 57 in this biodoc—he looks 30 years older. The contrast between his heartthrob younger days as the Great White Hope of jazz trumpet and the withered, scuffling addict of his final year on earth fuels fashion photographer Bruce Weber’s suitably elegant film. Despite the ad-campai more »
The fact that RKO cut nearly an hour out of Orson Welles’ follow-up to Citizen Kane and it still stands as one of the greatest films ever made has inspired decades of pained what-ifs. Welles shadows the title Midwestern clan as their 19th-century wealth and influence succumbs to onrushing modernity and simple hubris. Every scene more »
Every generation seems to have their coming-of-age film that Gets It. For the ‘80s kids, it was River’s Edge. A suburban hesher kills his girlfriend and shows his friends (including Keanu Reeves and Crispin Glover) her discarded body. Poorly equipped to deal by their ‘70s-hangover upbringings, they react mostly by not reacting a more »
The Nouveau Roman’s big-screen bow remains baffling and entrancing. Alain Renais’ camera prowls the Baroque halls and grounds of a luxe resort and occasionally alights on the dispassionate constituents of a love triangle as screenwriter Alain Robbe-Grillet’s narration goes on about its own elliptical business. An indelible cinem more »
As usual for a Pedro Almodóvar film, the plot here is so kinked and outrageous as to defy encapsulation. But wellspring performances from Cecelia Roth, Marisa Paredes, and Penélope Cruz wow. The director’s exploration of motherhood, sisterhood, and chosen family beguiles. And it looks like a billion pesetas. -LeeGardner more »
A pair of Werner Herzog’s underseen documentary shorts. God’s Angry Man focuses on Gene Scott, an old-school televangelist with a combative style—Herzog finds him glowering silently into a live television camera until the donations flow. High-speed cameras catch champion ski jumper Steiner flying high over spectators on his way more »
Dario Argento’s black-gloved hands strike again, this time racking up gruesome killings that mirror the ones Tony Franciosa’s novelist invented for his books. Can the scribbler figure out who’s taking his work as bloody inspiration before he falls victim? Crazy stalkers! Axe murders! Lesbians! Insane twists! C-movie bellwether J more »
What was the first action movie? One could make an argument for Henri-George Clouzot’s hot-sweat epic. There are only a few fights or firearms involved as desperate men (led by Yves Montand) stranded in a jungle hellhole seize a shot at trucking volatile nitroglycerin over hundreds of miles of gnarly road, but the two-fisted plo more »
What a treasure. Roma filmmaker Tony Gatlif uses his camera to track a real-life odyssey—the migration of Roma people and their musical culture from their roots in Rajasthan, in India, along the Mediterranean to Spain. No interviews, no title cards, no context. Just intimate, vibrant music and dance performances, almost any of w more »
Even “minor” Hitchcock looms tall over most directors’ peaks. Here he crams the title vessel with survivors from a WWII U-boat attack and wrests a world of drama, suspense, and intrigue from the cramped space between the gunwales. Tallulah Bankhead toplines a sterling cast. -Lee Gardner more »
Paul Verhoeven’s polarizing cinema punchline has aged well in the sense that it hasn’t gotten any worse. Screenwriter Joe Eszterhaz’s script about a frequently nude naif dancing her way to the top in Las Vegas remains a ridiculous line-o-rama, but the real reason the film inspires lols is poor Elizabeth Berkley, whose too-much p more »
David Lynch followed up the mold-breaking Eraserhead with perhaps his most classically Hollywood feature, and his most deeply affecting. John Hurt’s embodiment of the title character astonishes, but the film is really about how the other characters see and react to him. Anthony Hopkins, for one, reacts exquisitely. -Lee Gardner more »
Melvil Poupaud’s feckless young man heads for a beach town solo to mope, play guitar, and wait for his on/off girlfriend to arrive. He soon finds himself unsuccessfully juggling several young women, including anthropologist/waitress Amanda Langlet. One of Éric Rohmer’s most charming and amusing chatfests, enhanced by the sun-bak more »
Sex. Death. Sex and death. David Cronenberg plays all the hits in his adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s novel about a group of turned-on car-crash enthusiasts who go further and further in their pursuit of souped-up kicks. James Spader, Deborah Kara Unger, Elias Koteas, and Holly Hunter kink up the screen, despite Spader’s character’ more »
George Sanders plays a man who is somehow tired of being married to Ingrid Bergman, who plays his similarly ennui-laden spouse. A trip to Italy exposes the faults in their relationship. That’s pretty much it, but Roberto Rosselini’s direction and the lovely performances make it feel like grand drama. -Lee Gardner more »
David Lynch dips into Southern Gothic and hardboiled noir for his lurid yet sweet adaptation of Barry Gifford’s novel. Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern star as lovers on the run, abetted and thwarted by a cast of Lynch regulars and the occasional ‘90s indie staple (e.g. Willem Dafoe). Once again, Dern is the secret MVP. -Lee Gardner more »
Ex-G.I. Robert Ryan is bent on revenge against his former best friend and Army buddy Van Helfin, who sold out their comrades to the Nazis. Phyllis Thaxter and a young Janet Leigh play the women caught between them. Journeyman director Fred Zinneman’s inky-black noir wows with its inexorable story and grim fatalism. Fantastic e more »
Mike Judge followed up Office Space with a vicious satire about our increasingly enshittified society. It made nary a peep in theaters but now scans like Nostradamus. Luke Wilson plays a regular bro who, hundreds of years in the future, stands as the de facto smartest man in America. The whole thing runs out of gas before the en more »
Brazilian icon Carmen Miranda gets second billing but mainly serves as wacky “ethnic” comic relief. The real star, of course, is director Busby Berkeley’s trademark elaborate musical numbers, especially the Miranda-sung “The Lady in the Tutti Frutti Hat” and the completely insane finale. As corny as Kansas but a visual and music more »
There’s nothing quite as ridiculous as a past vision of the future, especially one as Hollywood try-hard as this. Jonny Lee Miller and a baby Angelina Jolie lead a team of techie teens out to fight The Man, embodied by Fisher Stevens. Everyone spouts goofy jargon and would-be zingers, rollerblades everywhere, and tries their bes more »
For many years, the second Star Wars film was considered The Good One—darker, more complex, romantic. Whatever the current rankings, it’s still pretty good. Great set pieces, interesting character stuff, Billy Dee Williams, and no Ewoks. -Lee Gardner more »
Terrence Malick’s return to filmmaking after a 20-year hiatus combined the poetic spirit and visual sumptuousness of Badlands and Days of Heaven with a new break from Hollywood formalism—cue the cryptic voiceovers. He applied his new method to the venerable war-movie genre but found moving and richly rewarding new life in it. Hi more »
There are certainly better ‘80s action movies, but Commando is the most ‘80s-action-movie ‘80s action movie, and probably the most fun to watch with an audience. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays the titular badass, who’s lured out of retirement to rescue his tween daughter from some grudge-holding bad guys and a literal army of squib more »
A dark gem from Luis Bunuel’s Mexican period. Arturo de Córdova’s suave gentleman sweeps Delia Garcés off her feet, but soon after wedding bells ring, she discovers he’s a paranoid creep. His madness and violence soon escalate. An incisive portrait of domestic abuse heightened by the director’s skill and audacity. -Lee Gardner more »
David Cronenberg wastes not a second in putting Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis together onscreen, because that’s the whole movie—their exquisite chemistry fuels what ends up as much a tragic romance as a sci-fi remake. Arguably the pinnacle of Cronenberg’s “body horror” period, and it’s paced like a drag race. more »
Today the disappearance of three schoolgirls and their minder would be a lurid true-crime tale or fodder for drawn-out “limited series” dramatic peekaboo. But Peter Weir’s breakout concocts a hypnotic haze of innocence, ardor, repression, suggestion, and emotional weight that utterly beguiles. A perfect cinema enigma. -Lee Gardn more »
In the ‘70s, few things scared moviegoers more than deranged rural people. Wes Craven cemented his budding horror career with this Texas Chainsaw Massacre homage that pits a roadtripping whitebread family (Dee Wallace makes clear why she’s the only one who had a bigger career) against mutant desert cannibals (ditto for Michael B more »
Toshiro Mifune invented the modern action hero in Akira Kurosawa’s classic. The former’s grungy ronin wanders into a village and right into the middle of a gang war, only to turn the factions' venality and dim wits to his advantage. Tatsuya Nakadai co-stars as a bonus badass. Fantastic score, too. -Lee Gardner more »
Tony Scott applied his visual verve and blockbuster sensibilities to one of Quentin Tarantino’s early scripts and delivered an instructive contrast to the latter’s style. Scott is less wink-y and puts real muscle behind the beats of this love-on-the-run/crime-flick/Hollywood-sendup mashup. He also knows how to shoot dialogue wit more »
A bunch of cartoon predators adopt a defenseless human infant instead of eating it. Comedy hijinks with a mid-century hepcat bias and some pretty decent songs ensue. Disney’s adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s India-set stories is charming and surprisingly unproblematic for being nearly 60 years old. -Lee Gardner more »
Robert Altman adapts a clutch of Raymond Carver short stories and, in the process, kinda invents Paul Thomas Anderson. An enormous cast plays a host of Angelenos whose lives intersect in humorous and tragic ways over the course of a few days. Also a very effective nostalgia prompt. Medflies! Cell phones the size of bricks! -Lee more »
Poor, poor Francine. Divine stars as a smell-sensitive Severna Park hausfrau beset by a porn-peddling husband, delinquent children, and demon booze. Can Tab Hunter’s hunk offer her a new life? John Waters spans the crack between his early outrages and the mainstream appeal of Hairspray with this loving Douglas Sirk pastiche. “Od more »
Haunted by the death of their young daughter, Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie thread the streets of Venice and catch glimpses of what might be ghosts. Nicolas Roeg continued his incredible ’70s run (Performance, Walkabout) with a film that’s both a piercing meditation on grief and the greatest giallo ever. -Lee Gardner more »
It probably shouldn’t work at this point, but it totally does. Stanley Kubrick’s audacious sci-fi epic still dazzles with its chutzpah, invention, visual sense, and intelligence. And the scenes aboard the spaceship form one of the great pocket thrillers ever made. -Lee Gardner more »
In 1966, Claude Lelouch’s melancholy melodrama borrowed just enough New Wave flavor to cause a middlebrow sensation, and its Francis Lai-penned theme tune has haunted cocktail lounges ever since. In 2025, it’s still a treat to watch Anouk Aimée and Jean-Louis Trintignant brood and sigh amid Lelouch’s clever filmmaking. -Lee Gard more »
Scorsese ground zero. The director had already made features, but this deeply personal knockaround slice of NYC street life in the early ‘60 cemented everything about his world-conquering style. Harvey Keitel’s Mob bagman and Robert De Niro’s anarchic ne'er-do-well form the foreground, but everything onscreen is worth your atten more »
Talk about an art film. Soviet director Sergei Parajanov’s account of the life of Armenian poet Sayat-Nova slips narrative convention for a string of lavish, ravishing tableaux vivant, all crammed with inscrutable symbolism and visual piquancy. You could spend a lifetime revisiting it and not get it all. -Lee Gardner more »
Marjane Satrapi’s screen adaptation of her graphic memoir animates its spartan monochrome illustrations to the screen for a tale of a young girl coming of age in revolutionary Iran, as the country pivots from rule by a US puppet to an even more repressive fundamentalist state. A geopolitical history lesson and a piercing account more »
Writer/director Bruce Robinson’s script is one of the best ever put onscreen. Richard E. Grant and Paul McGann’s title unemployed actors booze and quip their way through sozzled adventures en route to personal reckonings with the end of the ‘60s and their aimless youth. Richard Griffiths and Ralph Brown deliver supporting perfor more »
The central car chase and NYC street grit made it famous, but William Friedkin’s breakout film endures for its watchfulness. A pair of rough detectives (Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider) stumble onto what they believe is a major heroin ring. As they shadow the suspects, block after block, mostly on foot, the tension and pressure bu more »
Akira Kurosawa not only helped create the modern cinema antihero with 1961’s Yojimbo, he became an early adopter of the tentpole sequel a year later with Sanjuro. Toshiro Mifune’s scruffy ronin literally wakes up in the midst of a deadly rift between two halves of a samurai clan and, once again, outwits and outfights all. The en more »
Much is made of the pair of acting silverbacks at the center of Michael Mann’s magnum-opus crime flick, and rightly so, but one of the undersung pleasures here is the deep bench of character actors absolutely killing smaller parts: Jon Voight, Tom Noonan, Mykelti Williamson, Ted Levine, William Fichtner, the more »
The pinnacle of screen melodrama. Douglas Sirk’s work is perhaps better known today through homages/sendups from the likes of John Waters, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Todd Haynes, but there’s no true substitute for his Technicolor fantasies of real life. Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson dare to cross age and class boundaries with th more »
Mira Sorvino and Lisa Kudrow’s title characters don’t get that they’re a little dumb. And furthermore, they wouldn’t really care. They have each other (platonically) to face life and their judgy ex-classmates. There’s no good reason this Gen X catnip should be as smart, original, and hilarious as it is—the di more »
Robert Bresson’s penultimate film captures the post-’68 generation of Parisian youth on the comedown. Antoinne Monier’s protagonist is past thinking that revolution is at hand, the environment can be saved, or anything much matters. The director’s trademark use of a deliberately inert nonprofessional cast i more »
Nicolas Cage’s outré acting style first fully flowered in his portrayal of an effete New York literary agent who, when not chasing one-night-stands or terrorizing a demure coworker (Maria Conchita Alonso), comes to believe he’s a vampire. The film is a fairly standard ‘80s indie, but Cage does something coc more »
Satanism rears its horned head in Hollywood for the first time in this vintage spooky story starring Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. The “ordinary” honeymooners that set the story in motion are duds throughout, but the two stars bring the first-class creeps and scenery gnawing as they spar over deadly old gr more »
Freddy Krueger creator Wes Craven rejoined the franchise as a screenwriter for the second sequel, and the quality jumps. Patricia Arquette and her top-drawer scream make their screen debuts among a group of troubled teens in a mental hospital who are being run through the wringer of the horror series’ oneiric logic and spectacul more »
Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece isn’t just a film—it’s a device that resets your internal sense of time, its deliberate pace bringing you back to 18th-century Europe more effectively than any periwig. Ryan O’Neal’s character offers a lesson for us all as he grasps and elbows his way up the ladder of society only to hit most of the more »
Fleeing both the cops and the crooks, James Fox’s cocky Cockney gangster stumbles into a den of hippies, who dose him, ball him, and mess with his mind. Not all of the far-out ‘60s editing tricks have aged well, but watching Fox’s character’s psyche dissolve around Swinging London royalty Mick Jagger and Anita Pallenberg (playin more »
From the dawn of talkies comes one of the greatest crime films ever made. Paul Muni’s performance as the scuffling street guy who shoots and schemes his way to the top of the rackets lacks contemporary subtlety, shall we say, but Howard Hawks’ direction dazzles with its skill and vision, and the whole thing moves like a scalded more »
Screenwriter Oliver Stone and director Brian De Palma faithfully transposed Howard Hawks’ gangster classic 50 years forward to the ‘80s coke boom, inspiring a generation of rap tropes and kindling the conflagration of Al Pacino’s “Big Al” late acting style in the process. Pacino is still arguably great here, but the secret sauce more »
This is the end—or so it was understood at the time, before original IP became a value proposition for shareholders. Pros: George Lucas upped the ante on set pieces and the three leads remain magnetic. Con: The first recurring use of blowing up the doomsday thingy as a stock climax and, of course, Ewoks. more »
Andrei Tarkovsky’s unconventional account of the life of a 15th-century Russian painter is likely to live on as long as its subject’s icons. Tarkovsky muse Anatoly Solonitsyn never paints a stroke as Andrei. The film instead shadows his episodic struggles with making art in light of the cruelty and venality of the muddy world. A more »
Smart move on Terry Gilliam’s part adopting a cockeyed steampunk aesthetic here. It places the film slightly outside the typical pop-culture timescale and keeps a fable-like veneer slapped on top of what is, at root, a dystopian tale of repression, stupidity, and cruelty. Jonathan Pryce stars as the most everyman Everyman ever. more »
One of the great ‘70s paranoid thrillers rests on the narrow shoulders of Dustin Hoffman. Working his annoying-kid vibe to his advantage, Hoffman’s everydork seems suitably overwhelmed when he’s dragged into an international conspiracy involving shadowy government agents and Nazi war criminals (e.g. a delicious Laurence Olivier) more »
Peer around Robbie Robertson’s ego to locate a top-five greatest concert film. Not only does the Band tear through a heap of their Americana-ground-zero hits like it was the last time, but the murderer’s row of special guests can’t be topped: Muddy Waters, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, and more. Boomer heav more »
Toshiro Mifune in a crisp white suit and cap presents one of the underrated iconic looks in cinema. His rookie detective loses his pistol to a pickpocket in a heat wave and leads the audience on a tour of postwar Japan’s sweaty mean streets as he tries to get it back before it’s used in more crimes. This is where Akira Kurosawa’ more »
Naked space vampires! If that logline doesn’t sell you, please note that Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Poltergeist) directs and duly manages to squeeze considerable mileage out of some cool production design, coulda-been-worse practical effects, and C-list actors like Steve Railsback and Peter Firth. Not to mention n more »
Barbara Stanwyck’s nightclub-singer moll lams it from the cops and hides out amid a clutch of milquetoast encyclopedia researchers led by hunky grammarian Gary Cooper. Cooper’s character finds her slangy argot fascinating, then falls for the rest of the package. With Howard Hawks directing and Billy Wilder co-writing the script, more »
Random people keep turning up gruesomely murdered, their placid killers unaware of having done the deed. The unrelated victims sport an “x” carved deep into their throats. From that premise, Japanese dread master Kiyoshi Kurosawa weaves one of the great modern psychological thrillers and perhaps his deepest meditation on the lon more »
