Summer Guide 2024: Movies
Film Forum
209 West Houston Street
212-727-8110
There’s never a bad time to go to Film Forum, the city’s leading repertory and independent theater, but the promise of air conditioning on hot, humid summer days makes attendance even more alluring. From May 17 to June 13, there’s “Out Of The 80s,” with more than forty pictures from the Reagan and Bush era including David Lynch’s “Blue Velvet”; Spike Lee’s “Do The Right Thing”; Terry Gilliams’s “Brazil,” and John Carpenter’s “The Thing.” Later in June, a 4K restoration is Italian director Vittoria De Sica’s 1946 masterpiece “Shoeshine” is a must for neo-realists and pretty much everyone else as well. Among Film Forum’s upcoming premieres, the animated “Robot Dreams” (opens May 31) a 2024 Academy Award Nominee, set in 1980s New York City, is self-recommending. Check their updated calendar for later summer programming.
*****
Film At Lincoln Center
Walter Reade Theater, 165 W. 65th Street
212-875-5601
Even just browsing the Film at Lincoln Center (FLC) calendar makes one feel smarter and more engaged with world culture. Not that there’s anything that wrong with staying home and watching old favorites like “Harold and Maude,” “Annie Hall,” “All That Jazz,” or “The Hateful Eight” again but FLC has such a wealth of knowledge that following their lead is always enlightening. Take their “Open Roads: New Italian Cinema” series, for example, which runs from May 30 through June 6, featuring the North American premiere of “Comandante,” a World War II maritime thriller from director Edoardo De Angelis. The Italian theme continues with a 13-film “Sophia Loren: La Signora di Napoli” retrospective. Among new releases, the always provocative French filmmaker Catherine Breillat’s “Last Summer”– an adaptation of Danish erotic thriller “Queen of Hearts” starring Léa Drucker—sounds unmissable for those intrigued by intergenerational romance.
*****
Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Avenue
212-505-5181
There’s always something going on happening at Anthology Film Archives—usually many things, and so it is this summer. From their core Essential Cinema repertory series, don’t miss Roberto Rosellini’s 1950 classic, “The Flowers of St. Francis” (May 19-21), nor the incredible run of Harry Smith, Ron Rice / Jack Smith and Michael Snow offerings, followed by Erich von Stroheim’s epochal “Greed,” his 1924 adaptation of Frank Norris’ landmark 1899 novel, “McTeague” (June 8-17). This last picture is perfect for date night too, likewise Orson Welles’ ever stunning “Citizen Kane” (June 29-30). Released in September 1941, its genius (including cinematographer Gregg Toland; composer Bernard Hermann; and the film’s stunning co-star, Dorothy Comingore) hasn’t aged a day.
*****
Intrepid Summer Movie Nights
Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum
Pier 86, West 46th Street
212-245-0072
www.intrepidmuseum.org/free-friday-movie-night-series
Quiet as it’s sometimes kept, the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum is not for tourists only—though we have only the highest regard for tourists who do visit the World War II-era, Essex-class aircraft carrier. Built in Newport News, Virginia, the Intrepid fought all over the Pacific; later, it was among the last ships to be rehabilitated at the Brooklyn Navy Yard before its closure in 1966. Decommissioned in 1974 and brought to Pier 86 as a museum in 1982, the Intrepid rewards periodic visits, with summer an exceptionally good time to bring a friend to its on deck film series. This year’s pictures, screening June 28, July 26 and August 23 are “Apollo 13,” “First Man,” and “Moonfall” respectively. (Hopefully our favorite Navy movie, “Mister Roberts,” will screen during some future season.) Doors open at 7 pm, and seating is on a first-come, first-serve basis.
*****
Pier I Picture Show
Films on the Green
Riverside Park Pier I at 70th Street
www.villa-albertine.org/events/filmsonthegreen2024
Part of Riverside Park’s Summer on the Hudson program, the Pier I Picture Show, running Wednesday evenings July 10 through August 21, might be the best of the city’s outdoor film series. Kicking off with Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Outsiders” (1983, and presented in partnership with the new Broadway musical version running at the Jacobs Theater) and concluding with “Little Women” (2019), there are both crowd-pleasers like “Clueless” (1995), and classics like “The Big Sleep” (1946)— and more!— in between.
Relatedly, Villa Albertine, the city’s revered May-September outdoor French film festival, has two dates at Pier I this year: the 1949 crime movie, “Les Cinq Tulipes Rouges” (“Five Red Tulips”) on July 19, and Guinean-French director Cheik Doukouré’s 1994 coming of age soccer story, “The Golden Ball” (“Le Ballon d’or”) on July 26.