October 20, 2026

Take Me Home

Director/Writer: Liz Sargent

Starring: Anna Sarget, Ali Ahn, Victor Slezak, Marceline Hugot, Shane Harper

Synopsis: Anna, a 38-year-old Korean adoptee, cares for her aging parents in a fragile balance of meeting each others’ needs. When a Florida heat wave shatters their family and Anna’s routine, her future is uncertain until she creates a world where she can thrive.

Liz Sargent’s intimate debut drama examines the shifting demands placed on a unique — and uniquely challenged — family in a Florida suburb. Working with a terrific ensemble, the writer-director details the struggles of Anna (newcomer Anna Sargent, the director’s sister), fellow adopted sibling Emily (Ali Ahn), and devoted father Bob (Victor Slezak), who is covering signs of dementia.

September 2026

Once Upon a Time in Cinema

Director/Writer: David Gleeson

Starring: Colin Morgan, Calam Lynch, Niamh Cusack, India Mullen

Synopsis: ONCE UPON A TIME IN A CINEMA is set in a small-town cinema during one eventful Friday night screening from hell. Over the course of one evening, the film follows the travails of beleaguered cinema owner Earl Clancy (Colin Morgan) as he faces a myriad of disasters, any one of which could sink him. Drawing from writer/director David Gleeson’s own experience growing up in a family of cinema owners where his father’s 78-year career marked the longest in the cinema business in Ireland, if not the world, this film is a love letter to a peculiarly Irish cinema experience, which was as much about connecting with people as it was about the movie.

Celebrated Irish actor Colin Morgan (Merlin, Belfast, Dead Shot, etc.) plays the besieged Earl Clancy who is firefighting a series of calamities while mulling over the sale of the cinema to a shady politician over the course of a singular Friday night show from hell. But can he simply walk away from the community that has been his life’s passion?

September 2026

Edie Arnold Is a Loser

Director/Writer: Kade Atwood and Megan Rico

Starring: Adi Madden Cabrera, Cherish Rodriguez, McKenna Tuckett

Synopsis: Edie Arnold is a Loser is an acerbic coming of age comedy about a high school outcast named Edie who stirs up trouble at her all-girls Catholic school when she forms a punk band with her fellow losers, eventually earning the acceptance of her ultra-critical mother.

August 2026

Time Warp

Directed by: Allison Berg

Synopsis: Fifty years ago, The Rocky Horror Picture Show burst onto the scene and blew everyone’s minds—a glorious, campy, sexy, utterly bizarre midnight ritual that turned movie-going into something you did rather than just watched. For misfits, dreamers and the delightfully weird, Rocky Horror became their sanctuary. And for the queer community especially, it was something even more powerful: the one place you could feel completely, gloriously free.

August 2026

Union County

Directed by: Adam Meeks

Starring: Will Poulter, Noah Centineo, Annette Deao

Synopsis: Will Poulter and Noah Centineo deliver pitch-perfect performances as brothers Cody and Jack Parsons, each navigating a court-mandated drug rehabilitation program in a pocket of rural Ohio hit hard by the opioid epidemic. Provided with hope for the first time since their struggles began and with the support of a tireless counselor (Annette Deao), the brothers work toward a brighter, sober future. Poulter and Centineo blend seamlessly with a supporting cast composed predominantly of non-professional actors as they share their actual experiences, pain, and optimism as they, themselves, navigate the program. Ohio-born filmmaker Adam Meeks creates a film imbued with realism for an honest, compassionate portrait of a battle being fought across America and the solidarity that flowers on its front lines.

August 2026

Nimrods

Directed by: Lee Kirk

Starring: Mason Thames, Kylr Coffman, Ryan Foust and Mckenna Grace, Jenna Fischer, Angela Kinsey, Fred Armisen, Bobby Lee, Jolene, Keen Ruffalo, Ignacio Diaz-Silverio, Sean Gunn, Green Day, Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tré Cool

Synopsis: When Tommy receives a phone call inviting his band to open for Green Day on New Year's Eve, he doesn’t realize it’s an elaborate prank by his older brother, Wayne. Desperate to believe his life is about to change, Tommy steals Wayne's car and begins driving his band from Kansas City to Los Angeles, hell bent on getting there in three days. What follows is a rowdy and uproarious road trip across America, inspired by Green Day’s early days of touring in a van, years before the release of their breakout record Dookie.

July 2026

A Sad and Beautiful World

Directed by: Cyril Aris

Starring: Mounia Akl, Hasan Akil, Julia Kassar, Camille Salameh

Synopsis: In this sweeping love story that spans three decades of friendship, passion, heartbreak, and hope, Nino, an eternal optimist, and Yasmina, an impulsive pragmatist, are drawn together by a magnetic relationship. Struggling with universal choices of adult life in the extraordinary circumstances of a country constantly ravaged by war, they are confronted with an impossible choice between love and survival. They must decide if they can build a family and chart a path to happiness in Lebanon, despite the tragedies ravaging their country, or if they should seize the opportunity for reinvention far from home.

June 2026

Rose of Nevada

Directed by: Mark Jenkin

Starring: George MacKay, Callum Turner

Synopsis: 30 years ago, the Rose of Nevada disappeared at sea. Now, it has returned. Desperate to make ends meet, two men join its crew and set sail once again, but soon discover they’ve been transported back into the past, where they are mistaken for the original crew.

June 2026

Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World

Directed by: Sasha Waters Freyer

Featuring: John Waters, Stephen Colbert, Lucy Dacus, Steve Buscemi, and Oprah Winfrey

Synopsis: If poetry had a pop icon, Mary Oliver would be it. Celebrated best-selling poet, Pulitzer Prize-winner, lover of dogs and long walks in the woods, openly queer but intensely private, Oliver was America’s unlikely contemporary mystic, stalking the ponds and forests of Cape Cod for nearly fifty years in order to open herself – and her readers – to the known and unknowable world. From a lonely childhood to literary fame, Oliver’s life was shaped by devotion to nature, paying attention, and the long journey toward learning to love and to be loved. Her poems inspire liberals and conservatives, atheists and believers, naturalists and urbanites, speaking directly to contemporary anxieties about attention, presence, and the human relationship with the natural world – issues that feel especially pressing in an era of climate crisis, digital distraction, and social fragmentation.

Featuring interviews with her close friends, including John Waters, never-before-seen personal photos, notebooks, and correspondence from her archive, and recitations of her work by Stephen Colbert, Lucy Dacus, Steve Buscemi, and Oprah Winfrey, Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World considers the poet’s long lifetime of work in context, capturing the uniqueness of her world and the natural beauty that inspired her.

May 2026

When a Witness Recants

Directed by: Dawn Porter (Luther: Never Too Much, John Lewis: Good Trouble)

Synopsis: In 1983, noted author Ta-Nehisi Coates remembers learning that a 14-year old boy was murdered in the corridor of his Baltimore middle school. Revisiting the case as an adult, he learns the truth about the three innocent teenagers who were convicted and sentenced to life. After 36 years in prison, it was revealed that false testimony led to their imprisonment. WHEN A WITNESS RECANTS explores the collateral damage the handling of this case had on the community, the wrongfully accused, and the young witnesses pressured to betray them.

May 2026

Magic Hour

Directed by: Katie Aselton

Starring: Katie Aselton, Daveed Diggs, Brad Garrett

Synopsis: Charlie and Erin escape to the desert to navigate an unexpected and challenging new phase of their relationship. A Duplass Brothers Production starring Daveed Diggs (Hamilton) and Katie Aselton (The League). A South by Southwest premiere.

April 2025

Phoenix Film Festival

Phoenix Film Society membership includes tickets and fun perks for the annual Phoenix Film Festival each year!

This year’s 11 day celebration of film included over 260 film screenings, filmmaking panels, parties, student workshops, and much more - all at the Harkins Scottsdale 101 Theatre.

It’s the perfect place to find your new favorite movie.

March 2026

André Is an Idiot

Directed by: Tony Benna

Starring: André Ricciardi

Synopsis: A celebration of life filled with raw honesty, surreal bursts of imagination, and brazen irreverence, ANDRÉ IS AN IDIOT shows us what it really means to live happily, truthfully, and hilariously. In this Sundance award winning documentary, André Riccardi sets out to chronicle his final journey after receiving a diagnosis he could have prevented, through comedic vérité storytelling and fantastical stop-motion interludes.

March 2026

Granite Rapids Moon

Directed by: Kenneth Cran

Starring: Brit Morgan, John Charles Meyer, Susan Papa, Etienne Eckert, Micah Cohen, KylieRae Condon, and Missi Pyle

Synopsis: A happily married father of two, shaken by a message written in a birthday card for his daughter, abruptly leaves his family for a week-long trek through the Grand Canyon. As we follow his solo hike, we see his memories of an earlier trip through the Grand Canyon with a different woman.

March 2026

Mr. Nobody Against Putin

Directed by: David Borenstein, Pavel Talankin

Starring: Pavel Talankin, David Borenstein

Synopsis: In Mr. Nobody Against Putin, Pasha Talankin is an unlikely hero – a beloved Russian primary school teacher, known as a mentor and prankster, who offers students a safe haven in his office. After Russia invades Ukraine, Pasha’s role in the school changes dramatically as he is reluctantly drawn into Putin’s propaganda machine. Forced to promote state-sanctioned messages and horrified by the transformation of his school and community, he struggles with guilt and a sense of powerlessness, leading him to become an international whistleblower. As the school’s videographer, Pasha documents intimate and revealing footage of Putin’s regime, capturing the rise of militarized children’s groups, repressive laws, fervent nationalism, and the recruitment of graduating students to fight in the war. When he learns his own life may be at risk, Pasha is forced to plan a dangerous escape from Russia.

Directed by David Borenstein and co-directed by Pasha Talankin, this uniquely collaborative film is as captivating and joyful as it is eye-opening and sobering. Mr. Nobody Against Putin showcases rare footage that reveals the profound impact of Putin’s regime on the lives of everyday Russians, particularly its children.

Phoenix Film Foundation

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The Phoenix Film Society is a program under the 501(c)3 non-profit organization Phoenix Film Foundation, and is a sibling of Phoenix Film Festival, International Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival, IFP/Phoenix, Arizona Student Film Festival, Peoria Film Fest and Phoenix Critics Circle. The Phoenix Film Foundation is dedicated to promoting diversity and education in the arts, elevating underrepresented voices, and driving the growth of independent film in Arizona. Through film showcases and accessible educational initiatives, we cultivate a vibrant, inclusive cinematic community, utilizing it as a catalyst for personal growth, creative expression, and positive social change.