January 2022

Jockey

Directed by: Clint Bentley

Cast: Clifton Collins Jr., Molly Parker, Moises Arias, Logan Cormier, Colleen Hartnett

Synopsis: An aging jockey (Clifton Collins Jr.), hopes to win one last title for his longtime trainer (Molly Parker), who has acquired what appears to be a championship horse. But the years – and injuries – have taken a toll on his body, throwing into question his ability to continue his lifelong passion. And the arrival of a young rookie rider (Moises Arias), who claims to be his son, and whom he takes under his wing, further complicates the path to fulfilling his dream.

December 2021

Parallel Mothers

Directed by: Pedro Almodovar

Cast: Penélope Cruz, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, Milena Smit, Israel Elejalde, Julieta Serrano, and Rossy de Palma

Synopsis: Two women, Janis and Ana, coincide in a hospital room where they are going to give birth. Both are single and became pregnant by accident. Janis, middle-aged, doesn’t regret it and she is exultant. The other, Ana, an adolescent, is scared, repentant and traumatized. Janis tries to encourage her while they move like sleepwalkers along the hospital corridors. The few words they exchange in these hours will create a very close link between the two, which by chance develops and complicates, and changes their lives in a decisive way.

December 2021

The Tender Bar

Directed by: George Clooney

Cast: Ben Affleck, Tye Sheridan, Daniel Ranieri, Lily Rabe, Christopher Lloyd

Synopsis: From director George Clooney and based on the best-selling memoir, The Tender Bar follows an aspiring writer (Tye Sheridan) pursuing his romantic and professional dreams. From a stool in his uncle’s (Ben Affleck) bar, he learns what it means to grow up from a colorful group of local characters.

December 2021

Wolf

Directed by: Nathalie Biancheri

Cast: Lily-Rose Depp, George MacKay

Synopsis: Believing he is a wolf trapped in a human body, Jacob (George MacKay) eats, sleeps, and lives like a wolf – much to the shock of his family. When he’s sent to a clinic, Jacob and his animal-bound peers are forced to undergo increasingly extreme forms of ‘curative’ therapies. However, once he meets the mysterious Wildcat (Lily-Rose Depp), and as their friendship blossoms into an undeniable infatuation, Jacob is faced with a challenge: will he renounce his true self for love.

November 2021

C’mon C’mon

Directed by: Mike Mills

Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Woody Norman, Gaby Hoffman, Elaine Kagan, Jaboukie Young-White

Synopsis: Johnny (Joaquin Phoenix) and his young nephew (Woody Norman) forge a tenuous but transformational relationship when they are unexpectedly thrown together in this delicate and deeply moving story about the connections between adults and children, the past and the future, from writer-director Mike Mills.

November 2021

Spencer

Directed by: Pablo Larraín

Cast: Kristen Stewart, Timothy Spall, Sally Hawkins, Sean Harris

Synopsis: The marriage of Princess Diana and Prince Charles has long since grown cold. Though rumors of affairs and a divorce abound, peace is ordained for the Christmas festivities at the Queen's Sandringham Estate. There's eating and drinking, shooting and hunting. Diana knows the game. But this year, things will be profoundly different. Spencer is an imagining of what might have happened during those few fateful days.

October 2021

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain

Directed by: Will Sharpe

Cast: Claire Foy, Benedict Cumberbatch, Andrea Riseborough, Stacy Martin, Toby Jones

Synopsis: The extraordinary true story of eccentric British artist Louis Wain (Benedict Cumberbatch), whose playful, sometimes even psychedelic pictures helped to transform the public's perception of cats forever. Moving from the late 1800s through to the 1930s, we follow the incredible adventures of this inspiring, unsung hero, as he seeks to unlock the "electrical" mysteries of the world and, in so doing, to better understand his own life and the profound love he shared with his wife Emily Richardson (Claire Foy).

September 2021

Beans

Directed by: Tracey Deer

Cast: Kiawentiio Tarbell, Rainbow Dickerson, Violah Beauvais, Paulina Alexis, D’Pharaoh Mckay Woon-a-Tai

Synopsis: Twelve-year-old Beans is on the edge: torn between innocent childhood and delinquent adolescence; forced to grow up fast to become the tough Mohawk warrior she needs to be during the Indigenous uprising known as The Oka Crisis, which tore Quebec and Canada apart for 78 tense days in the summer of 1990.

September 2021

Ludi

Directed by: Edson Jean

Cast: Shein Mompremier, Alan Myles Heyman, Madelin Marchant, Success St. Fleur Jr., Plus Pierre, Kerline “Kae” Alce

Synopsis: Ludi, a hardworking and exhausted nurse, battles coworkers, clients and one impatient bus driver to learn her self worth as she chases the American Dream in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood.

August 2021

Phoenix Film Society Members get free tickets to the Phoenix Film Festival!

July 2021

Joe Bell

Directed by: Reinaldo Marcus Green

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Reid Miller, Connie Britton, Gary Sinise

Synopsis: From filmmaker Reinaldo Marcus Green (MONSTERS AND MEN; upcoming KING RICHARD), along with the Academy Award-winning writing team behind BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (Diana Ossana & Larry McMurtry) and Academy Award® nominee Mark Wahlberg, JOE BELL tells the intimate and emotional true story of an Oregonian father who pays tribute to his gay teenage son Jadin, embarking on a self-reflective walk across America to speak his heart to heartland citizens about the real and terrifying costs of bullying.

July 2021

Pig

Directed by: Michael Sarnoski

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Alex Wolff

Synopsis: A truffle hunter who lives alone in the Oregonian wilderness must return to his past in Portland in search of his beloved foraging pig after she is kidnapped.

June 2021

Roadrunner

Directed by: Morgan Neville ("Won't You Be My Neighbor", "20 Feet from Stardom")

Synopsis: It’s not where you go. It’s what you leave behind . . . Chef, writer, adventurer, provocateur: Anthony Bourdain lived his life unabashedly. Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain is an intimate, behind-the-scenes look at how an anonymous chef became a world-renowned cultural icon. From Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Morgan Neville, this unflinching look at Bourdain reverberates with his presence, in his own voice, and in the way he indelibly impacted the world around him.

June 2021

Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It

Directed by: Mariem Pérez Riera

Cast: Rita Moreno, George Chakiris, Héctor Elizondo, Gloria Estefan, Tom Fontana, Morgan Freeman, Mitzi Gaynor, Whoopi Goldberg, Norman Lear, Eva Longoria, Justina Machado, Terrence McNally, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Karen Olivo

Synopsis: Over a 70+ year career, Rita Moreno defied both her humble upbringing and relentless racism to become a celebrated and beloved actor, one of the rare EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) Award Winners of our time. Born into poverty on a Puerto Rican farm, Moreno and her seamstress mother immigrated to New York City when Moreno was five years old. After studying dance and performing on Broadway, Moreno was cast as any ethnic minority the Hollywood studios needed filled, be it Polynesian, Native American or Egyptian. Despite becoming the first Latina actress to win an Academy Award for her role as Anita in “West Side Story” (1961), the studios continued to offer Moreno lesser roles as stereotypical ethnic minorities, ignoring her proven talent.

February 2020

“Burden”

Director: Andrew Heckler

Starring: Garrett Hedlund, Andrea Riseborough, Forest Whitaker, Tom Wilkinson, Tess Harper, Usher Raymond IV

Synopsis: When a museum celebrating the Ku Klux Klan opens in a small South Carolina town, the idealistic Reverend Kennedy resolves to do everything in his power to prevent long-simmering racial tensions from boiling over. But the members of Kennedy's congregation are shocked to discover that his plan includes sheltering Mike Burden, a Klansman whose relationships with both a single-mother and a high-school friend force him to re-examine his long-held beliefs. After Kennedy helps Mike leave behind his violent past, the Baptist preacher finds himself on a collision course with manipulative KKK leader Tom Griffin. In the face of grave threats to himself and his family, the resolute Kennedy bravely pursues a path toward peace, setting aside his own misgivings in the hopes of healing his wounded community.

February 2020

The Burnt Orange Heresy

Director: Giuseppe Capotondi

Starring: Elizabeth Debicki, Claes Bang, Donald Sutherland, Mick Jagger

Synopsis: Hired to steal a rare painting from one of most enigmatic painters of all time, an ambitious art dealer becomes consumed by his own greed and insecurity as the operation spins out of control.

January 2020

“The Assistant”

Directed by: Kitty Green

Cast: Matthew Macfadyen, Dagmara Dominczyk, Julia Garner, Kristine Froseth, Makenzie Leigh, Jon Orsini

Synopsis: "The Assistant" follows one day in the life of Jane (Julia Garner), a recent college graduate and aspiring film producer, who has recently landed her dream job as a junior assistant to a powerful entertainment mogul. Her day is much like any other assistant's - making coffee, changing the paper in the copy machine, ordering lunch, arranging travel, taking phone messages, onboarding a new hire. But as Jane follows her daily routine, she, and we, grow increasingly aware of the abuse that insidiously colors every aspect of her work day, an accumulation of degradations against which Jane decides to take a stand, only to discover the true depth of the system into which she has entered.

January 2020

“The Last Full Measure”

Directed by: Todd Robinson

Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Alison Sudol, Sebastian Stan, Ed Harris, Bradley Whitford, Christopher Plummer

Synopsis: THE LAST FULL MEASURE tells the true story of Vietnam War hero William H. Pitsenbarger (Jeremy Irvine), a U.S. Air Force Pararescuemen (also known as a PJ) medic who personally saved over sixty men. During a rescue mission on April 11, 1966, he was offered the chance to escape on the last helicopter out of a combat zone heavily under fire, but he stayed behind to save and defend the lives of his fellow soldiers of the U.S. Army's 1st Infantry Division, before making the ultimate sacrifice in the bloodiest battle of the war. Thirty-two years later, respected Pentagon staffer Scott Huffman (Sebastien Stan) on a career fast-track is tasked with investigating a Congressional Medal of Honor request for Pitsenbarger made by his best friend and PJ partner on the mission (William Hurt) and his parents (Christopher Plummer & Diane Ladd). Huffman seeks out the testimony of Army veterans who witnessed Pitsenbarger's extraordinary valor, including Takoda (Samuel L. Jackson), Burr (Peter Fonda) and Mott (Ed Harris). But as Huffman learns more about Pitsenbarger's courageous acts, he uncovers a high-level conspiracy behind the decades-long denial of the medal, prompting him to put his own career on the line to seek justice for the fallen airman.

December 2019

“The Aeronauts”

Directed by: Tom Harper

Cast: Felicity Jones, Eddie Redmayne, Vincent Perez, Tom Courtenay, Phoebe Fox

Synopsis: In 1862, daredevil balloon pilot Amelia Wren (Felicity Jones) teams up with pioneering meteorologist James Glaisher (Eddie Redmayne) to advance human knowledge of the weather and fly higher than anyone in history. While breaking records and advancing scientific discovery, their voyage to the very edge of existence helps the unlikely pair find their place in the world they have left far below them. But they face physical and emotional challenges in the thin air, as the ascent becomes a fight for survival.

December 2019

“The Two Popes”

Directed by: Fernando Meirelles

Cast: Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce

Synopsis: From Fernando Meirelles, the Academy Award-nominated director of “City of God,” and three-time Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Anthony McCarten, comes an intimate story of one of the most dramatic transitions of power in the last 2,000 years. Frustrated with the direction of the church, Cardinal Bergoglio (Jonathan Pryce) requests permission to retire in 2012 from Pope Benedict (Anthony Hopkins). Instead, facing scandal and self-doubt, the introspective Pope Benedict summons his harshest critic and future successor to Rome to reveal a secret that would shake the foundations of the Catholic Church. Behind Vatican walls, a struggle commences between both tradition and progress, guilt and forgiveness, as these two very different men confront elements from their pasts in order to find common ground and forge a future for a billion followers around the world.

*Inspired by true events