There’s much more to film in Chicago than new releases at the multiplex. The city is home to festivals of all sizes, from the Chicago International Film Festival to Reeling to CIMMfest. Outfits like the Gene Siskel Film Center, Facets Cinematheque and Doc Films serve as year-round fests. And then there are summer movies in the parks, along with special screenings and series at indie theaters, some of Chicago’s best bars and other venues you might never expect. Take a look at the best movie screenings and events in Chicago in March.
The Music Box preps for its 70mm run of Ready Player One with a weeklong screening series of “Sci-Fi Spielberg” classics, including Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Minority Report and War of the Worlds.
Music Box Theatre. March 16–22 at various times. Series pass $30, members $25; single screenings $11, members $7.
This long-running experimental film and video festival is now in its 28th year. Most of the offerings are short films, presented in seven clustered programs; check out Time Out Chicago contributor Michael Glover Smith’s recommendations for two pieces of particular interest to Chicagoans, Sky Room and CPS Closings & Delays.
Chicago Filmmakers. March 8–11 at various times. Festival pass $50; features and shorts programs $8–$12.
Alfred Hitchcock’s chillingly cynical 1958 thriller stars James Stewart as a neurotic detective who’s gaslighted by an underhanded client; Kim Novak smolders in the sort-of dual role as femme(s) fatale. The film’s 60th anniversary gets it special multiplex screenings under the TCM Big Screen Classics banner.
Various theaters. March 18 and 21 at 2, 7pm. Prices vary.
After moving to a new town, troublemaking teen Jim Stark (James Dean) is supposed to have a clean slate, although being the new kid in town brings its own problems. Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo also star in the 1955 film that set the template for youth-gone-wild flicks and made the Griffith Observatory a landmark for moviegoers who’ve never even been to L.A.
Logan Theatre. March 20–22 at 10:30pm. $9.
Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney sparkle in Stanley Donen’s gimlet-eyed 1967 portrait of a marriage across 10 years, measured in road trips across Europe.
Doc Films. March 9 at 7, 9:30pm; Mar 11 at 1:30pm. $5.
For ’70s sex appeal, it’s hard to beat Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw in a husband-and-wife heist movie directed by Sam Peckinpah. (MacGraw and McQueen married in 1973, the year after The Getaway’s release.) Like the whiskey selection at Delilah’s, it’s not exactly nourishing, but it sure goes down nice.
Delilah’s. March 18 at 6pm. Free.
Discover Time Out original video
