The best movie screenings in NYC this week
Each week, our seasoned film critics bring you the very best of New York City's alternative movie screenings and events
Every week, we round up the best movie events happening outside New York’s multiplexes, from major international film festivals (such as Sundance, the Toronto International Film Festival and the Tribeca Film Festival) and revivals at Film Forum and BAM to one-off movie screenings and in-person Q&As with stars, filmmakers and experts. New York also has a thriving film scene in galleries and pop-up venues, and in the summer months, you’ll find a wealth of outdoor screenings in NYC parks and gardens across the city.
Movie screenings and events in NYC
Bonnie and Clyde
Arthur Penn’s game-changing action film was made in the same spirit as the revisionist Westerns of the ’60s—morally all over the place and unafraid of blood and bullets. With the Vietnam War and Nixon on the rise, it felt like an onscreen revolution. Add in the swoony pair of Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, and you’ve got TNT.
Alamo Drafthouse, Downtown Brooklyn (drafthouse.com). Sun 17 noon; $12.
Dead Man
Johnny Depp is a young man named William Blake (just go with it) who travels to the Wild West and finds nothing but savagery. Jim Jarmusch’s arty Western may sound pretentious, but its black-and-white lyricism and moody Neil Young score are transcendent.
Metrograph, Lower East Side (metrograph.com). Thu 14–Sat 16 at various times; $15.
Die Hard
As bad Christmas Eves go, few are worse than the one had by NYC cop John McClane (Bruce Willis), whose reconciliation with his estranged wife in an L.A. skyscraper is interrupted by machine-gun–toting terrorists. Filled with killer set pieces and a memorable villain (Alan Rickman, gone too soon), this crowd-pleasing action film is the hard-R gift that keeps on giving.
Nitehawk Cinema, Prospect Park (nitehawkcinema.com). Tue 19 at 7:30pm; $15.
The Manchurian Candidate
This is the king of Cold War communist conspiracy thrillers: Frank Sinatra unearths a plot to assassinate a presidential hopeful, and the double agent is Ol’ Blue Eyes’s former Army superior (Laurence Harvey). Creepy, creepy stuff.
IFC Center, Greenwich Village (ifccenter.com). Fri 15, Sat 16 midnight; $16.
Working Girl
At once funny and surprisingly poignant, Mike Nichols’s NYC comedy offers a big-haired yet forever relevant portrait of the struggle for professional women to get ahead. The image of Melanie Griffith changing from sneakers to heels in the office is a perfect pop symbol of gender and power in the Reagan era.
Museum of the Moving Image, Astoria (movingimage.us). Sat 16 at 1pm; $15.
Dial M for Murder
Let’s get the bad news out of the way: This is Hitchcock’s least cinematic feature—a talky exercise in labyrinthine plotting, based on a play. But its one visual virtue, 3-D, is rarely exhibited as intended. Metrograph is doing it right. Here’s a chance to watch Grace Kelly’s scissors jut out of the screen during the mid-film murder sequence.
Metrograph, Lower East Side (metrograph.com). Sat 16 at 3:45pm; $15.
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
Romania’s health-care system gets dragged through the mud in this mordant 2005 melodrama about a man who’s killed by a hospital’s uncaring bureaucracy. If you’ve never tasted this country’s slow-and-low cinema (still on the rise), this is the place to start.
Film Forum, Greenwich Village (filmforum.org). Sun 17 at 2:10; $15.
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