Saturday, Nov 1: Addison St. and BAMPFA Parking Lot Closed

BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions

Weaving fiction and history in an immersive journey in which the fictionalized figures of W. E. B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey join artists, musicians, Kahlil Joseph’s family, and even Twitter chats, BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions is a vision for Black consciousness.

Series: Alternative Visions

Crows and Sparrows

Directed by Zheng Junli, 1949
Introduction: Paul Fonoroff

Digital Restoration

A Shanghai apartment building serves as a microcosm of China’s class struggles in Zheng Junli’s striking urban drama, filmed during the last days of China’s Nationalist rule and already looking forward to “a New Society.” Preceded by three Hearst Metrotone Newsreels from the 1940s.

Series: Cities & Cinema: Shanghai

Four Nights of a Dreamer

Directed by Robert Bresson, 1971

4K Digital Restoration

The rarely screened Four Nights of a Dreamer is Robert Bresson’s great forgotten masterpiece, a stark yet haunting ode to romantic idealism and the capriciousness of love. Bresson’s philosophical concerns with transcendence play out in each lover’s romantic reveries.

Series: Special Screenings 2025

Apocalypse Now: Final Cut

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, 1979/2019

4K Digital Restoration

Francis Ford Coppola’s hallucinatory Vietnam War epic, one of AFI’s Top 100 Films of All Time, returns in a 4K restoration.

Series: Special Screenings 2025

State Legislature

Directed by Frederick Wiseman, 2006
Introduction: Greg Hahn

4K Digital Restoration

In State Legislature, the members of the Idaho State Legislature are forced to legislate—or, at least, debate—in the face of a rapidly changing world. “This is democracy in action from the ground up, wholly unheroic and absolutely mesmerizing” (Manohla Dargis, New York Times).

Series: Frederick Wiseman: America at Work

Shanghai Blues

Directed by Tsui Hark, 1984
Introduction by Paul Fonoroff

4K Digital Restoration

Tsui Hark’s retro semi-musical look at the nightclub milieu is set against the backdrop of the Second Sino-Japanese War. “It’s impossible not to be carried along by the delirious rush of silliness in this knockabout screwball comedy” (Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian). Preceded by a Hearst Metrotone Newsreel from 1936.

Series: Cities & Cinema: Shanghai

Lust, Caution

Directed by Ang Lee, 2007

Ang Lee’s subtle World War II thriller is arguably modern cinema’s most gripping re-creation of old Shanghai, highlighted by the uninhibited debut performance of Tang Wei as an assassin aiming for imperious official Tony Leung Chiu-wai.

Series: Cities & Cinema: Shanghai

Before Night Falls

Directed by Julian Schnabel, 2000
In Conversation: Cheryl Dunye and Damon Young

A sweeping cinematic portrait of the Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas that “honor(s) queer memory with lyrical, defiant beauty” (Cheryl Dunye).

Series: Cheryl Dunye Selects!

The Films of Tomonari Nishikawa

Tomonari Nishikawa’s films are a thrilling cinematic dialogue between the places, spaces, and architecture he documented and the filmstock, cameras, and lenses he used to record. 

Series: Alternative Visions