Weekly posts include short notes on various cinematic topics, followed by the Now Showing in Madison guide to commercial theaters and alternative venues.

Is it just me, or is everyone noticing that there are impromptu film and video screenings popping up all over the place? Another informal series at a local restaurant just appeared in my social media feed. Along with the general increase in attendance in commercial theaters across this past summer, there’s something interesting going on with people choosing to get out of their house and watch films along with audiences.

Last weekend I attended Wendy Schneider’s screening of her Catfish Stephenson performance film at the Weary Traveller Free House (pictured above), and a screening of experimental films by Meggen Huess in the “Art Basement” (on Instagram, follow art_basement_madison). These types of screenings are not going to transform the film industry, but they are slowly impacting film culture.

DIY screenings are not just happening in Madison. Just yesterday the Chicago Reader published an interesting article, “Microcinemas and movie clubs are thriving in Chicago.”

“As more organizations wield the wonder of cinema, the classification of microcinema, or DIY theater, or film club, evolves and expands,” explains the article’s author, Cortlyn Kelly, “Any limitations in a space’s technical ability are outshone by the courage they exhibit in curating and hosting folks to collectively enjoy a movie.”

Stay tuned as more of these alternative screenings continue to pop up in Madison. I have to make a decision about how many to include in the weekly listings here (it would be a lot of work to try to include all of them). If there’s a regularly scheduled film series that you think Moving Image Madison readers should know about, pass along the info in the comments.

September Subscription Drive 2026

It’s my birthday today, September 3. It’s Rob Thomas’s birthday, too! Help us celebrate by subscribing to our Substack newsletters, both of which discuss films and film culture in Madison.

One-year paid subscriptions of Not That Rob Thomas are 30% off through September 15. And monthly or annual paid subscriptions of Moving Image Madison are 20% off through September 30.

If you can’t commit to a paid subscription at this time, help us spread the word by encouraging the film fans in your social circles to try a free subscription to see what they’re missing. Oh, and Happy Birthday, Rob!

Now Playing In Madison: September 3–10, 2026

Please confirm showtimes with the venues (follow venue links where provided). The commercial theaters update their weekend listings on Wednesdays. Another valuable source that posts on Wednesdays with now playing lists is The Horizon Line Madison. When possible, I will provide links to reviews by Rob Thomas at Not That Rob Thomas, who gets around to far more proper reviews than I do.

UW-Cinematheque

• ROSE OF NEVADA, 4070 Vilas Hall, Thursday, September 3, 7 p.m.

  • Mark Jenkin, UK, 2025, 114 min.

• AMERICAN JOB, 4070 Vilas Hall, Friday, September 4, 7 p.m.

  • Chris Smith, USA, 1996, 90 min.

• SERPENT’S PATH, 4070 Vilas Hall, Saturday, September 5, 7 p.m.

  • Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Japan, 1998, 85 min.

Highway 18 Outdoor Theater, Jefferson, Wisconsin

• Consult https://highway18.com/ for details.

Barrymore Theater

• STEAL THIS STORY, PLEASE!, Barrymore Theatre, Saturday, 9/5, 7:30pm.

  • Documentary about Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now! Screening presented by The Progressive and WORT-FM.

WUD Film

• PROJECT HAIL MARY, Union South Marquee Theater, Friday, 9/4, 7:00 P.M.

• PROJECT HAIL MARY, Union South Marquee Theater, Saturday, 9/5, 7:00 P.M.

Commercial Theaters: AMC / Flix / Palace / Point

We’re very close to a return to competency for the commercial theater listings. But there may be a few errors in the newsletter version of the list below. I will have an updated version posted to the web version by Friday morning. Thank you for your patience!

• AKIRA at AMC, Sep 4—5

  • Katsuhiro Otomo | Japan | 1988 | 124 min | Starring Mitsuo Iwata, Nozomu Sasaki, Mami Koyama

• AKIRA (4K RE-RELEASE) at Point, Sep 3—9

  • Katsuhiro Otomo | Japan | 2026 | 124 min | Starring Mitsuo Iwata, Nozomu Sasaki, Mami Koyama

• AMOK TIME + STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK 60TH ANNIVERSARY EVENT at AMC, Sep 6

  • Leonard Nimoy, Joseph Pevney | USA | 2026 | 155 min | Starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley

• ARMY OF DARKNESS at Flix, Sep 4—6

  • Sam Raimi | USA | 1993 | 81 min | Starring Bruce Campbell, Embeth Davidtz, Marcus Gilbert

• BETHLEHEM KUDUMBA UNIT at AMC, Sep 3

  • Jomy K. Joseph | India | 2026 | 157 min | Starring Saiju Kurup, Johny Antony, Grace Antony

• BUDDY at AMC, Point, Sep 3—8

  • Casper Kelly | United States of America / Israel | 2026 | 95 min | Starring Cristin Milioti, Delaney Quinn, Topher Grace

• BY ANY MEANS at AMC, Palace, Point, Sep 3—9

  • Elegance Bratton | United States of America | 2026 | 107 min | Starring Mark Wahlberg, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Nicole Beharie

• CARS at AMC, Palace, Sep 3—7

  • John Lasseter | USA | 2006 | 116 min | Starring Owen Wilson, Paul Newman, Bonnie Hunt

• CARS (20TH ANNIVERSARY) at Point, Sep 3—9

  • John Lasseter | USA | 2026 | 117 min | Starring Owen Wilson, Paul Newman, Bonnie Hunt

• COCOON - ONE SUMMER OF GIRLHOOD at AMC, Point, Sep 3—9

  • Yukimitsu Ina | Japan | 2026 | 60 min | Starring Marika Ito, Hikari Mitsushima, Yoko Hikasa

• COLONY at Point, Sep 4—9

  • Yeon Sang-ho | South Korea | 2026 | 123 min | Starring Gianna Jun, Koo Kyo-hwan, Ji Chang-wook

• COYOTE VS. ACME at AMC, Point, Sep 3—9

  • Dave Green | United States of America | 2026 | 103 min | Starring Will Forte, Lana Condor, John Cena

• THE DOG STARS at AMC, Point, Sep 3—9

  • Ridley Scott | United States of America | 2026 | 119 min | Starring Jacob Elordi, Margaret Qualley, Josh Brolin

• THE END OF OAK STREET at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point, Sep 3—9

  • David Robert Mitchell | USA | 2026 | 112 min | Starring Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor

• FALL 2: DEADPOINT at Palace, Point, Sep 3—9

  • Michael Spierig & Peter Spierig | United Kingdom / United States of America | 2026 | 98 min | Starring Harriet Slater, Arsema Thomas, Tom Brittney

• FINDING EMILY at AMC, Point, Sep 3—8

  • Alicia MacDonald | United Kingdom / United States of America | 2026 | 111 min | Starring Spike Fearn, Angourie Rice, Cora Kirk

• HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 2 at Point, Sep 3

  • David Yates | United Kingdom / United States of America | 2011 | 130 min | Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint

• HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER’S STONE at Flix, Sep 3—4

  • Chris Columbus | United Kingdom, United States | 2001 | 152 min | Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson

• HOPE at Point, Sep 9

  • Na Hong-jin | South Korea | 2026 | 157 min | Starring Hwang Jung-min, Zo In-sung, Hoyeon

• THE HUNGER GAMES at AMC, Flix, Point, Sep 3

  • Gary Ross | United States of America | 2012 | 142 min | Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth

• THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE at Point, Sep 4

  • Francis Lawrence | United States of America | 2013 | 146 min | Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth

• THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY - PART 1 at Point, Sep 5

  • Francis Lawrence | United States of America | 2014 | 123 min | Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth

• THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY - PART 2 at Flix, Point, Sep 5—7

  • Francis Lawrence | Germany / United States of America | 2015 | 137 min | Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth

• THE HUNGER GAMES: THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS & SNAKES at Flix, Point, Sep 7

  • Francis Lawrence | Germany / United States of America | 2023 | 157 min | Starring Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, Peter Dinklage

• IDIOTS at AMC, Sep 3

• INSIDIOUS: OUT OF THE FURTHER at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point, Sep 3—9

  • Jeremy Slater | USA | 2026 | 108 min | Starring Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Ty Simpkins

• IT ENDS WITH US at AMC, Palace, Point, Sep 3—9

  • Justin Baldoni | USA | 2024 | 130 min | Starring Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni, Brandon Sklenar

• THE MAGIC FARAWAY TREE at AMC, Point, Sep 3

  • Ben Gregor | UK / USA | 2026 | 108 min | Starring Andrew Garfield, Claire Foy, Nicola Coughlan

• MST3K: THE RIFFTRAX EXPERIMENTS - STING OF DEATH at Point, Sep 9

  • Michael J. Nelson | United States of America | 2026 | 100 min | Starring Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

• MUTINY at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point, Sep 3

  • Jean-François Richet | UK / USA | 2026 | 109 min | Starring Jason Statham, Annabelle Wallis, Jason Flemyng

• NACHO LIBRE at Flix, Sep 6, Sep 8

  • Jared Hess | USA | 2006 | 92 min | Starring Jack Black, Ana de la Reguera, Héctor Jiménez

• NEVER STOP CHASING at AMC, Sep 3

  • Reed Timmer | USA | 2026 | 98 min | Starring Reed Timmer, Dominator Storm Chasers Crew

• THE ODYSSEY at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point, Sep 3—9

  • Christopher Nolan | USA / UK | 2026 | 154 min | Starring Alexander Skarsgård, Charlize Theron, Dev Patel

• ONSLAUGHT at AMC, Sep 3—4

  • Adam Wingard | USA | 2026 | 92 min | Starring Adria Arjona, Dan Stevens, Drew Starkey

• PAW PATROL: THE DINO MOVIE at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point, Sep 3—9

  • Cal Brunker | USA / Canada | 2026 | 88 min | Starring Mckenna Grace, Taraji P. Henson, Christian Convery

• SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point, Sep 3—9

  • Destin Daniel Cretton | USA | 2026 | 138 min | Starring Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jacob Batalon

• STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN at Flix, Point, Sep 3, Sep 5

  • Nicholas Meyer | United States of America | 1982 | 113 min | Starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Ricardo Montalban

• STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK at Point, Sep 6

  • Leonard Nimoy | United States of America | 1984 | 105 min | Starring William Shatner, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan

• STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME at Point, Sep 7

  • Leonard Nimoy | United States of America | 1986 | 118 min | Starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley

• STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE at Point, Sep 4

  • Robert Wise | United States of America | 1979 | 131 min | Starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley

• THE SUN NEVER SETS at Point, Sep 3—8

  • Joe Swanberg | United States of America | 2026 | 102 min | Starring Dakota Fanning, Jake Johnson, Cory Michael Smith

• TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA

• TOM AND JERRY: FORBIDDEN COMPASS at Palace, Point, Sep 3—9

  • Zhang Gang | China | 2025 | 99 min | Starring John Shang, Ruan Yifei, Jiang Wen

• TONY at AMC, Sep 3

  • Matt Johnson | USA | 2026 | 114 min | Starring Dominic Sessa, Antonio Banderas

• TOXIC: A FAIRY TALE FOR GROWN-UPS at AMC, Sep 3

  • Geetu Mohandas | India | 2026 | 150 min | Starring Yash, Nayanthara, Kiara Advani

• TOY STORY 5 at AMC, Palace, Point, Sep 4—9

  • Andrew Stanton | USA | 2026 | 98 min | Starring Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack

• THE TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE at AMC, Sep 3

  • Nelson Shin | USA | 1986 | 85 min | Starring Peter Cullen, Judd Nelson, Leonard Nimoy

Have you used the Now Showing in Madison listings at least once to find something interesting to see? Have you discovered a film that you didn’t realize was playing in town? Please consider supporting these efforts directly by clicking the “Buy Me a Popcorn” button and making a modest donation on those occasions when you find this resource valuable to your moviegoing in Madison.

Buy Me a Popcorn

Looking Ahead:

Local filmmaker Michael Doyle Olson has started what he hopes to be a comprehensive, collaborative public calendar of alternative film screenings in Madison. It is still a work in progress, but check it out at www.mdo.me/film.

Side Room Cinematheque

• Second Thursday of the month, and last Monday of the month.

  • DM @sideroomcinematic (Instagram) for screening details.

Marquee Cinema, Union South, 1308 West Dayton Street

• THE UGLY LITTLE MONKEYS, Thursday, September 10, 6:00pm.

  • Documentary about Los Changuitos Feos de Tucson, a group of kids who grew up in the 1960s, in the working class barrios of Tucson, Arizona. Filmmakers David Valdez and Enrique Castillo will be in attendance. Free, reserve seats at Eventbrite page.

Cinesthesia at Madison Public Library Central Branch

• AFTER HOURS (Martin Scorsese, 1987), Wednesday, September 16, 6:30pm

Wisconsin 48hr Film Project Premieres, Badger Theater, 255 E Main St, Stoughton

• Saturday, September 26, starting at 10:00am. Details at the Wisconsin 48hr Film Project website.

Madison Film Festival

• Saturday, September 26, Bartell Theatre, 113 E. Mifflin Street. Details posted soon at the Madison Film Festival website.

Auricle New Music Series, Arts + Literature Laboratory

• FAUST (F.W. Murnau, Germany, 1926) with live accompaniment by ten thousand lakes, Sunday, October 11, 7:00pm at Arts + Literature Laboratory, 111 S. Livingston Street. More info and ticket link at artlitlab.org.

  

• Experience the film’s striking visuals with experimental sound in real time. ten thousand lakes (Peter Bruhn and Steven Larsen, Minneapolis) has created an original score for F.W. Murnau's visually sumptuous Faust in celebration of its 100th anniversary.

In this video I pick a few highlights in the UW-Cinematheque Fall 2026 schedule. There are really too many highlights this fall. But I thought I’d mention some of the titles that probably will not get as much attention as others, but I’m looking forward to seeing (if I can attend!).

Here are the titles I mention. You can read more about these and other films at the UW-Cinematheque website, cinema.wisc.edu. Most screenings are in 4070 Vilas Hall, 821 University Avenue, and admission is free.

• American Job, Friday, September 4, 7:00pm

• The Producers (6:00pm) and The Twelve Chairs (8:00pm), Saturday, September 19

• The History of Concrete, Thursday, October 1, 7:00pm

• Mikey and Nicky, Friday, October 2, 7:00pm

• Ishtar, Friday, October 9, 7:00pm

• Fjord, Thursday, October 15, 7:00pm

• Letty Lynton, Friday, October 16, 6:00pm (note early start, first of a double feature)

• Once Upon a Time in Harlem, Thursday, October 22, 7:00pm

• The Taste of Tea, Friday, October 23, 7:00pm

Obviously, I’ll have more to say about November and December! Meanwhile, here is the link to the Letty Lynton episode of The Extras TV YouTube Channel, which I mention in the video.

Weekly posts include short notes on various cinematic topics, followed by the Now Showing in Madison guide to commercial theaters and alternative venues.

An IndieWire headline posted this past Monday reads, “Indie Star Joe Swanberg Never Really Left—But He’s Definitely Back Now.”

Well, Madison probably hit “Peak Swanberg” in around 2014, but Swanberg is definitely back now in Madison for a UW-Cinematheque screening of his new feature, The Sun Never Sets, on Thursday, August 27, 7:00pm. The free screening, which will include a Q&A with Swanberg afterwards, kicks off the Ctek schedule for Fall 2026.

By “Peak Swanberg” I mean that there was a stretch between 2013 and 2014 where there were a lot of Joe Swanberg films in town. Based in Chicago, Swanberg visited Madison for the 2013 Wisconsin Film Festival with his film All the Light in the Sky. Then that October, the UW-Cinematheque and WUD Film co-presented a sneak preview of his next feature, Drinking Buddies. And his following feature, Happy Christmas, played the 2014 Wisconsin Film Festival.

Swanberg is often associated with the late 1990s early 2000s “mumblecore” films, even though most filmmakers associated with that term usually distance themselves from it. (That’s a story for another time.) I liked Swanberg’s 2007 feature Hannah Takes the Stairs, starring a young Gretta Gerwig, more than a lot of people did. Looking back at my 2014 Wisconsin Film Festival coverage in Madison Film Forum, I wrote:

Back in the days of Hannah Takes The Stairs and in the 15 minutes before filmmakers started distancing themselves from the term mumblecore, I found myself defending Joe Swanberg in many conversations. There’s no doubt that he has had an impact on American independent filmmaking both directly with his own diverse films and indirectly with Hannah‘s star Greta Gerwig crossing over into mainstream film roles.

The new IndieWire article touches on the fact that many of Swanberg’s colleagues in early films have moved on to more mainstream roles in the film industry, including Gerwig, Adam Wingard, Olivia Wilde, and Ti West. (One could add Anna Kendrick, Lena Dunham, and Melanie Lynskey had roles in Happy Christmas). But I have to admit I personally lost track of Swanberg after that “Peak Swanberg” year in Madison, possibly due to Swanberg fatigue (something I seemed to be suffering in that same Madison Film Forum coverage).

Much of Swanberg’s post-2015 work has been for Netflix, including three seasons of the series Easy (2016-2019) and the feature Win it All (2017). His new film screening at the Ctek on Thursday, The Sun Never Sets starring Dakota Fanning, marks his first feature since Win it All. But he has been busy in the interval, as outlined in the IndieWire article.

Personally, I’m not going to be able to make it to The Sun Never Sets, but it should be worth a look. Swanberg has always been a personable figure, both as an actor and when discussing his films. His films go down entertainingly smooth, in moderation, and I doubt that anyone going to the Cinematheque on Thursday is in danger of a recent overdose.

Now Playing In Madison: August 25–August 31, 2026

Please confirm showtimes with the venues (follow venue links where provided). The commercial theaters update their weekend listings on Wednesdays. Another valuable source that posts on Wednesdays with now playing lists is The Horizon Line Madison. When possible, I will provide links to reviews by Rob Thomas at Not That Rob Thomas, who gets around to far more proper reviews than I do.

Cinesthesia at Madison Public Library Central Branch

• WILD AT HEART (David Lynch, 1987), Wednesday, August 26, 6:30pm

UW-Cinematheque

• THE SUN NEVER SETS, 4070 Vilas Hall, Thursday, August 27, 7 p.m.

  • Joe Swanberg, USA, 2026, 102 min. Joe Swanberg will attend the screening.

• ALLEGRO NON TROPPO, 4070 Vilas Hall, Friday, August 28, 7 p.m.

  • Bruno Bozzeto, Italy, 1976, 75 min.

• SMORGASBORD (CRACKING UP), 4070 Vilas Hall, Saturday, August 29, 7 p.m.

  • Jerry Lewis, USA, 1983, 83 mins.

Highway 18 Outdoor Theater, Jefferson, Wisconsin

• All eight HARRY POTTER films are playing across Thursday, August 27 through Sunday, August 30. Consult https://highway18.com/ for details.

Side Show Premiere at Weary Traveller Free House, 1201 Williamson Street

• The “Side Show Premiere” of THE CATFISH STEPHENSON PERFORMANCE FILM will screen Friday, August 28, 8:00pm at the Weary Traveller Free House. Presented by Wendy Schneider and Coney Island Studios. You can find more information about the film and Catfish Stephenson more generally at the Facebook event page for the screening.

• Preview reel: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1933318580975495

Art Basement Madison

• Experimental films by Meggen Heuss, Saturday, August 29

  • Reception 7:00pm, Screening 8:00pm, with Q&A following.

  • DM @sideroomcinematic (Instagram) or @art_basement_madison (Instagram) for address.

WUD Film

• THE LEGO MOVIE, Union South Marquee Theater, Sunday, 8/30, 9:00 P.M.

Commercial Theaters: AMC / Flix / Palace / Point

Okay, folks, I’m still working on a new commercial theater title import system. It is not where it needs to be yet, but I’m looking forward to sharing more about it when it is a few steps closer to competent. Apologies in advance for theater and date errors below. But because of all the time I’m spending on it, I’ll have to skip comments on Indian films, interesting indies and odd faith-based releases this week.

• 2 BIG TO RIG at Palace, Point

• 40 YEARS OF F**IN’ UP at Point

• AMERICAN MARTYR: THE STANLEY ROTHER STORY at AMC, Palace, Point

• BRING IT ON at Flix, Aug 25

• THE BRINK OF WAR at AMC

• CASTLE IN THE SKY at AMC, Palace

• COYOTE VS. ACME

• THE DOG STARS

• THE END OF OAK STREET at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point

• THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS (25TH ANNIVERSARY) at AMC, Flix, Point, Aug 24—25

• FINDING EMILY

• GHOST: 2 BIG TO RIG at Palace, Point

• HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN at Flix, Aug 29

• HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER’S STONE at Flix, Aug 27—28, Aug 30

• HOT SPOT at AMC

• HOUSE OF WORSHIP at AMC, Palace, Point

• INSIDIOUS: OUT OF THE FURTHER at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point

• IRUMUDI at AMC

• THE MAGIC FARAWAY TREE at AMC

• MINIONS & MONSTERS at AMC

• MOANA at Palace, Aug 24—30

• MUTINY at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point

• NEVER STOP CHASING at AMC

• THE ODYSSEY at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point

• ONE NIGHT ONLY at AMC, Flix, Point

• PAW PATROL: THE DINO MOVIE at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point

• THE RIVALS OF AMZIAH KING at AMC, Point

• SIX: THE MUSICAL LIVE! at AMC, Palace, Point

• SPA WEEKEND at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point

• SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point

• TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA at AMC, Point

• TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY at Flix, Aug 29—30

• TONY at AMC, Flix

• TOXIC: A FAIRY TALE FOR GROWN-UPS at AMC, Point

• TOY STORY 5 at Palace, Point, Aug 24—30

• THE WRONG GIRLS at AMC, Point, Aug 24—30

Have you used the Now Showing in Madison listings at least once to find something interesting to see? Have you discovered a film that you didn’t realize was playing in town? Please consider supporting these efforts directly by clicking the “Buy Me a Popcorn” button and making a modest donation on those occasions when you find this resource valuable to your moviegoing in Madison.

Buy Me a Popcorn

Looking Ahead:

Local filmmaker Michael Doyle Olson has started what he hopes to be a comprehensive, collaborative public calendar of alternative film screenings in Madison. It is still a work in progress, but check it out at www.mdo.me/film.

Side Room Cinematheque

• Second Thursday of the month, and last Monday of the month.

  • DM @sideroomcinematic (Instagram) for screening details.

Marquee Cinema, Union South, 1308 West Dayton Street

• THE UGLY LITTLE MONKEYS, Thursday, September 10, 6:00pm.

  • Documentary about Los Changuitos Feos de Tucson, a group of kids who grew up in the 1960s, in the working class barrios of Tucson, Arizona. Filmmakers David Valdez and Enrique Castillo will be in attendance. Free, reserve seats at Eventbrite page.

Wisconsin 48hr Film Project Premieres, Badger Theater, 255 E Main St, Stoughton

• Saturday, September 26, starting at 10:00am. Details at the Wisconsin 48hr Film Project website.

Madison Film Festival

• Saturday, September 26, Bartell Theatre, 113 E. Mifflin Street. Details posted soon at the Madison Film Festival website.

Weekly posts include short notes on various cinematic topics, followed by the Now Showing in Madison guide to commercial theaters and alternative venues.

Tomorrow night at MMoCA’s Rooftop Cinema we will present the Soviet-era science fiction comedy Kin-dza-dza! directed by Georgian filmmaker Georgiy Daneliya in 1986. This should be a fun one: a construction foreman and a violinist in Moscow are suddenly teleported to the planet “Pluke” in the “Kin-dza-dza” galaxy. They discover that Plukanians are telepathic, and only have two spoken words in their vocabulary, “ku” and “kyu.” Comedy ensues, as they say, as the Earth men attempt to understand the Plukanian culture and find a way to get back home to Earth.

Sunset has been getting earlier through August, so the screening will start a little earlier than the past two weeks: 8:15pm at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, 227 State Street. Hope to see you there!

Moving Image Madison milestone, and upcoming changes

Moving Image Madison has finally reached 200 subscribers as of this week! The subscription rate had stalled and was stuck around 185 for a long time, but there has been a surge of interest thanks to promotion over at the Magic Pixel Guild Discord server.

There will be some small changes to the way I assemble Moving Image Madison posts, which will hopefully open up more time for me to write more and to make more videos. It has occurred to me during this year’s Rooftop Cinema series that I’ve been too busy to write very much about the films themselves. And while I’m proud of my role in providing information about screenings at different venues around town, writing about the films themselves brings me the joy that motivated me to start the newsletter in the first place.

I’m working on a new way to generate the list of films playing in the commercial theaters in town, and you’ll see my first experiment with the new workflow in this week’s Now Playing section. The transition to this new method will be a little rocky, so expect a few errors here and there as I fine tune the process.

This new method, essentially “vibe coding” a new app to generate the theater listings, might lead to the new app being available to paid subscribers, if I can work out all of the kinks and errors. Stay tuned!

UW-Cinematheque Fall 2026 Schedule announced

You can see what the UW-Cinematheque will be up to this Fall at their website, cinema.wisc.edu.

As mentioned last week, two programs that stand out for me is a 4-film series of films by Indian Telugu-language action filmmaker S.S. Rajamouli, in one weekend, November 13-15. And the Madison premiere of John Wilson’s documentary The History of Concrete, will be Thursday, October 1.

I plan to do a few short videos to go over some other highlights in the schedule. Stay tuned!

Oriental Theater in Milwaukee announces more 70mm screenings

The folks at the Oriental Theater in Milwaukee posted on their Facebook page: “Our audience members let us know loud and clear, they want to see more film on film. Well, we heard you and we couldn't be more excited to announce our first ever programming series entirely on 70mm!”

The series will run August 28 through September 4, and will include the films 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Master, West Side Story, Sinners, and Laurence of Arabia.

Details, including purchasing tickets online, can be found at the Milwaukee Film website.

Now Playing In Madison: August 19–August 24, 2026

Please confirm showtimes with the venues (follow venue links where provided). The commercial theaters update their weekend listings on Wednesdays. Another valuable source that posts on Wednesdays with now playing lists is The Horizon Line Madison. When possible, I will provide links to reviews by Rob Thomas at Not That Rob Thomas, who gets around to far more proper reviews than I do.

Comments here are not reviews of the films, they are usually a response to the trailer, a summary of the buzz I have heard, or just snark. They are not always particularly accurate, according to reader feedback. I add trailers to new films of interest that you might not know about (American indies, international features, etc.).

MMoCA Cinema, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art

• KIN-DZA-DZA (1986), Thursday, August 20, 8:30pm

  • See notes above.

Highway 18 Outdoor Theater, Jefferson, Wisconsin

Four Star Video at Lola’s Sidecar Lounge, 617 North Sherman Avenue

• THE LOVED ONE (1965), Wednesday, August 19, 7:00pm

WUD Film Lakeside Cinema

• ROBOCOP (1987), The Terrace @ Memorial Union, Monday, 8/24, 9:00 P.M.

  • Lakeside Cinema, Monday nights at the Memorial Union Terrace, wraps up its “Back to the 80’s” theme for August.

Commercial Theaters: AMC / Flix / Palace / Point

As noted above, I’m testing a new method for the commercial theater listings. The first sub-point, a plot synopsis, will always be automatically generated. If there is a second sub-point, that will be commentary from me (none this week, ran out of time). So you will always know what text is written by me. I know that there may be some blowback about auto-imported text, but using this method each film will have a short description for those who are unfamiliar with the titles.

While I’ll continue to add snarky remarks in the second sub-point, as time permits, in general I’ll be spending less time on original content in this section in favor of spending more time writing the rest of the newsletter.

Another new feature: opening and closing dates will be noted. This addition is very much in the experimental stage, and in some cases might be a day early or late in the listing, so please check theater websites to confirm whether a film is opening or closing.

Edit August 20: As mentioned in the email version of the newsletter, I continued to tinker with the new method for assembling the commercial theater movie title list. I’ve made some corrections and introduced some new features (director, country of origin, year of production, running time, and featured actors). I’ve kept Batwara 1947 in this list just to make sure it is included in any future analysis of what played in Madison in 2026.

• BATWARA 1947 at AMC, Aug 19

  • An epic historical drama recounting the turbulent events and human resilience during the 1947 partition, following divided families fighting to reunite. (Hindi with English Subtitles - Final Madison Screening Tonight).

• THE BRINK OF WAR at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point, Aug 20—24

  • Edward Berger | UK / Germany / USA | 2026 | 124mins | Starring George MacKay, Jesper Christensen, Mark Rylance A gripping historical diplomatic thriller chronicling the critical 48 hours of espionage and backroom negotiation that averted a catastrophic global conflict.

• CATVIDEOFEST 2026 at Flix, Point, Aug 20—23

  • Will Braden | USA | 2026 | 75mins | Starring Internet Cats Worldwide A joyous compilation of the latest, funniest, and most endearing cat videos from around the globe, raising funds for local Madison animal rescue shelters.

• DONNIE DARKO (25TH ANNIVERSARY) at Flix, Aug 20—23

  • Richard Kelly | USA | 2001 | 113mins | Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Drew Barrymore A troubled teenager is plagued by visions of a giant rabbit that manipulates him into committing crimes after he narrowly escapes a bizarre accident.

• THE END OF OAK STREET at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point, Aug 20—24

  • David Robert Mitchell | USA | 2026 | 112mins | Starring Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor A quiet suburban cul-de-sac begins uncovering long-buried secrets when an unexplained sinkhole opens on their street, unveiling remnants of an forgotten past.

• THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS 25TH ANNIVERSARY at AMC, Point, Aug 20

  • Rob Cohen | USA | 2026 | 106mins | Starring Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez Special 25th Anniversary nationwide re-release of the high-octane 2001 classic. An undercover LAPD officer infiltrates a tight-knit crew of street racers suspected of hijackings.

• HOT SPOT at AMC, Aug 20—24

  • Agnieszka Smoczyńska | Poland / USA / UK | 2026 | 110mins | Starring Noomi Rapace In a near-future climate-ravaged metropolis, a private investigator is hired to uncover the source of an untraceable, high-temperature anomaly spreading through city quarters.

• INSIDIOUS: OUT OF THE FURTHER at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point, Aug 20—24

  • Jeremy Slater | USA | 2026 | 108mins | Starring Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Ty Simpkins The Lambert family confronts the deepest, darkest corners of The Further as an ancient demonic entity threatens to breach reality permanently.

• IRUMUDI at AMC, Aug 21—24

  • Shiva Nirvana | India | 2026 | 155mins | Starring Sai Kumar, Raviteja, Priya Bhavani Shankar A deeply rooted emotional Telugu family drama set against the spiritual backdrop of Ayyappa Swamy, exploring the moving bond and journey between a devoted daughter and her father (Telugu with English Subtitles).

• KATSEYE: WILD HEARTS at AMC, Palace, Aug 20—24

  • Nadia Hallgren | USA / South Korea | 2026 | 95mins | Starring KATSEYE Members A high-energy concert documentary following the global sensation KATSEYE on their sold-out world tour, featuring exclusive backstage rehearsals and live performances.

• THE MAGIC FARAWAY TREE at AMC, Aug 20—24

  • Ben Gregor | UK / USA | 2026 | 108mins | Starring Andrew Garfield, Claire Foy, Nicola Coughlan Based on Enid Blyton’s classic children’s stories. When a modern family relocates to the countryside, three children discover a wondrous enchanted tree that leads to fantastical magical realms.

• MINIONS & MONSTERS at AMC, Palace, Point, Aug 20—24

  • Kyle Balda | USA | 2026 | 92mins | Starring Steve Carell, Pierre Coffin, Taraji P. Henson When an accidental lab experiment creates mystical miniature creatures, the Minions embark on a chaotic quest to save their supervillain lair.

• MOANA at AMC, Palace, Point, Aug 20—24

  • Thomas Kail | USA | 2026 | 115mins | Starring Catherine Laga’aia, Dwayne Johnson, John Tui An adventurous teenager sails out on a daring mission across the Pacific Ocean to save her people, fulfilling the ancient quest of her ancestors alongside the demigod Maui.

• MUTINY at Flix, Palace, Point, Aug 21—24

  • Jean-François Richet | UK / USA | 2026 | 109mins | Starring Jason Statham, Annabelle Wallis, Jason Flemyng After his billionaire industrialist boss is assassinated in front of him, an ex-special forces soldier is framed for the crime and must go on the run to expose a global conspiracy.

• NEVER STOP CHASING at AMC, Aug 20—24

  • Reed Timmer | USA | 2026 | 98mins | Starring Reed Timmer, Dominator Storm Chasers Crew An adrenaline-charged cinematic journey inside extreme weather phenomena, following meteorologist Reed Timmer and his crew into the heart of historic tornado outbreaks in custom armored intercept vehicles.

• NIMRODS at AMC, Aug 21—24

  • Lee Kirk | USA | 2026 | 99mins | Starring Simon Rex, Bria Vinaite, Caleb Landry Jones A group of hapless petty thieves in small-town Michigan devise an absurd heist scheme to steal a legendary collection of vintage snowmobiles.

• THE ODYSSEY at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point, Aug 20—24

  • Christopher Nolan | USA / UK | 2026 | 154mins | Starring Alexander Skarsgård, Charlize Theron, Dev Patel A grand, visual epic recounting Odysseus’ ten-year journey home after the fall of Troy, battling mythological beasts and the wrath of sea gods.

• ONE NIGHT ONLY at AMC, Flix, Point, Aug 20—24

  • Two estranged high school sweethearts reunite spontaneously in Chicago for one unforgettable, chaotic evening before life pulls them in opposite directions.

• PAW PATROL: THE DINO MOVIE at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point, Aug 20—24

  • Cal Brunker | USA / Canada | 2026 | 88mins | Starring Mckenna Grace, Taraji P. Henson, Christian Convery When an uncharted prehistoric portal opens in Adventure City, Ryder and the PAW Patrol team up with dinosaur allies to protect the city from volcanic eruption and Mayor Humdinger.

• POINT BREAK (35TH ANNIVERSARY) at Flix, Point, Aug 21

  • Kathryn Bigelow | USA | 1991 | 122mins | Starring Keanu Reeves, Patrick Swayze, Gary Busey An idealistic FBI agent goes undercover in Southern California to catch a gang of adrenaline-seeking bank robbers who may be surfers.

• THE RIVALS OF AMZIAH KING at AMC, Palace, Point, Aug 21—24

  • Andrew Patterson | USA | 2026 | 118mins | Starring Matthew McConaughey, Kurt Russell, Cole Sprouse In rural Oklahoma, a charismatic mentor guides a teenage protégé while shielding their community from a ruthless criminal syndicate.

• SIX: THE MUSICAL LIVE! at AMC, Palace, Point, Aug 20—24

  • Lucy Moss, Jamie Armitage | UK | 2026 | 85mins | Starring Original Broadway Cast The six wives of Henry VIII take to the mic to tell their stories, remixing five hundred years of historical heartbreak into a euphoric celebration of 21st-century girl power.

• SPA WEEKEND at AMC, Flix, Aug 20—24

  • Three childhood best friends embark on what was supposed to be a relaxing luxury wellness retreat, but their weekend quickly derails into hilarious mayhem when uninvited drama and old rivalries surface.

• SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point, Aug 20—24

  • Destin Daniel Cretton | USA | 2026 | 138mins | Starring Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jacob Batalon Peter Parker navigates college life in New York while rebuilding his heroic identity from the ground up, forced to team with unexpected allies when a syndicate takes control of Manhattan.

• SUPER TROOPERS 3 at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point, Aug 20—24

  • Jay Chandrasekhar | USA | 2026 | 102mins | Starring Jay Chandrasekhar, Paul Soter, Steve Lemme The Vermont state troopers are back and assigned to special border security duties where high jinks and syrup-chugging rivalries reach hilarious new heights.

• TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA at AMC, Point, Aug 20—24

  • Jane Schoenbrun | USA | 2026 | 88mins | Starring Justice Smith, Brigette Lundy-Paine, Helena Howard A wildly irreverent, blood-soaked satire of 1980s summer camp slasher films, following clueless teenage counselors navigating hormonal chaos and an elusive masked maniac.

• TONY at AMC, Aug 20—24

  • Matt Johnson | USA | 2026 | 114mins | Starring Dominic Sessa, Antonio Banderas A compelling biographical drama recounting the formative youth of Anthony Bourdain during a chaotic, high-pressure summer working the line at a seafood kitchen in Provincetown.

• TOY STORY 5 at AMC, Palace, Point, Aug 20—24

  • Andrew Stanton | USA | 2026 | 98mins | Starring Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack Woody, Buzz, and the gang confront the ultimate modern playtime challenge when electronics and tablets capture the attention of kids everywhere.

• TRAIN TO BUSAN (10TH ANNIVERSARY RE-RELEASE) at AMC, Aug 20—23

  • Yeon Sang-ho | South Korea | 2016 | 118mins | Starring Gong Yoo, Ma Dong-seok, Jung Yu-mi While a zombie virus breaks out in South Korea, passengers on a high-speed train from Seoul to Busan struggle to survive the harrowing journey.

• WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER (25TH ANNIVERSARY) at AMC, Flix, Point, Aug 20—24

  • David Wain | USA | 2001 | 97mins | Starring Janeane Garofalo, David Hyde Pierce, Michael Showalter On the last day of summer camp in 1981, a group of counselors try to complete their unfinished business before packing up and heading home.

• THE WRONG GIRLS at AMC, Point, Aug 20—24

  • Dylan Meyer | USA | 2026 | 106mins | Starring Kristen Stewart, Alia Shawkat Three longtime friends on a bachelorette weekend in Lake Geneva accidentally witness a cartel payoff and are forced to use their wits and suburban skills to survive.

• YOUR NAME. (KIMI NO NA WA.) at AMC, Point, Aug 20—23

  • Makoto Shinkai | Japan | 2016 | 106mins | Starring Ryunosuke Kamiki, Mone Kamishiraishi Two teenagers share a profound, magical connection upon discovering they are swapping bodies across space and time.

Have you used the Now Showing in Madison listings at least once to find something interesting to see? Have you discovered a film that you didn’t realize was playing in town? Please consider supporting these efforts directly by clicking the “Buy Me a Popcorn” button and making a modest donation on those occasions when you find this resource valuable to your moviegoing in Madison.

Buy Me a Popcorn

Looking Ahead:

Local filmmaker Michael Doyle Olson has started what he hopes to be a comprehensive, collaborative public calendar of alternative film screenings in Madison. It is still a work in progress, but check it out at www.mdo.me/film.

Side Room Cinematheque

• Second Thursday of the month, and last Monday of the month.

  • DM @sideroomcinematic (Instagram) for screening details.

Art Basement Madison

• Experimental films by Meggen Heuss, Saturday, August 29

  • Reception 7:00pm, Screening 8:00pm, with Q&A following.

  • DM @sideroomcinematic (Instagram) or @art_basement_madison (Instagram) for address.

Cinesthesia at Madison Public Library Central Branch

• WILD AT HEART (David Lynch, 1987), Wednesday, August 26, 6:30pm

Side Show Premiere at Weary Traveller Free House, 1201 Williamson Street

• The “Side Show Premiere” of THE CATFISH STEPHENSON PERFORMANCE FILM will screen Friday, August 28, 8:00pm at the Weary Traveller Free House. Presented by Wendy Schneider and Coney Island Studios. You can find more information about the film and Catfish Stephenson more generally at the Facebook event page for the screening.

• Preview reel: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1933318580975495

Marquee Cinema, Union South, 1308 West Dayton Street

• THE UGLY LITTLE MONKEYS, Thursday, September 10, 6:00pm.

  • Documentary about Los Changuitos Feos de Tucson, a group of kids who grew up in the 1960s, in the working class barrios of Tucson, Arizona. Filmmakers David Valdez and Enrique Castillo will be in attendance. Free, reserve seats at Eventbrite page.

Wisconsin 48hr Film Project Premieres, Badger Theater, 255 E Main St, Stoughton

• Saturday, September 26, starting at 10:00am. Details at the Wisconsin 48hr Film Project website.

Weekly posts include short notes on various cinematic topics, followed by the Now Showing in Madison guide to commercial theaters and alternative venues.

There seem to be new events popping up all over the place, including some screenings that I have mentioned earlier that have been rescheduled. Unfortunately, I only have time to list them, without saying enough about them to get you to check them out!

Tonight at MMoCA’s Rooftop Cinema we will present Canadian experimental feature film Gangsterism, which was the closing night film at the most recent Onion City Experimental Film Festival in Chicago. The only question, as I type this Thursday afternoon, is whether the weather will force us to move the screening indoors. Either way, things will start at 8:30pm at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, 227 State Street. Again, you can read Grant Phipps’s comments on Gansterism in his overview of Rooftop Cinema at Isthmus.

Also going on tonight: Side Room Cinematheque presents “Works by Janicza Bravo: A Shortfilm, A Feature, and A Television Pilot” at 9:00pm, at the Aftershock Vintage Arcade (in the “side room,”) 1444 E Washington Ave.

Wisconsin 48hr Film Project and Madison Film Festival

Wisconsin 48hr Film Project has set the entry deadline for their September filming weekend, films from which will be showcased at the Badger Theater in Stoughton.

• Early Bird Deadline: Tuesday, August 18

• Regular Deadline: Friday, September 11

• Filming weekend: September 11-13

• World Premieres: Saturday, September 26, starting at 10:00am, Badger Theater, 255 E Main St, Stoughton.

Learn the details at the Wisconsin 48hr Film Project website.

The date for this year’s Madison Film Festival is unfortunately the same Saturday as the Wisconsin 48hr Film Project Premieres! The Madison Film Festival will take place at the Bartell Theater, with awards going to categories including: Best Animated Film; Best Narrative Short Film; Best Documentary Short Film; Best Student Film; Best Screenplay; Best Wisconsin Film; Best Poster. More information (and updates as the Festival approaches) at the Madison Film Festival website.

Two rescheduled screenings: Cinesthesia and Catfish Stephenson

• The Madison Public Library Cinesthesia Series screening of WILD AT HEART (1990), directed by David Lynch, has been rescheduled for Tuesday, August 26, MPL Central Branch, 6:30pm.

• The “Side Show Premiere” of THE CATFISH STEPHENSON PERFORMANCE FILM has been rescheduled for Friday, August 28, 8:00pm at the Weary Traveller Free House,1201 Williamson St. You can find more information about the film and Catfish Stephenson more generally at the Facebook event page for the screening.

Lea Jacobs discusses her book about director John Ford at University Place, PBS Wisconsin

An interview with film scholar Lea Jacobs, discussing her book John Ford at Work: Production Histories 1927–1939 (Indiana University Press, 2025) will air on the PBS Wisconsin series University Place on September 30. But there’s no need to wait that long! You can watch and listen right now at the PBS Wisconsin website.

UW-Cinematheque Fall 2026 Schedule announced

And talk about burying the lead! You can see what the UW-Cinematheque will be up to this Fall at their website, cinema.wisc.edu.

Too many highlights to go over right now, but two that stand out for me is a 4-film series of films by Indian Telugu-language action filmmaker S.S. Rajamouli, in one weekend, November 13-15. And the Madison premiere of John Wilson’s documentary The History of Concrete, Thursday, October 1.

Now Playing In Madison: August 5–August 10, 2026

Please confirm showtimes with the venues (follow venue links where provided). The commercial theaters update their weekend listings on Wednesdays. Another valuable source that posts on Wednesdays with now playing lists is The Horizon Line Madison. When possible, I will provide links to reviews by Rob Thomas at Not That Rob Thomas, who gets around to far more proper reviews than I do.

Comments here are not reviews of the films, they are usually a response to the trailer, a summary of the buzz I have heard, or just snark. They are not always particularly accurate, according to reader feedback. I add trailers to new films of interest that you might not know about (American indies, international features, etc.).

MMoCA Cinema, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art

• GANGSTERISM (2025), Thursday, August 13, 8:30pm

  • See notes above.

Highway 18 Outdoor Theater, Jefferson, Wisconsin

WUD Film Lakeside Cinema

• LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (1986), The Terrace @ Memorial Union, Monday, 8/17, 9:00 P.M.

• Lakeside Cinema, Monday nights at the Memorial Union Terrace returns with monthly themes: “Back to the 80’s” (August).

Commercial Theaters:
AMC Theatres
Flix Brewhouse
Marcus Theatres (Palace and Point)

Please confirm showtimes with the venues (follow venue links where provided). The commercial theaters update their weekend listings on Wednesdays. Another valuable source that posts on Wednesdays with now playing lists is The Horizon Line Madison. When possible, I will provide links to reviews by Rob Thomas at Not That Rob Thomas, who gets around to far more proper reviews than I do.

Comments here are not reviews of the films, they are usually a response to the trailer, a summary of the buzz I have heard, or just snark. They are not always particularly accurate, according to reader feedback. I add trailers to new films of interest that you might not know about (American indies, international features, etc.).

• AUGUST CRUNCHYROLL ANIME NIGHTS - YOUR LETTER (2026) at AMC, Point.

• BATWARA 1947 at AMC

• BRINK OF WAR, THE (2026) at AMC, Point, Palace, Flix.

• CATVIDEOFEST at Flix.

• COOKIE QUEENS (2026) at AMC, Point.

• DC (2026) at AMC.

• EAST OF EDEN (1955) at AMC.

• ELIJAH PEEL (2026) at Point.

• END OF OAK STREET, THE (2026) at AMC, Point, Palace, Flix.

• HADESTOWN: THE MUSICAL (2026) at AMC, Point.

• I WANT YOUR SEX (2026) at AMC.

• ICE CREAM MAN (2026) at AMC, Point.

• IMAX SPACE STATION 3D at AMC.

• KATSEYE: WILD HEARTS (2026) at AMC, Point, Palace.

• MINIONS & MONSTERS (2026) at AMC, Point, Palace.

• MOANA (2026) at AMC, Point, Palace.

• MUPPET MOVIE, THE at Point.

• MUPPET TREASURE ISLAND at AMC.

• NIMRODS (2026) at AMC.

• ODYSSEY, THE (2026) at AMC, Point, Palace, Flix.

• ONE NIGHT ONLY (2026) at AMC, Point, Palace, Flix.

• PAW PATROL: THE DINO MOVIE (2026) at AMC, Point, Palace, Flix.

• POINT BREAK 35TH ANNIVERSARY (2026) at AMC, Point, Flix.

• RIVALS OF AMZIAH KING, THE (2026) at AMC, Point.

• SHE’S THE MAN at Flix.

• SHEEP IN THE BOX (2026) at AMC, Point.

• SIX: THE MUSICAL LIVE! (2026) at AMC, Point, Palace.

• SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY (2026) at AMC, Point, Palace, Flix.

• SUPER TROOPERS 3 (2026) at AMC, Point, Palace, Flix.

• TOY STORY 5 (2026) at AMC, Point, Palace, Flix.

• TRAIN TO BUSAN - 10TH ANNIVERSARY REMASTERED & REVIVED (2026) at AMC.

• UECK (2026) at Point.

• VISHWANATH AND SONS (2026) at Point.

• WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER: 25TH ANNIVERSARY (2026) at AMC, Point, Flix.

• WRONG GIRLS, THE (2026) at AMC, Point.

• YOUR NAME. 10TH ANNIVERSARY (2026) at AMC, Point.

Have you used the Now Showing in Madison listings at least once to find something interesting to see? Have you discovered a film that you didn’t realize was playing in town? Please consider supporting these efforts directly by clicking the “Buy Me a Popcorn” button and making a modest donation on those occasions when you find this resource valuable to your moviegoing in Madison.

Buy Me a Popcorn

Looking Ahead:

Local filmmaker Michael Doyle Olson has started what he hopes to be a comprehensive, collaborative public calendar of alternative film screenings in Madison. It is still a work in progress, but check it out at www.mdo.me/film.

MMoCA Cinema, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art

• Screenings begin about 20 minutes after sunset.

• KIN DZA-DZA!, Thursday, August 20

Side Room Cinematheque

• Second Thursday of the month, and last Monday of the month.

• DM @sideroomcinematic (Instagram) for screening details.

Cinesthesia at Madison Public Library Central Branch

• WILD AT HEART (David Lynch, 1987), Wednesday, August 26, 6:30pm

Four Star Video at Lola’s Sidecar Lounge, 617 North Sherman Avenue

• THE LOVED ONE (1965), Wednesday, August 19, 7:00pm

Marquee Cinema, Union South, 1308 West Dayton Street

• THE UGLY LITTLE MONKEYS, Thursday, September 10, 6:00pm.

• Documentary about Los Changuitos Feos de Tucson, a group of kids who grew up in the 1960s, in the working class barrios of Tucson, Arizona. Filmmakers David Valdez and Enrique Castillo will be in attendance. Free, reserve seats at Eventbrite page.

Weekly posts include short notes on various cinematic topics, followed by the Now Showing in Madison guide to commercial theaters and alternative venues.

Only time for a few notes about recent programs and what is coming up!

Tomorrow night at MMoCA’s Rooftop Cinema we will present America: Everything You’ve Ever Dreamed Of, a program of short documentaries produced for the 1970s public television by filmmakers Tony Ganz and Rhody Streeter. Everything starts when the sun goes down, about 20 minutes after sunset, so approximately 8:30pm, at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, 227 State Street.

In his overview of the program in Isthmus, Grant Phipps writes, “Ganz and Streeter observe our nation’s contradictions with aplomb. . .They depict a regressive America and drive home how the country became primed for Ronald Reagan by the end of the decade. A few declarations by interviewees are as brazenly, bizarrely funny as they are troubling.” Read Grant’s full overview of the remaining Rooftop Cinema series online or in tomorrow’s print edition of Isthmus.

Other Recent Projects and Wanderings

I’ve been so busy that I failed to post a link to the July 17 episode of The Oscar Project Podcast, hosted by Jonathan Ytreberg. The premise of the podcast is to discuss all of the films nominated for an Academy Award in a given year, and Jonathan is currently working his way through 1931. So he and I discuss the documentary-ish (essentially a fictional narrative with documentary aspirations): Tabu: A Story of the South Seas co-directed by F.W. Murnau and Robert Flaherty.

The Project Projection screening at Mills Folly Microcinema last week went very well last week! Here are a few pictures from the Q & A afterwards.

And finally, I went to check out the installation and performance by Liz Sexe Dance, Through the Keyhole and the Storm last Saturday at Commonwealth Gallery. It was great. And I had a chance to document one of the small keyhole video loops on display.

Now Playing In Madison: August 5–August 10, 2026

Please confirm showtimes with the venues (follow venue links where provided). The commercial theaters update their weekend listings on Wednesdays. Another valuable source that posts on Wednesdays with now playing lists is The Horizon Line Madison. When possible, I will provide links to reviews by Rob Thomas at Not That Rob Thomas, who gets around to far more proper reviews than I do.

Comments here are not reviews of the films, they are usually a response to the trailer, a summary of the buzz I have heard, or just snark. They are not always particularly accurate, according to reader feedback. I add trailers to new films of interest that you might not know about (American indies, international features, etc.).

MMoCA Cinema, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art

• AMERICA: EVERYTHING YOU’VE EVER DREAMED OF (1971-1973), Thursday, August 6

  • See notes above.

Highway 18 Outdoor Theater, Jefferson, Wisconsin

WUD Film Lakeside Cinema

• THE PRINCESS BRIDE (1987), The Terrace @ Memorial Union, Monday, 8/10, 9:00 P.M.

• Lakeside Cinema, Monday nights at the Memorial Union Terrace returns with monthly themes: “Back to the 80’s” (August).

Commercial Theaters:
AMC Theatres
Flix Brewhouse
Marcus Theatres (Palace and Point)

Please confirm showtimes with the venues (follow venue links where provided). The commercial theaters update their weekend listings on Wednesdays. Another valuable source that posts on Wednesdays with now playing lists is The Horizon Line Madison. When possible, I will provide links to reviews by Rob Thomas at Not That Rob Thomas, who gets around to far more proper reviews than I do.

Comments here are not reviews of the films, they are usually a response to the trailer, a summary of the buzz I have heard, or just snark. They are not always particularly accurate, according to reader feedback. I add trailers to new films of interest that you might not know about (American indies, international features, etc.).

• AIDA: MET SUMMER ENCORE 2026 at Point.

• AMC SCREEN UNSEEN: AUGUST 10 at AMC.

• ATEEZ : LIGHT THE WAY IN CINEMAS (2026) at Palace.

• CATVIDEOFEST at Flix.

• COOKIE QUEENS (2026) at AMC and Point.

• DC (2026) at AMC.

• DCI 2026: BIG, LOUD & LIVE at Palace and Point.

• GRATEFUL DEAD MEET-UP AT THE MOVIES 2026 at AMC and Point.

• HADESTOWN: THE MUSICAL (2026) at AMC, Palace, and Point.

• HER PRIVATE HELL (2026) at Flix.

• I WANT YOUR SEX (2026) at AMC and Point.

• ICE CREAM MAN (2026) at AMC and Point.

• INVITE (2026), THE at AMC and Flix.

• MINIONS & MONSTERS (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, and Point.

• MOANA (2026) at AMC, Palace, and Point.

• MOTOR CITY (2026) at AMC and Point.

• MUPPET MOVIE, THE at Palace and Point.

• MUPPET TREASURE ISLAND at AMC.

• NATIONAL LAMPOON’S ANIMAL HOUSE at Flix.

• ODYSSEY (2026), THE at AMC, Flix, Palace, and Point.

• ONE NIGHT ONLY (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, and Point.

• ONLY YESTERDAY 35TH ANNIVERSARY - STUDIO GHIBLI FEST 2026 at AMC, Palace, and Point.

• PANDAS at AMC.

• PAW PATROL: THE DINO MOVIE - EARLY ACCESS MY FIRST MOVIE (2026) at AMC, Palace, and Point.

• SCHOOL OF ROCK at Flix.

• SECRET FLIX at Flix.

• SESAME STREET PRESENTS: FOLLOW THAT BIRD at Palace and Point.

• SHEEP IN THE BOX (2026) at AMC and Point.

• SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, and Point.

• SPONGEBOB MOVIE: SEARCH FOR SQUAREPANTS (2025), THE at AMC.

• SUPER TROOPERS 3 (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, and Point.

• SUPER TROOPERS 3: SPECIAL BROKEN LIZARD FAN EVENT Q&A (2026) at Palace and Point.

• TALES FROM EARTHSEA 20TH ANNIVERSARY - STUDIO GHIBLI FEST 2026 at AMC, Palace, and Point.

• TOY STORY 5 (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, and Point.

• UECK (2026) at Palace and Point.

• WILLY WONKA & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY 55TH ANNIVERSARY at Flix, Palace, and Point.

Have you used the Now Showing in Madison listings at least once to find something interesting to see? Have you discovered a film that you didn’t realize was playing in town? Please consider supporting these efforts directly by clicking the “Buy Me a Popcorn” button and making a modest donation on those occasions when you find this resource valuable to your moviegoing in Madison.

Buy Me a Popcorn

Looking Ahead:

Local filmmaker Michael Doyle Olson has started what he hopes to be a comprehensive, collaborative public calendar of alternative film screenings in Madison. It is still a work in progress, but check it out at www.mdo.me/film.

MMoCA Cinema, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art

• Screenings begin about 20 minutes after sunset.

• GANGSTERISM (2025), Thursday, August 13

• KIN DZA-DZA!, Thursday, August 20

Side Room Cinematheque

• Second Thursday of the month, and last Monday of the month.

• DM @sideroomcinematic (Instagram) for screening details.

Cinesthesia at Madison Public Library Central Branch

• WILD AT HEART (David Lynch, 1987), Tuesday, August 19, 6:30pm

Four Star Video at Lola’s Sidecar Lounge, 617 North Sherman Avenue

• THE LOVED ONE (1965), Tuesday, August 19, 7:00pm

Marquee Cinema, Union South, 1308 West Dayton Street

• THE UGLY LITTLE MONKEYS, Thursday, September 10, 6:00pm.

• Documentary about Los Changuitos Feos de Tucson, a group of kids who grew up in the 1960s, in the working class barrios of Tucson, Arizona. Filmmakers David Valdez and Enrique Castillo will be in attendance. Free, reserve seats at Eventbrite page.

Weekly posts include short notes on various cinematic topics, followed by the Now Showing in Madison guide to commercial theaters and alternative venues.

I have an extra busy week this week, with two screenings that I’m still working on preparations for: Mills Folly Microcinema’s Project Projection tomorrow night at Arts + Literature Laboratory, 7:00pm, and the first Rooftop Cinema screening of this season at Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Thursday night, after the sun goes down. So this will have to be another minimalist edition of Moving Image Madison, with a barebones Now Playing listing.

One thing I do want to take a moment to acknowledge, however, is that this week is the eighth anniversary of the first Mills Folly Microcinema screening, which was also the first Project Projection screening. Eight years! Even my newer projects are getting old. I must be getting old.

In addition to the screenings I’m involved in, there are some other events by local filmmakers and artists that should be on your radar. Late this afternoon, the Cut the Deck Creative folks are screening some short docs at Gibs at 5:00pm (1380 Williamson Street). [Update 3pm: This screening has been canceled out of respect for current protests to the killing of Corey Ruiz.] And Thursday through Saturday, Liz Sexe Dance will present an installation and performances, Through the Keyhole and the Storm, at Commonwealth Gallery (1501 Williamson Street).

Okay, back to work for me . . . I hope to see some of you this week!

Now Playing In Madison: July 28–August 3, 2026

Please confirm showtimes with the venues (follow venue links where provided). The commercial theaters update their weekend listings on Wednesdays. Another valuable source that posts on Wednesdays with now playing lists is The Horizon Line Madison. When possible, I will provide links to reviews by Rob Thomas at Not That Rob Thomas, who gets around to far more proper reviews than I do.

Comments here are not reviews of the films, they are usually a response to the trailer, a summary of the buzz I have heard, or just snark. They are not always particularly accurate, according to reader feedback. I add trailers to new films of interest that you might not know about (American indies, international features, etc.).

Our Parks on the Big Screen, Gibs, Tuesday, July 28, 5:00pm

• The folks over at Cut the Deck Creative, Corey Holl and David Guenther, have been busy these days. They will present a screening of six independent short films on the them of natural beauty and parks of the midwest at Gibs (1380 Williamson Street), for the benefit of the Madison Parks Foundation and their current production, The Park People.

• Update 7/28: This screening has been canceled out of respect for current protests to the killing of Corey Ruiz.

Mills Folly Microcinema at Arts + Literature Laboratory

• PROJECT PROJECTION, local film and video showcase, Wednesday, July 29, 7:00pm. The featured filmmakers are: Jane Lowy, Steve Chappell, Gretta Wing Miller, Christopher Bennett, Fatemeh Fani, Meggen Heuss, Ezra Ewen, Keasion Griffin, Alex Jacobs, Emmy Hannibal, Heidi E. Johnson, Litza Bixler & Aaron Granat, and Emmalee Pearson. Read about all of the films, including experimental films, short docs, animation, and music videos, at the Arts + Literature Laboratory website.

MMoCA Cinema, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art

• GIRL INTERNET SHOW: A KATI KELLI MIXTAPE (2013-2019), Thursday, July 30. Screenings begin about 20 minutes after sunset.

Commonwealth Gallery, 100 South Baldwin Street.

• THROUGH THE KEYHOLE AND THE STORM, July 30–August 1

  • “It is not often performance and film allow for such a full immersion of the audience, and it is something Liz Sexe Dance enjoys crafting and sharing with the community. Through the Keyhole and the Storm will bring together dance and film through an immersive gallery performance taking place at the Commonwealth Gallery. Each night from Thursday, July 30, through Saturday, August 1, the gallery will be open from 6:30-9:00 p.m. for people to explore the environments of a room filled with keyholes and the room of plastic. At 7:30 p.m. each night a performance will erupt with a storm.” (Description by organizers.)

Highway 18 Outdoor Theater, Jefferson, Wisconsin

WUD Film Lakeside Cinema

• BACK TO THE FUTURE (1985), The Terrace @ Memorial Union, Monday, 8/3, 9:00 P.M.

• Lakeside Cinema, Monday nights at the Memorial Union Terrace returns with monthly themes: “Sports” (June), “Under the Lake,” (July), “Back to the 80’s” (August).

Commercial Theaters:
AMC Theatres
Flix Brewhouse
Marcus Theatres (Palace and Point)

Please confirm showtimes with the venues (follow venue links where provided). The commercial theaters update their weekend listings on Wednesdays. Another valuable source that posts on Wednesdays with now playing lists is The Horizon Line Madison. When possible, I will provide links to reviews by Rob Thomas at Not That Rob Thomas, who gets around to far more proper reviews than I do.

Comments here are not reviews of the films, they are usually a response to the trailer, a summary of the buzz I have heard, or just snark. They are not always particularly accurate, according to reader feedback. I add trailers to new films of interest that you might not know about (American indies, international features, etc.).

Here is the updated and corrected list of all films playing between July 28 and August 3, double-checked for missing titles and proper theater locations:

• ABOVE AND BELOW at AMC.

• AMC SCREAM UNSEEN: AUGUST 3 at AMC.

• BACKROOMS: EVERYTHING MUST GO EDITION W/ BONUS FOOTAGE (2026) at AMC, Point.

• BAD GUYS 2 (2025), THE at AMC.

• CHENNAI LOVE STORY (2026) at AMC.

• CURIOUS GEORGE at Palace, Point.

• DISCLOSURE DAY (2026) at AMC, Palace, Point.

• EVIL DEAD BURN (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• FIFTH ELEMENT (2026), THE at Flix.

• HADESTOWN: THE MUSICAL (2026) at AMC, Palace, Point.

• HER PRIVATE HELL (2026) at AMC, Flix, Point.

• I WANT YOUR SEX (2026) at AMC, Point.

• INVITE (2026), THE at AMC, Flix.

• JANA NAYAGAN (2026) at AMC.

• JOURNEY TO THE SOUTH PACIFIC: AN IMAX 3D EXPERIENCE at AMC.

• MARCUS MYSTERY MOVIE at Palace, Point.

• MINIONS & MONSTERS (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• MOANA (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• MOTOR CITY (2026) at AMC, Point.

• OBSESSION (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace.

• ODYSSEY (2026), THE at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• PINOCCHIO UNSTRUNG (2026) at AMC, Point.

• RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981) at Flix.

• READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN (2026) at AMC.

• SESAME STREET PRESENTS: FOLLOW THAT BIRD at Palace, Point.

• SONIC THE HEDGEHOG (2020) at Flix.

• SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY AMAZON PRIME EARLY ACCESS SCREENINGS (2026) at AMC, Palace, Point.

• SPONGEBOB MOVIE: SEARCH FOR SQUAREPANTS (2025), THE at AMC.

• TOY STORY 5 (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• UECK (2026) at Palace, Point.

• WHAM! 10 DAYS IN CHINA (2026) at Point.

• WILLY WONKA & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY 55TH ANNIVERSARY at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• YOUNG WASHINGTON (2026) at AMC

Have you used the Now Showing in Madison listings at least once to find something interesting to see? Have you discovered a film that you didn’t realize was playing in town? Please consider supporting these efforts directly by clicking the “Buy Me a Popcorn” button and making a modest donation on those occasions when you find this resource valuable to your moviegoing in Madison.

Buy Me a Popcorn

Looking Ahead:

Local filmmaker Michael Doyle Olson has started what he hopes to be a comprehensive, collaborative public calendar of alternative film screenings in Madison. It is still a work in progress, but check it out at www.mdo.me/film.

MMoCA Cinema, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art

• Screenings begin about 20 minutes after sunset.

• AMERICA: EVERYTHING YOU’VE EVER DREAMED OF (1971-1973), Thursday, August 6

• GANGSTERISM (2025), Thursday, August 13

• KIN DZA-DZA!, Thursday, August 20

Side Room Cinematheque

• Second Thursday of the month, and last Monday of the month.

• Works by Janicza Bravo: A Shortfilm, A Feature, and A Television Pilot, Thursday, August 13, 9:00pm

• DM @sideroomcinematic (Instagram) for screening details.

Cinesthesia at Madison Public Library Central Branch

• WILD AT HEART (David Lynch, 1987), Tuesday, August 19, 6:30pm

Coney Island Side Show, Weary Traveller, 1202 Williamson Street

• “Patio premiere” of The Coney Island Side Show: Catfish Stephenson, which documents a performance by local musician Catfish Stephenson. Thursday, August 6 at 8:00pm. Presented by Wendy Schneider and Coney Island Studios.

• Update 7/28: This screening has been canceled, according to its Facebook event page.

Weekly posts include short notes on various cinematic topics, followed by the Now Showing in Madison guide to commercial theaters and alternative venues.

A lot of films open in Madison this week, now that they don’t have to be up against the opening weekend for The Odyssey (which did pretty, pretty good). So the Now Showing list took up most of my allocated Moving Image Madison time this week. But, here are a few brief notes about Project Projection and a pop up screening at Gibs.

Project Projection: Thirteen films by local filmmakers

The next Project Projection screening, a showcase for local filmmakers presented by Mills Folly Microcinema, will take place on Wednesday, July 29, 7:00pm at Arts + Literature Laboratory, 111 S. Livingston Street, Suite 100. Admission is free.

The featured filmmakers are: Jane Lowy, Steve Chappell, Gretta Wing Miller, Christopher Bennett, Fatemeh Fani, Meggen Heuss, Ezra Ewen, Keasion Griffin, Alex Jacobs, Emmy Hannibal, Heidi E. Johnson, Litza Bixler & Aaron Granat, and Emmalee Pearson. Read about all of the films, including experimental films, short docs, animation, and music videos, at the Arts + Literature Laboratory website.

Our Parks on the Big Screen, Gibs, Tuesday, July 28, 5:00pm

The folks over at Cut the Deck Creative, Corey Holl and David Guenther, have been busy these days. They will present a screening of six independent short films on the them of natural beauty and parks of the midwest at Gibs (1380 Williamson Street) next week, for the benefit of the Madison Parks Foundation and their current production, The Park People.

Holl and Geunther appeared on the 8 O’Clock Buzz on WORT-FM this past Monday to talk about what they’re up to with their recent screening at the Barrymore and their current production.

Now Playing In Madison: July 22–July 27, 2026

Please confirm showtimes with the venues (follow venue links where provided). The commercial theaters update their weekend listings on Wednesdays. Another valuable source that posts on Wednesdays with now playing lists is The Horizon Line Madison. When possible, I will provide links to reviews by Rob Thomas at Not That Rob Thomas, who gets around to far more proper reviews than I do.

Comments here are not reviews of the films, they are usually a response to the trailer, a summary of the buzz I have heard, or just snark. They are not always particularly accurate, according to reader feedback. I add trailers to new films of interest that you might not know about (American indies, international features, etc.).

Highway 18 Outdoor Theater, Jefferson, Wisconsin

WUD Film Lakeside Cinema

• PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL (2003), The Terrace @ Memorial Union, Monday, 7/20, 9:00 P.M.

• Lakeside Cinema, Monday nights at the Memorial Union Terrace returns with monthly themes: “Sports” (June), “Under the Lake,” (July), “Back to the 80’s” (August).

Side Room Cinematheque

• The counterhistory/documentary “HyperNormalisation” by BBC Journalist Adam Curtis (2015, 2h 46m), Monday, July 27, 8:00pm.

• DM @sideroomcinematic (Instagram) for screening details.

Commercial Theaters:
AMC Theatres
Flix Brewhouse
Marcus Theatres (Palace and Point)

Please confirm showtimes with the venues (follow venue links where provided). The commercial theaters update their weekend listings on Wednesdays. Another valuable source that posts on Wednesdays with now playing lists is The Horizon Line Madison. When possible, I will provide links to reviews by Rob Thomas at Not That Rob Thomas, who gets around to far more proper reviews than I do.

Comments here are not reviews of the films, they are usually a response to the trailer, a summary of the buzz I have heard, or just snark. They are not always particularly accurate, according to reader feedback. I add trailers to new films of interest that you might not know about (American indies, international features, etc.).

• AMC SCREEN UNSEEN: JULY 27 at AMC.

• BACKROOMS: EVERYTHING MUST GO EDITION W/ BONUS FOOTAGE at AMC, Palace, Point.

  • If you want that little bit more of the recent box office hit, this is for you. I like the film quite a bit, but I have a feeling that less is better in this instance.

• BAD COUNSELORS at Palace.

  • Fathom Events limited release.

• BAD GUYS 2, THE at AMC.

• CHENNAI LOVE STORY at AMC, Point.

  • Indian Telugu-language romance starring Kiran Abbavaram and Sri Gouri Priya

• CURIOUS GEORGE at Palace, Point.

• DISCLOSURE DAY at AMC, Palace, Point.

• END OF EVANGELION (EVANGELION 30TH MOVIE FEST), THE at AMC, Palace, Point.

  • I’m a fan of the original series (1995–96), and I like some of the recent reboot films (2007–2021), but this 1997 feature film, which re-works the controversial ending to the original series, is very, very depressing.

• EVIL DEAD BURN at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• FIFTH ELEMENT, THE at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• GAIL DAUGHTRY AND THE CELEBRITY SEX PASS at AMC.

• GOONIES, THE at Flix.

• HADESTOWN: THE MUSICAL at AMC, Palace, Point.

  • Very limited release (like, 5 days) of this filmed performance of Tony award winning musical, featuring the original Broadway cast.

• HER PRIVATE HELL at AMC, Flix, Point.

  • I liked Nicolas Winding Refn’s last few feature films (Only God Forgives, The Neon Demon) more than most people. But Demon was released 10 years ago! I have not watched his two produced for streaming series (Too Old to Die Young, and Copenhagen Cowboy). I’m intrigued by his return to theatrical features.

• INVITE, THE at AMC, Flix.

  • Directed by Olivia Wilde, this remake of the 2020 Spanish comedy The People Upstairs stars Wilde, Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz, and Edward Norton

• JACKASS: BEST AND LAST at Point.

  • I never was a fan when Jackass was on television, but I have to admit I have enjoyed some of the films. I might go see this.

• JANA NAYAGAN at AMC, Point.

  • Indian Tamil-language action thriller, starring C. Joseph Vijay

• MARCUS MYSTERY MOVIE at Palace, Point.

• MERRY WIDOW: MET SUMMER ENCORE 2026, THE at Point.

• MINIONS & MONSTERS at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

  • This latest entry in the Minions franchise apparently has a lot of film buff jokes, if that sways you. Read Rob Thomas’s review.

• MOANA at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

  • Live action adaptation of Disney’s animated feature, Moana (2016). I hear this was dead on arrival, box office wise.

• MOTOR CITY at AMC, Point.

  • Action thriller, starring Alan Ritchson and Ben Foster.

• OBSESSION at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• ODYSSEY, THE at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

  • The latest film from director Christopher Nolan. Maybe you’ve heard of it.

• OH…! SUKUMARI at AMC.

  • Indian Telugu-language romantic comedy starring Thiruveer and Aishwarya Rajesh

• OUR HERO, BALTHAZAR at Flix.

  • Indie black comedy from director Oscar Boyton, starring Jaeden Martell, Asa Butterfield, and Chris Bauer.

• PINOCCHIO UNSTRUNG at AMC, Point.

  • Slasher film starring Robert Englund and Richard Brake. The fifth entry in the “Twisted Childhood Universe,” which has taken public domain characters (Winnie-the-Pooh, Peter Pan) to make new horror films.

• POUT-POUT FISH, THE at Palace, Point.

• RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK at Flix.

• SIA: NOSTALGIC FOR THE PRESENT at Point.

  • Filmed version of Sia’s “Nostalgic for the Present” tour performance.

• SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 3 at AMC.

• SUMMER TOUR at AMC.

  • Documentary about “Deadheads” following Dead & Company on their final tour in 2023.

• SUPERGIRL at AMC, Palace.

• TOY STORY 5 at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• UECK at Palace, Point.

  • Documentary about legendary Brewers play-by-play broadcaster, “Mr. Baseball,” Bob Uecker

• VADHALA at AMC.

  • Indian Telugu-language drama starring Jagapathi Babu and Laya

• YOUNG WASHINGTON at AMC, Palace.

  • Wow, this seems to be playing forever in town.

Have you used the Now Showing in Madison listings at least once to find something interesting to see? Have you discovered a film that you didn’t realize was playing in town? Please consider supporting these efforts directly by clicking the “Buy Me a Popcorn” button and making a modest donation on those occasions when you find this resource valuable to your moviegoing in Madison.

Buy Me a Popcorn

Looking Ahead:

Local filmmaker Michael Doyle Olson has started what he hopes to be a comprehensive, collaborative public calendar of alternative film screenings in Madison. It is still a work in progress, but check it out at www.mdo.me/film.

MMoCA Cinema, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art

• Screenings begin about 20 minutes after sunset.

• GIRL INTERNET SHOW: A KATI KELLI MIXTAPE (2013-2019), Thursday, July 30.

• AMERICA: EVERYTHING YOU’VE EVER DREAMED OF (1971-1973), Thursday, August 6

• GANGSTERISM (2025), Thursday, August 13

• KIN DZA-DZA!, Thursday, August 20

Mills Folly Microcinema at Arts + Literature Laboratory

• PROJECT PROJECTION, local film and video showcase, Wednesday, July 29, 7:00pm. See notes above.

Side Room Cinematheque

• Second Thursday of the month, and last Monday of the month.

• Works by Janicza Bravo: A Shortfilm, A Feature, and A Television Pilot, Thursday, August 13, 9:00pm

• DM @sideroomcinematic (Instagram) for screening details.

Commonwealth Gallery, 1501 Williamson Street

• THROUGH THE KEYHOLE AND THE STORM, July 30–August 1

  • It is not often performance and film allow for such a full immersion of the audience, and it is something Liz Sexe Dance enjoys crafting and sharing with the community. Through the Keyhole and the Storm will bring together dance and film through an immersive gallery performance taking place at the Commonwealth Gallery. Each night from Thursday, July 30, through Saturday, August 1, the gallery will be open from 6:30-9:00 p.m. for people to explore the environments of a room filled with keyholes and the room of plastic. At 7:30 p.m. each night a performance will erupt with a storm.

Cinesthesia at Madison Public Library Central Branch

• WILD AT HEART (David Lynch, 1987), Tuesday, August 19, 6:30pm

Coney Island Side Show, Weary Traveller, 1202 Williamson Street

• “Patio premiere” of The Coney Island Side Show: Catfish Stephenson, which documents a performance by local musician Catfish Stephenson. Thursday, August 6 at 8:00pm. Presented by Wendy Schneider and Coney Island Studios.

Weekly posts include short notes on various cinematic topics, followed by the Now Showing in Madison guide to commercial theaters and alternative venues.

Yesterday’s post on the dominance of Asian films in Madison’s foreign-language film market ate up most of my time budget for working on Moving Image Madison this week. So this post will just be the Now Showing listings, with a few extra notes.

Looking ahead, Liz Sexe Dance will present a dance, film, and gallery installation experience, Through the Keyhole and the Storm at the Commonwealth Gallery, 1501 Williamson Street, from Thursday, July 30 through Saturday, August 1, with the gallery hours of 6:30pm–9:00pm. The performances will take place each evening at 7:30pm.

The Facebook event page description states, “This innovative experience allows the audience to roam through and be part of the performance. Three installations will be offered to the viewers: peering through keyholes into new worlds, being immersed in a storm of five local dancers (Erin Alberts, Abby Frank Taylor, Eve Levi, Tara McAninch and Megan Schimke) and their movement and reflecting on over consumption in an excessive world of plastic bags.”

I missed the last film/dance/installation event by Liz at Commonwealth Gallery, so I’m hoping I can catch this one!

And looking much further ahead, Wendy Schneider and Coney Island Studios has scheduled a “patio premiere” of The Coney Island Side Show: Catfish Stephenson, which documents a performance by local musician Catfish Stephenson. The screening will take place at The Weary Traveller, 1201 Williamson Street, Thursday, August 6 at 8:00pm (or sundown).

The Facebook event page states that Catfish Stephenson “has lived a life that reads like oral history. He has been a songwriter, a soldier, a street performer, a master leather worker, an outdoorsman, a hunter - friends and father. His stories carry the imprint of a world that is nearly gone.” The film documents a performance that was recorded back in December 2025. I’ll post reminders about this as the screening date approaches.

Project Projection Submission Deadline: Friday, July 17

And one last reminder: The submission deadline for the next Project Projection screening of local film and video at Mills Folly Microcinema is coming up this Friday, July 17. Project Projection screenings showcase work by filmmakers from Madison and Dane County, with a focus on experimental film, short documentaries, animation, and music videos. No submission fee, 10 minute limit.

The screening will take place on Wednesday, July 29, 7:00pm at Arts + Literature Laboratory, 111 S. Livingston Street, Suite 100. Admission is free. You can find more details, including the submission form, at the Arts + Literature Laboratory website.

Now Playing In Madison: July 14–July 20, 2026

Please confirm showtimes with the venues (follow venue links where provided). The commercial theaters update their weekend listings on Wednesdays. Another valuable source that posts on Wednesdays with now playing lists is The Horizon Line Madison. When possible, I will provide links to reviews by Rob Thomas at Not That Rob Thomas, who gets around to far more proper reviews than I do.

Comments here are not reviews of the films, they are usually a response to the trailer, a summary of the buzz I have heard, or just snark. They are not always particularly accurate, according to reader feedback. I add trailers to new films of interest that you might not know about (American indies, international features, etc.).

Cinesthesia at Madison Public Library Central Branch

• FULL METAL JACKET (Stanley Kubrick, 1987), Tuesday, July 14, 6:30pm

  • TONIGHT!

Highway 18 Outdoor Theater, Jefferson, Wisconsin

Unfortunately, they reverted back to the wrong actress for Supergirl, despite fixing it in one poster. Thanks, A.I.

WUD Film Lakeside Cinema

• AQUAMARINE (2006), The Terrace @ Memorial Union, Monday, 7/20, 9:00 P.M.

• Lakeside Cinema, Monday nights at the Memorial Union Terrace returns with monthly themes: “Sports” (June), “Under the Lake,” (July), “Back to the 80’s” (August).

Commercial Theaters:
AMC Theatres
Flix Brewhouse
Marcus Theatres (Palace and Point)

Please confirm showtimes with the venues (follow venue links where provided). The commercial theaters update their weekend listings on Wednesdays. Another valuable source that posts on Wednesdays with now playing lists is The Horizon Line Madison. When possible, I will provide links to reviews by Rob Thomas at Not That Rob Thomas, who gets around to far more proper reviews than I do.

Comments here are not reviews of the films, they are usually a response to the trailer, a summary of the buzz I have heard, or just snark. They are not always particularly accurate, according to reader feedback. I add trailers to new films of interest that you might not know about (American indies, international features, etc.).

• AIRPLANE! at Flix.

• AMC SCREEN UNSEEN: JULY 20 at AMC.

• BACKROOMS: EVERYTHING MUST GO EDITION W/ BONUS FOOTAGE (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

  • If you want that little bit more of the recent box office hit, this is for you. I like the film quite a bit, but I have a feeling that less is better in this instance.

• CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS at Flix.

• DHAMAAL 4 (2026) at AMC.

  • Indian Hindi-language adventure comedy, starring Ajay Devgn.

• DISCLOSURE DAY (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• EVIL DEAD BURN (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• GAIL DAUGHTRY AND THE CELEBRITY SEX PASS (2026) at AMC, Point.

• GALAPAGOS 3D (1999) at AMC.

  • IMAX 3D nature documentary

• IDHAYAM MURALI (2026) at AMC.

  • Indian Tamil-language coming-of-age romantic drama, starring Atharvaa.

• INVITE, THE (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace.

  • Directed by Olivia Wilde, this remake of the 2020 Spanish comedy The People Upstairs stars Wilde, Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz, and Edward Norton

• JACKASS: BEST AND LAST (2026) at AMC, Palace, Point.

  • I never was a fan when Jackass was on television, but I have to admit I have enjoyed some of the films. I might go see this.

• JULY CRUNCHYROLL ANIME NIGHTS - MOB PSYCHO 100 (2026) at AMC, Point.

• LEGO MOVIE, THE (2014) at AMC.

• LENIN (2026) at AMC.

  • Indian Telugu-language action drama. I was hoping for a splashy Tollywood production of the life of Vladmir Lenin, but that is not what this is. Ends Thursday, July 16.

• MADDIE’S SECRET (2026) at AMC.

  • Comedy directed by John Early, starring Early, Kate Berlant, Claudia O’Doherty, and Vanessa Bayer. Appears to be ending Thursday, July 16.

• MARCUS MYSTERY MOVIE at Palace, Point.

• MINIONS & MONSTERS (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

  • This latest entry in the Minions franchise apparently has a lot of film buff jokes, if that sways you. Read Rob Thomas’s review.

• MOANA (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

  • Live action adaptation of Disney’s animated feature, Moana (2016). I hear this was dead on arrival, box office wise.

• MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO - STUDIO GHIBLI FEST 2026 at AMC, Palace, Point.

• NIGHT NURSE (2026) at AMC.

  • Edited by Madison’s own Alex Jacobs! Read Rob Thomas’s review. Appears to end Thursday, July 16.

• OBSESSION (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• ODYSSEY, THE (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

  • Based on an epic poem by Homer, maybe you’ve heard of it? Directed by Christopher Nolan, maybe you’ve heard of him?

• POUT-POUT FISH, THE (2026) at Palace, Point.

• ROTTEN MOVIES, FRESH BEER: GREASE 2 at Flix.

• SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 3 (2024) at AMC.

• SPONGEBOB MOVIE: SEARCH FOR SQUAREPANTS, THE (2025) at Palace, Point.

• STAR WARS: THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU (2026) at Point.

• SUPERGIRL (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

  • Read Rob Thomas’s review.

• TOY STORY 5 (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• YOUNG WASHINGTON (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

Have you used the Now Showing in Madison listings at least once to find something interesting to see? Have you discovered a film that you didn’t realize was playing in town? Please consider supporting these efforts directly by clicking the “Buy Me a Popcorn” button and making a modest donation on those occasions when you find this resource valuable to your moviegoing in Madison.

Buy Me a Popcorn

Looking Ahead:

Local filmmaker Michael Doyle Olson has started what he hopes to be a comprehensive, collaborative public calendar of alternative film screenings in Madison. It is still a work in progress, but check it out at www.mdo.me/film.

MMoCA Cinema, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art

• Screenings begin about 20 minutes after sunset.

• GIRL INTERNET SHOW: A KATI KELLI MIXTAPE (2013-2019), Thursday, July 30.

• AMERICA: EVERYTHING YOU’VE EVER DREAMED OF (1971-1973), Thursday, August 6

• GANGSTERISM (2025), Thursday, August 13

• KIN DZA-DZA!, Thursday, August 20

Highway 18 Outdoor Theater, Jefferson, Wisconsin

• SUPERGIRL and MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, July 16-19.

Mills Folly Microcinema at Arts + Literature Laboratory

• PROJECT PROJECTION, local film and video showcase, Wednesday, July 29, 7:00pm

• Now taking submissions of experimental film/video art, short docs, animation, and music videos (10 minute limit). Submit your work at artlitlab.org, deadline Friday, July 17.

Side Room Cinematheque

• Second Thursday of the month, and last Monday of the month.

• DM @sideroomcinematic (Instagram) for screening details.

Commonwealth Gallery, 1501 Williamson Street

• THROUGH THE KEYHOLE AND THE STORM, July 30–August 1

  • It is not often performance and film allow for such a full immersion of the audience, and it is something Liz Sexe Dance enjoys crafting and sharing with the community. Through the Keyhole and the Storm will bring together dance and film through an immersive gallery performance taking place at the Commonwealth Gallery. Each night from Thursday, July 30, through Saturday, August 1, the gallery will be open from 6:30-9:00 p.m. for people to explore the environments of a room filled with keyholes and the room of plastic. At 7:30 p.m. each night a performance will erupt with a storm.

This is my third installment of numbers crunching about Madison’s theatrical market in the first half of 2026. I’ve already taken a look at the total number of films that have played in Madison from January though June, and how many of those films that have appeared on Best of 2026 Films So Far lists have played in town.

In this post I’m taking a look at the number of international / foreign language films that have played in town in the first half of the year. The TL;DR is this: of the nearly 400-or-so films or special programs in Madison theaters so far this year, there were 67 international or foreign language films.

I have included a complete list of titles at the end of this post. The breakdown by country can be seen in the pie chart below, where the leading country begins at 12 o’clock, with subsequent countries following clockwise. So, there were 30 films from India, 16 films from Japan, and so on. Further down, I also break down the films by language, which is important for discussing the many languages heard in Indian popular cinema.

There are a few problems with my methodology, but they should not significantly alter the larger points I’ll be making in this post. When deciding whether a film counted as a foreign-language film produced in another country, I erred on the side of inclusion. So, two films are included that most people might leave off the list: Erupcja, a Polish co-production and Marama, a co-production from New Zealand. The trailers for both films suggest that the dialogue is primarily in English, more than Polish and Māori, respectively. Since neither of those examples significantly impact the thesis of this post, I’m comfortable with leaving them in as examples of international co-productions. If you find that decision problematic, then mentally remove two very thin slices of the pie.

The Hong Kong action thriller The Furious, distributed in North America by Lionsgate, also presents a problem in terms of language, even though it is clearly an international production. The film is obviously dubbed in English, but a few accounts of the film suggest that it was always the intention of the filmmakers to have the dialogue primarily in English. For my purposes here, I feel very comfortable describing it as a Hong Kong production.

I don’t have enough information to be completely sure if some animated films were presented in either subtitled or English dubbed versions, or both. This does affect the numbers for Japan and Japanese-language films, but not enough to be too worried about in the larger picture.

I was also somewhat inconsistent in defining Japanese anime screenings. I attempted to count anything marketed as “a movie” as a movie, even if it was a collection of anime television series episodes. In Japan there is a history of marketing re-edits of anime television episodes as “movies.” For example, currently on the Criterion Channel you can watch Gatchaman: The Movie, released in Japanese theaters in 1978.

With methodology issues out of the way, let’s look at the results. In my July 2 post, when teasing Madison film market numbers, I wrote, “If you’re a regular reader here, you probably don’t need to guess the top countries of origin for international films that play in Madison (clue: they’re not in Europe).” JoAnne Powers chimed in with the correct answer in the comments on that post: India and Japan. It makes sense that JoAnne would know this, because she sees many if not most of the Indian films that play in town. If you’re not already listening to JoAnne’s show on WORT-FM, Fire Worship, every other Tuesday from 2:00pm to 5:00pm, you should do so and catch the film calendar segment, “The Wages of Cinema.”

Indian popular cinema, with dialogue in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, or Malayalam, accounts for almost half of the foreign-language films in Madison in the first half of 2026. Even the least frequent Indian language, Malayalam, beats out several countries.

The dominance of Indian popular cinema in Madison’s international film market is not new. Back in November 2013, I wrote an overview of the Bollywood films1 that screened at AMC Star Fitchburg 18 (as it was then called) for Isthmus. Even back then, Indian popular cinema would often outnumber films from other countries screened in Madison theaters. I wrote:

Of the 21 foreign-language films that have played in Madison commercial theaters since June 1 [to the publication date, November 7], more than half have been from India. There were 12 by my count, compared to five subtitled films at Sundance Cinemas in the same period.

The Indian diasporic community in Madison seems to have more faithfully returned to theaters after COVID than other specialty film fans did. In part, that is because Indian Popular Cinema serves a range of functions for Indian diasporic communities. Surabhi Raj wrote an interesting article on this topic in 2023, “The Creation of Indian Diasporic Culture Through Hindi Cinema” in Confluence, an online platform for student writing at NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study.

What seems to have dropped since 2017 (the year of the Sundance Theater’s transition to an AMC Theater) has been the number and range of other specialty titles on Madison screens. I’ll have to crunch some numbers at the end of the year to see if this is just a subjective impression. (But most subscribers to this Substack probably have a similar subjective impression.)

In another Isthmus article, written in 2017, I had access to Sundance booking documents for 2015 and 2016, thanks to a little birdie. (I did not make it clear at the time that I had such access, because the little birdie potentially would have gotten in trouble.) With that data in hand, I argued that in its later days, Sundance was not doing as bad a job as some people were arguing at the time:

Sundance delivered what the specialty market demanded. The theater screened 75 percent of IndieWire’s list of highest grossing specialty releases in 2015 and 2016. (“Specialty” means indie, foreign and limited-release documentaries.) Of the 136 feature films Sundance screened in 2016, 90 (66 percent) were from specialty distributors or specialty divisions of studios, while 46 (34 percent) were mainstream studio releases . . .

. . . On its six screens, Sundance averaged four specialty films and two mainstream films. Sundance showcased specialty distributors like Music Box and Oscilloscope far more frequently than Marcus or AMC.

Again, it seems like we’re not doing as well currently with specialty releases in Madison’s theaters. At the end of this year, assuming I keep up with the Now Showing posts here at Moving Image Madison, I’ll be in a position to compare the 2026 highest grossing specialty releases to what ended up playing in Madison. This will hopefully be a more useful assessment of the international and independent specialty film markets in Madison than only referencing the year end “Best of 2026” lists.

Whenever I make predictions, at best I only get things half right. I ended up getting something half wrong and half right in that 2017 Isthmus article. When predicting changes in programming at the “AMC Madison 6,” the new name for the former Sundance Theater, I wrote:

The most likely shift at [AMC] Madison 6 will be an increase in Asian popular cinema, as suggested by the screening of three Mandarin-language titles just before Sundance’s rebranding. This reflects the corporate strategy of AMC’s parent company, the Chinese conglomerate Wanda Group.

What I clearly got wrong is that an ongoing increase in Asian films never developed at AMC Madison 6, despite being closer to UW international student housing in Eagle Heights than the AMC Fitchburg 18. With 20/20 hindsight, one wonders if AMC Madison 6 could have held out longer if they had catered to the demand for Indian popular cinema, which remains a part of AMC’s current corporate strategy.

What I got right is that now we do see Mandarin-language films via AMC, at AMC Fitchburg 18. Mandarin-language Chinese films2 come in right between Telugu and Tamil films in the chart below.

The takeaway here is the truism that I keep repeating like a broken record: If you want to see certain types of films in Madison’s theaters, you have to go see them when they do play in town. If there is a demand, there will be a supply. If there is not an adequate demand, the supply will not be there. Indian diasporic communities (and general movie enthusiasts) in Madison have supported Indian popular cinema when it plays in town, therefore the supply of these films has been consistent for well over 10 years.

1. 7 DOGS

   1. Country: Saudi Arabia

   2. Language: Arabic

2. AA BATA AAMA

   1. Country: Nepal

   2. Language: Nepali

3. ALL YOU NEED IS KILL

   1. Country: Japan

   2. Language: Japanese

4. ALPHA

   1. Country: India

   2. Language: Hindi

5. ARCO

   1. Country: France

   2. Language: English dub

6. ATTACK ON TITAN: THE LAST ATTACK

   1. Country: Japan

   2. Language: Japanese

7. BEING TOWARDS DEATH

   1. Country: China

   2. Language: Mandarin Chinese

8. BENDITO CORAZÓN (BLESSED HEART)

   1. Country: Mexico

   2. Language: Spanish

9. BERSHAMA

   1. Country: Egypt

   2. Language: Arabic

10. A BETTER TOMORROW

    1. Country: Hong Kong

    2. Language: Cantonese Chinese

11. BHOOTH BANGLA

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Hindi

12. BLADES OF THE GUARDIANS

    1. Country: China

    2. Language: Mandarin Chinese

13. BLEACH: THOUSAND-YEAR BLOOD WAR - THE CALAMITY

    1. Country: Japan

    2. Language: Japanese

14. BORDER 2

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Hindi

15. CHAND MERA DIL

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Hindi

16. CHAO

    1. Country: Japan

    2. Language: Japanese

17. DACOIT: A LOVE STORY

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Telugu

18. DHURANDHAR

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Hindi

19. DHURANDHAR: THE REVENGE

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Hindi

20. DRISHYAM 3

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Malayalam

21. ERUPCJA

    1. Country: Polish

    2. Language: Polish

22. EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY

    1. Country: China

    2. Language: Mandarin Chinese

23. EXIT 8

    1. Country: Japan

    2. Language: Japanese

24. THE FURIOUS

    1. Country: Hong Kong

    2. Language: English dub

25. FRUITS BASKET: PRELUDE

    1. Country: Japan

    2. Language: Japanese

26. GODZILLA MINUS ONE

    1. Country: Japan

    2. Language: Japanese

27. GOVERNOR: THE SILENT SAVIOUR

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Hindi

28. HAI JAWANI TOH ISHQ HONA HAI

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Hindi

29. HAPPY RAJ

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Tamil

30. HARD BOILED

    1. Country: Hong Kong

    2. Language: Cantonese Chinese

31. HAUNTED: ECHOES OF THE PAST

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Hindi

32. KAPODISTRIAS (THE GOVERNOR)

    1. Country: Greece

    2. Language: Greek

33. KARUPPU

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Tamil

34. KATTALAN

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Malayalam

35. KIKI’S DELIVERY SERVICE

    1. Country: Japan

    2. Language: Japanese

36. THE KILLER

    1. Country: Hong Kong

    2. Language: Cantonese Chinese

37. KING’S WARDEN

    1. Country: South Korea

    2. Language: Korean

38. KRISHNAVATARAM

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Hindi

39. LUPIN THE IIIRD: THE MOVIE-THE IMMORTAL BLOODLINE

    1. Country: Japan

    2. Language: Japanese

40. MAIN VAAPAS AAUNGA

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Hindi

41. MANA SHANKARAVARAPRASAD GARU

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Hindi

42. MARAMA

    1. Country: New Zealand

    2. Language: Maori

43. MARDAANI 3

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Hindi

44. MRITHUNJAY

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Telugu

45. OM SHANTI SHANTI SHANTIHI

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Telugu

46. PARIMALA AND CO

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Tamil

47. PATI PATNI AUR WOH DO

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Hindi

48. PEDDI

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Telugu

49. PEGASUS 3

    1. Country: China

    2. Language: Mandarin Chinese

50. PONYO

    1. Country: Japan

    2. Language: Japanese

51. PRATHICHAYA

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Malayalam

52. THE PRESIDENT’S CAKE

    1. Country: Iraq

    2. Language: Arabic

53. RAAKAASAA

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Telugu

54. THE RAJASAAB

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Telugu

55. SAMPRADAYINI SUPPINI SUDDAPOOSANI

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Telugu

56. SCARLET

    1. Country: Japan

    2. Language: Japanese

57. THE SECRET AGENT

    1. Country: Brazil

    2. Language: Portuguese

58. THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY

    1. Country: Japan

    2. Language: Japanese

59. SENTIMENTAL VALUE

    1. Country: Norway

    2. Language: Norwegian

60. THAT TIME I GOT REINCARNATED AS A SLIME THE MOVIE: SCARLET BOND

    1. Country: Japan

    2. Language: Japanese

61. THAT TIME I GOT REINCARNATED AS A SLIME THE MOVIE: TEARS OF THE AZURE SEA

    1. Country: Japan

    2. Language: Japanese

62. USTAAD BHAGAT SINGH

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Telugu

63. VANISHING POINT

    1. Country: China

    2. Language: Mandarin Chinese

64. VISHNU VINYASAMM

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Telugu

65. WHISPER OF THE HEART

    1. Country: Japan

    2. Language: Japanese

66. WITH LOVE

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Tamil

67. ZOMBIELAND SAGA: YUMEGINGA PARADISE

    1. Country: Japan

    2. Language: Japanese

Weekly posts include short notes on various cinematic topics, followed by the Now Showing in Madison guide to commercial theaters and alternative venues.

I should probably do more research about something before I write about it here, and maybe talk to the people involved with it. But no time, no time! I’ve been intrigued enough by the new Magic Pixel Guild Discord to bring it to your attention this week, before the first “Second Sunday Meetups” begin this Sunday, July 12, 3:00pm, at Imaginary Factory (1401 Northern Court).

What is the Magic Pixel Guild? Well, it is a new online community with a Madison chapter for people interested in digital and traditional arts. The key resource will be their Discord channel, which can be found at https://discord.gg/kbJewTrvj.

My main contact with the Magic Pixel Guild has been through Michael Doyle Olson. (Did you happen to see Michael’s cover for Isthmus this month?) Michael does video, photography, design, illustration, and you see his name at the bottom of each Now Playing section of Moving Image Madison because I link to his ongoing collaborative public calendar of alternative film screenings at www.mdo.me/film.

Here are two pieces of information that I have already gleaned from combing though the posts at Magic Pixel Guild. First, I didn’t realize that John Early’s Maddie’s Secret was finally getting a theatrical run in Madison, at AMC Fitchburg, starting Thursday, July 9. And second, I learned that the new film edited by Alex Jacobs, Night Nurse, is also opening in town this week! (More on that below.)

Members can also post events to the Magic Pixel Guild calendar, so I have posted an event listing for the upcoming Project Projection screening on July 29, hoping that we’ll get some new interest in screening local work.

So join me (and about 60 members) over on the Discord, and some of us at the meetup this Sunday at Imaginary Factory, and let’s see how this evolves!

Night Nurse, edited by Alex Jacobs, opens at AMC Fitchburg this week

Madison’s Alex Jacobs has had his abstract experimental glitch video work screened at the Wisconsin Film Festival and Mills Folly Microcinema, and well beyond. As a professional film editor, he has worked on features such as In a Violent Nature, which was distributed by IFC Films and Shudder. (It is currently streaming for free on Kanopy, but be warned, it is not for the squeamish).

Alex’s most recent project as editor, the thriller Night Nurse, directed by Georgia Bernstein, premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. The Independent Film Company (formerly IFC Films) picked it up for North American distribution. Now, Madison audiences will be able to see the film when it opens at AMC Fitchburg on Thursday, July 9. This looks like quite the trip. Congrats, Alex!

Now Playing In Madison: July 8–July 13, 2026

Please confirm showtimes with the venues (follow venue links where provided). The commercial theaters update their weekend listings on Wednesdays. Another valuable source that posts on Wednesdays with now playing lists is The Horizon Line Madison. When possible, I will provide links to reviews by Rob Thomas at Not That Rob Thomas, who gets around to far more proper reviews than I do.

Comments here are not reviews of the films, they are usually a response to the trailer, a summary of the buzz I have heard, or just snark. They are not always particularly accurate, according to reader feedback. I add trailers to new films of interest that you might not know about (American indies, international features, etc.).

Highway 18 Outdoor Theater, Jefferson, Wisconsin

WUD Film Lakeside Cinema

• THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU (2004), The Terrace @ Memorial Union, Monday, 7/13, 9:00 P.M.

• Lakeside Cinema, Monday nights at the Memorial Union Terrace returns with monthly themes: “Sports” (June), “Under the Lake,” (July), “Back to the 80’s” (August).

Side Room Cinematheque

• MIRANDA JULY TRIPLE FEATURE, Thursday, July 9, 8:00pm

• DM @sideroomcinematic (Instagram) for screening details.

Commercial Theaters:
AMC Theatres
Flix Brewhouse
Marcus Theatres (Palace and Point)

Please confirm showtimes with the venues (follow venue links where provided). The commercial theaters update their weekend listings on Wednesdays. Another valuable source that posts on Wednesdays with now playing lists is The Horizon Line Madison. When possible, I will provide links to reviews by Rob Thomas at Not That Rob Thomas, who gets around to far more proper reviews than I do.

Comments here are not reviews of the films, they are usually a response to the trailer, a summary of the buzz I have heard, or just snark. They are not always particularly accurate, according to reader feedback. I add trailers to new films of interest that you might not know about (American indies, international features, etc.).

• ALPHA (2026) at AMC.

  • Indian Hindi-language action film, the latest installment in the YRF Spy Universe from Yash Raj Studios. So that always means a cameo by a star from another film in the series, in this case Hrithik Rashan.

• BACKROOMS: EVERYTHING MUST GO EDITION W/ BONUS FOOTAGE (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

  • If you want that little bit more of the recent box office hit, this is for you. I like the film quite a bit, but I have a feeling that less is better in this instance.

• BLEACH: THOUSAND-YEAR BLOOD WAR - THE CALAMITY (2026) at AMC.

  • Anime feature, taken from the popular television series.

• CITIZEN KANE 85TH ANNIVERSARY at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

  • I’ve heard good things.

• DEEP SKY (2023) at AMC.

• DISCLOSURE DAY (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• EVIL DEAD BURN (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• GAIL DAUGHTRY AND THE CELEBRITY SEX PASS (2026) at AMC, Point.

  • Latest comedy from director David Wain (Wet Hot American Summer). Read Rob Thomas’s review.

• GATTA KUSTHI 2 (2026) at AMC.

  • Indian Tamil-language romantic comedy / sports drama, a sequel to a 2022 film. Title roughly translates as “Tied wrestling.”

• GIRLS LIKE GIRLS (2026) at AMC.

• HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (2025) at AMC.

• INVITE, THE (2026) at AMC, Flix.

  • Directed by Olivia Wilde, this remake of the 2020 Spanish comedy The People Upstairs stars Wilde, Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz, and Edward Norton.

• JACKASS: BEST AND LAST (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

  • I never was a fan when Jackass was on television, but I have to admit I have enjoyed some of the films. I might go see this.

• LEGO MOVIE, THE (2014) at AMC.

• LENIN (2026) at AMC.

  • Indian Telugu-language action drama. I was hoping for a splashy Tollywood production of the life of Vladmir Lenin, but that is not what this is.

• LEVITICUS (2026) at Point.

  • Supernatural horror spiced with some social commentary.

• LOCKBOX (2026) at AMC.

  • Supernatural horror film starring Carla Gugino.

• LUCKY STRIKE (2026) at AMC, Point.

  • World War II action drama starring Scott Eastwood. Read Rob Thomas’s review.

• MADDIE’S SECRET (2026) at AMC.

  • This has some buzz on the Magic Pixel Guild Discord. Comedy directed by John Early, starring Early, Kate Berlant, Claudia O’Doherty, and Vanessa Bayer.

• MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• MINIONS & MONSTERS (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

  • This latest entry in the Minions franchise apparently has a lot of film buff jokes, if that sways you. Read Rob Thomas’s review.

• MOANA (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

  • Live action adaptation of Disney’s animated feature, Moana (2016).

• MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO - STUDIO GHIBLI FEST 2026 at AMC, Palace, Point.

• NIGHT NURSE at AMC.

  • Edited by Madison’s own Alex Jacobs! See above.

• OBSESSION (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• PADDINGTON (2015) at Palace.

• PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH (2022) at Flix.

• RAO BAHADUR (2026) at AMC.

  • Indian Telugu-language psychological drama starring Satyadev.

• SCARY MOVIE (2026) at AMC, Palace, Point.

• SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY at AMC, Flix.

• SPONGEBOB MOVIE: SEARCH FOR SQUAREPANTS, THE (2025) at Palace, Point.

• STAR IS BORN, A (1954) at AMC.

  • This is Mrs. Norman Maine.

• STAR WARS: THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU (2026) at Palace, Point.

• SUPERGIRL (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

  • Read Rob Thomas’s review.

• TOY STORY 5 (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• TUNER (2026) at AMC.

• YOUNG WASHINGTON (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

Have you used the Now Showing in Madison listings at least once to find something interesting to see? Have you discovered a film that you didn’t realize was playing in town? Please consider supporting these efforts directly by clicking the “Buy Me a Popcorn” button and making a modest donation on those occasions when you find this resource valuable to your moviegoing in Madison.

Buy Me a Popcorn

Looking Ahead:

Local filmmaker Michael Doyle Olson has started what he hopes to be a comprehensive, collaborative public calendar of alternative film screenings in Madison. It is still a work in progress, but check it out at www.mdo.me/film.

MMoCA Cinema, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art

• Screenings begin about 20 minutes after posted sunset.

• GIRL INTERNET SHOW: A KATI KELLI MIXTAPE (2013-2019), Thursday, July 30.

• AMERICA: EVERYTHING YOU’VE EVER DREAMED OF (1971-1973), Thursday, August 6

• GANGSTERISM (2025), Thursday, August 13

• KIN DZA-DZA!, Thursday, August 20

Highway 18 Outdoor Theater, Jefferson, Wisconsin

• SUPERGIRL and MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, July 16-19.

Cinesthesia at Madison Public Library Central Branch

• FULL METAL JACKET (Stanley Kubrick, 1987), Tuesday, July 14, 6:30pm.

Mills Folly Microcinema at Arts + Literature Laboratory

• PROJECT PROJECTION, local film and video showcase, Wednesday, July 29, 7:00pm

• Now taking submissions of experimental film/video art, short docs, animation, and music videos (10 minute limit). Submit your work at artlitlab.org, deadline Friday, July 17.

Commonwealth Gallery, 1501 Williamson Street

• THROUGH THE KEYHOLE AND THE STORM, July 30–August 1

  • It is not often performance and film allow for such a full immersion of the audience, and it is something Liz Sexe Dance enjoys crafting and sharing with the community. Through the Keyhole and the Storm will bring together dance and film through an immersive gallery performance taking place at the Commonwealth Gallery. Each night from Thursday, July 30, through Saturday, August 1, the gallery will be open from 6:30-9:00 p.m. for people to explore the environments of a room filled with keyholes and the room of plastic. At 7:30 p.m. each night a performance will erupt with a storm.

This past Friday, I posted a list of all of the films that played in Madison’s theaters (AMC Fitchburg, Flix Brewhouse, and Marcus Theatres) so far in 2026.

Today, I present an aggregate list of titles drawn from the widely seen mid-year articles usually named something like “The Best Movies of 2026 So Far.”

I’m not going to discuss the lists in any detail. I’m posting the aggregated list to set the stage for upcoming discussions about Madison’s theatrical film market.

My sample Best of 2026 So Far lists came from the following 17 sources: Collider, Complex, Consequence of Sound, Esquire, The Film Stage, The Hollywood Reporter, IndieWire, Letterboxd, Mashable, Metacritic, RogerEbert.com, Rolling Stone, Rotten Tomatoes, Screen Crush, Variety, and World of Reel.

I chose to use neither The New York Times nor The Washington Post, mainly because they would present paywall obstacles if you wanted to follow through and look at their lists.

I linked the sources to Google Notebook LM (so I chose and limited the sources), provided a prompt, and Notebook LM devised the following methodology to rank the films:

To calculate the top 20 films from the lists in the sources, a standardized scoring system was applied: films in ranked lists received points based on their exact position (e.g., 20 points for 1st place, scaling down accordingly), while films in unranked lists received the mathematical average score for that list’s length. This accounts for both how high a film ranked and how often it appeared.

In terms of methodology, there are all kinds of problems with all of this. But for my purposes here, I don’t really care.

All I wanted was a broad overview of what film titles came up on Best of 2026 So Far lists, so that we could discuss them in relation to the Films that Played at Madison Theaters list. Here’s what Google Notebook LM spat out, followed by the number of weeks the films appeared on the Now Playing lists in Moving Image Madison:

1. Project Hail Mary - 155.5 points (10 lists).
Played in Madison 14 weeks so far.

2. Obsession - 124.0 points (8 lists).
Played in Madison 7 weeks so far.

3. Blue Heron - 116.5 points (9 lists).
Screened twice at Wisconsin Film Festival. Has not returned for a theatrical run.

4. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple - 109.5 points (8 lists).
Played in Madison 3 weeks so far. (I need to double check that.)

5. Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie - 94.5 points (7 lists).
Local premiere at UW-Cinematheque. Then played in Madison 3 weeks.

6. Is God Is - 88.0 points (7 lists).
Played in Madison 3 weeks so far.

7. I Love Boosters - 86.0 points (6 lists).
Played in Madison 4 weeks so far.

8. Send Help - 78.0 points (6 lists).
Played in Madison 7 weeks so far.

9. EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert - 68.5 points (6 lists).
Played in Madison 5 weeks so far.

10. The Christophers - 65.5 points (5 lists).
Local premiere at Wisconsin Film Festival. Then played in Madison 2 weeks.

11. The Sheep Detectives - 62.5 points (4 lists).
Played in Madison 8 weeks so far.

12. The Drama - 59.0 points (5 lists).
Played in Madison 7 weeks so far.

13. Backrooms - 57.0 points (4 lists).
Played in Madison 5 weeks so far.

14. Disclosure Day - 53.5 points (4 lists).
Played in Madison 3 weeks so far (opened June 12).

15. Our Land (Nuestra Tierra) - 52.5 points (5 lists).
Has not played theatrically in Madison. Latest film, a documentary, from Lucrecia Martel (Zama, 2017).

16. Yes - 52.5 points (5 lists).
Local premiere at Wisconsin Film Festival. Has not returned for a theatrical run.

17. Pillion - 52.5 points (5 lists).
Played in Madison 2 weeks.

18. Silent Friend - 48.0 points (3 lists).
Has not played theatrically in Madison.

19. Rose of Nevada - 47.0 points (5 lists).
Has not played theatrically in Madison

20. Exit 8 - 47.0 points (4 lists).
Played in Madison 3 weeks.

Coming in at #3 on the aggregated list, Blue Heron is the big missing piece in the theatrical puzzle in Madison so far this year. Yes, Blue Heron screened twice at the Wisconsin Film Festival (including a Thursday mid-day screening). And yes, that is great that it did. And yes, it is great that some films that played at either the Wisconsin Film Festival or UW-Cinematheque came back for short runs in Madison’s commercial theaters (Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie at #5; The Christophers at #10). But it is probably the time, after 25+ years of the UW-Cinematheque and the Wisconsin Film Festival (as well as other alternative venues like WUD Film and MMoCA), to come to terms to what impact they do or don’t have on the film market in Madison (not just on subjective impressions of Madison’s film culture).

I attempted, with admittedly mixed results, to write about this topic in Isthmus over 10 years ago (maybe it’s more like 14 years ago, I’ll have to look it up!). I ended up making a few people angry with me at the time. So this time around, I’m going to very gingerly approach the topic and slowly lay down the groundwork so that it doesn’t appear like I’m attacking anyone or being a Negative Nelly (Jaundiced Jimbo?). But the upshot of my point will be: There’s very little incentive for local theaters to play films like Blue Heron, and there’s very little incentive for independent film distributors to place films in Madison within an ever narrowing theatrical window.

It makes sense that Blue Heron hasn’t had a theatrical run in Madison, despite being #3 on the aggregated Best Films of 2026 So Far list. Discussion forthcoming. Meanwhile…

One problem with discussing Madison’s theatrical market is that subjective impressions about what plays in town can be very different from the hard facts of what films do play in town, and for how long. One goal for Moving Image Madison, which I haven’t had a chance to dig into so far, is to offer a better informed analysis of Madison’s theatrical market, and by extension Madison’s broader film culture.

One reason I have tried my best to be consistent with posting Now Showing lists in 2026 was that I realized at the end of 2025 that my collected data was not as useful as it could be, given the effort that I was putting into it. I could not answer a central question with any accuracy: What films played in Madison theaters this year?

There are still flaws with my methodology if I wan’t to answer this question each year. But I think the list below of films that played in Madison between January 1 and June 30 this year offers an interesting starting point, and provides a broad overview of Madison’s theatrical market.

I’m going to do a few more in depth posts using this data in the coming weeks. I wanted this post to have more analysis, not just churning out a list of titles, but I discovered that the list of titles was in itself more challenging to produce than I thought it would be.

So for now I have only pointed out two special categories of films that I intend to discuss more in subsequent posts. First, I have highlighted International and Foreign Language films in yellow. When a film was on the border of this category, I tended to err on the side of inclusion. I have also highlighted Repertory Film Programming / Older Films in aqua blue. When these two categories overlapped, like with older Studio Ghibli films, I tended to highlight them in yellow. There are likely errors in the email newsletter version (films that should/should not be highlighted) that I will attempt correct in the web version. Comments are welcome to assist in this matter.

A few caveats…

The accurate way to describe this list is: films that appeared in the Moving Image Madison Now Showing lists, and how many Now Showing lists they appeared in. It would be incorrect to assume that this raw data tells us how many films had week-long engagements in local commercial theaters.

There are many special engagements, like Fathom events or Flix Brewhouse’s “Flix Picks” series, that only have one to three screenings. And sometimes those limited engagements might extend across two Now Showing lists. For example, you will notice a fluke that The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is listed as “three weeks,” while the other Lord of the Rings films are listed as “two weeks.” This does not mean The Two Towers had more screenings than the other LOTR films, it simply means that due to the publication of the Now Screening lists, usually on Tuesdays, The Two Towers popped up on an additional list. None of the LOTR films had full week-long theatrical runs with multiple screenings each day of the week.

Also, keep in mind that some films on the list were at the tail end of their runs from 2025 (and perhaps returned for Oscar season), and some films are just starting their runs this summer.

It took me some time to establish criteria for what counted as a film. I don’t know if I have come up with the most consistent criteria, but generally speaking I removed pop concerts that were not presented as documentaries, as well as other live events like Metropolitan Opera performances and World Cup games. I also removed special programs like Oscar nominated shorts.

I will continue to tweak the list on the web version, so you will likely see changes and updates after receiving the email newsletter version. (Again, comments are welcome.)

And finally, it is a deliberate choice to focus in this context on the commercial theater chains in Madison (AMC, Flix Brewhouse, and Marcus Theatres) instead of alternative venues like UW-Cinematheque, WUD Film, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, and Mills Folly Microcinema. For now, I’m setting up economic and industry questions, not aesthetic questions. Aesthetics will soon enter the discussion, especially after I survey “Best of 2026 so far” lists. A glaring absence from this list is Blue Heron, which did not return to Madison after its screening at the Wisconsin Film Festival.

Oh, and one last sweep over the list just minutes before posting brought the total down to 397 films. Please don’t hassle me about the title of the post! Ultimately there were far more than 400 distinct programs in the theaters, and this list would be longer if I hadn’t tried to weed out what wasn’t relevant to my central question. The number will continue to go down on the web version as I catch more duplicates.

Films in Madison Theaters, January–June 2026

Here is the list of film titles that played in Madison, Wisconsin theaters between January 1, 2026, and June 30, 2026 (with some wiggle room for before and after those cut off dates), ordered from the most weeks played to the fewest.

International / Foreign language films

Repertory Film Programming / Older Films

1. PROJECT HAIL MARY - 14 weeks

2. HOPPERS - 10 weeks

3. MICHAEL - 10 weeks

4. SUPER MARIO GALAXY MOVIE, THE - 10 weeks

5. ZOOTOPIA 2 - 9 weeks

6. AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH - 8 weeks

7. GOAT - 8 weeks

8. MARTY SUPREME - 8 weeks

9. SHEEP DETECTIVES, THE - 8 weeks

10. DEVIL WEARS PRADA 2, THE - 7 weeks

11. DRAMA, THE - 7 weeks

12. OBSESSION - 7 weeks

13. ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER - 7 weeks

14. REMINDERS OF HIM - 7 weeks

15. SEND HELP - 7 weeks

16. DAVID - 6 weeks

17. HAMNET - 6 weeks

18. HOUSEMAID, THE - 6 weeks

19. IRON LUNG - 6 weeks

20. READY OR NOT 2: HERE I COME - 6 weeks

21. SCREAM 7 - 6 weeks

22. SINNERS - 6 weeks

23. STAR WARS: THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU - 6 weeks

24. BACKROOMS - 5 weeks

25. CRIME 101 - 5 weeks

26. EPIC: ELVIS PRESLEY IN CONCERT - 5 weeks

27. MORTAL KOMBAT II - 5 weeks

28. SONG SUNG BLUE - 5 weeks

29. WUTHERING HEIGHTS - 5 weeks

30. ANACONDA - 4 weeks

31. BLUE ANGELS, THE - 4 weeks

32. BRIDE!, THE - 4 weeks

33. CHARLIE THE WONDERDOG - 4 weeks

34. DHURANDHAR: THE REVENGE - 4 weeks

35. F1 THE MOVIE - 4 weeks

36. HOKUM - 4 weeks

37. I LOVE BOOSTERS - 4 weeks

38. KIKI’S DELIVERY SERVICE 4K - 4 weeks

39. LEE CRONIN’S THE MUMMY - 4 weeks

40. MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE - 4 weeks

41. NO OTHER CHOICE - 4 weeks

42. PEAKY BLINDERS: THE IMMORTAL MAN - 4 weeks

43. POUT-POUT FISH, THE - 4 weeks

44. PRESSURE - 4 weeks

45. PRIMATE - 4 weeks

46. ROAD AT NIGHT, A - 4 weeks

47. SCARY MOVIE - 4 weeks

48. SPONGEBOB MOVIE: SEARCH FOR SQUAREPANTS, THE - 4 weeks

49. UNDERTONE - 4 weeks

50. YOU, ME & TUSCANY - 4 weeks

51. 28 YEARS LATER: THE BONE TEMPLE - 3 weeks

52. AI DOC: OR HOW I BECAME AN APOCALOPTIMIST, THE - 3 weeks

53. ANIMAL FARM - 3 weeks

54. ARCO - 3 weeks

55. BILLIE EILISH - HIT ME HARD AND SOFT: THE TOUR - 3 weeks

56. BREADWINNER, THE - 3 weeks

57. BUGONIA - 3 weeks

58. BUSBOYS - 3 weeks

59. DEEP WATER - 3 weeks

60. DEMON SLAYER: KIMETSU NO YAIBA INFINITY CASTLE - 3 weeks

61. DISCLOSURE DAY - 3 weeks

62. DRACULA - 3 weeks

63. EXIT 8 - 3 weeks

64. FACES OF DEATH - 3 weeks

65. FURIOUS, THE - 3 weeks

66. GOOD LUCK, HAVE FUN, DON’T DIE - 3 weeks

67. GREENLAND 2: MIGRATION - 3 weeks

68. HOW TO MAKE A KILLING - 3 weeks

69. HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON - 3 weeks

70. I CAN ONLY IMAGINE 2 - 3 weeks

71. IN THE GREY - 3 weeks

72. IS GOD IS - 3 weeks

73. IS THIS THING ON? - 3 weeks

74. LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS, THE - 3 weeks

75. LORNE - 3 weeks

76. MELANIA - 3 weeks

77. MERCY - 3 weeks

78. MOTHER MARY - 3 weeks

79. NIRVANNA THE BAND THE SHOW THE MOVIE - 3 weeks

80. NORMAL - 3 weeks

81. PASSENGER - 3 weeks

82. PEGASUS 3 - 3 weeks

83. SECRET AGENT, THE - 3 weeks

84. SENTIMENTAL VALUE - 3 weeks

85. SHELTER - 3 weeks

86. SHREK 25TH ANNIVERSARY - 3 weeks

87. SILENCE OF THE LAMBS 35TH ANNIVERSARY, THE - 3 weeks

88. SLANTED - 3 weeks

89. SOLO MIO - 3 weeks

90. STOP! THAT! TRAIN! - 3 weeks

91. THAT TIME I GOT REINCARNATED AS A SLIME THE MOVIE: TEARS OF THE AZURE SEA - 3 weeks

92. THEY WILL KILL YOU - 3 weeks

93. TOP GUN 40TH ANNIVERSARY - 3 weeks

94. TOP GUN: MAVERICK RE-RELEASE - 3 weeks

95. TUNER - 3 weeks

96. WICKED: FOR GOOD - 3 weeks

97. WINTER HYMNS - 3 weeks

98. 7 DOGS - 2 weeks

99. ALI - 2 weeks

100. ALPHA - 2 weeks

101. AMAZING DIGITAL CIRCUS: THE LAST ACT, THE - 2 weeks

102. AMERICAN UNDERDOG - 2 weeks

103. BEAUTIFUL PLANET IMAX, A - 2 weeks

104. BEN-HUR - 2 weeks

105. BIG LEBOWSKI, THE - 2 weeks

106. BIRDCAGE 30TH ANNIVERSARY, THE - 2 weeks

107. BLADES OF THE GUARDIANS - 2 weeks

108. BLEACH: THOUSAND-YEAR BLOOD WAR - THE CALAMITY - 2 weeks

109. BORN TO BE WILD - 2 weeks

110. BRIDESMAIDS: 15TH ANNIVERSARY - 2 weeks

111. BUFFALO KIDS - 2 weeks

112. CAROLINA CAROLINE - 2 weeks

113. CASA GRANDE - 2 weeks

114. CHRISTOPHERS, THE - 2 weeks

115. CHRONOLOGY OF WATER, THE - 2 weeks

116. CORPORATE RETREAT - 2 weeks

117. COUTURE - 2 weeks

118. CRAZY RICH ASIANS - 2 weeks

119. CRIME 101: LIVESTREAM Q&A - 2 weeks

120. CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON - 2 weeks

121. CRUNCHYROLL ANIME NIGHTS SNEAK PEEK - 2 weeks

122. DACOIT: A LOVE STORY - 2 weeks

123. DAZED AND CONFUSED - 2 weeks

124. DEAD MAN’S WIRE - 2 weeks

125. DEATH OF ROBIN HOOD, THE - 2 weeks

126. DESERT WARRIOR - 2 weeks

127. DHURANDHAR - 2 weeks

128. DOG MAN - 2 weeks

129. DOLLY - 2 weeks

130. ERIN BROCKOVICH - 2 weeks

131. ERUPCJA - 2 weeks

132. EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE - 2 weeks

133. FATHER MOTHER SISTER BROTHER - 2 weeks

134. FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF - 2 weeks

135. FIGHT CLUB 4K REMASTER - 2 weeks

136. FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S 2 - 2 weeks

137. FORBIDDEN FRUITS - 2 weeks

138. FRANKENSTEIN - 2 weeks

139. FRIED GREEN TOMATOES 35TH ANNIVERSARY - 2 weeks

140. FUZE - 2 weeks

141. GET ON THE BUS - 2 weeks

142. GIRLS LIKE GIRLS - 2 weeks

143. GODZILLA MINUS ONE - 2 weeks

144. GREAT AWAKENING, A - 2 weeks

145. GUNDAM PREMIERE NIGHT (DOUBLE FEATURE) - 2 weeks

146. HAI JAWANI TOH ISHQ HONA HAI - 2 weeks

147. HAMLET - 2 weeks

148. I SWEAR - 2 weeks

149. I WAS A STRANGER - 2 weeks

150. ISLANDS - 2 weeks

151. JACK JOHNSON: SURFILMUSIC - 2 weeks

152. JACKASS: BEST AND LAST - 2 weeks

153. JESUS REVOLUTION - 2 weeks

154. K-POPS! - 2 weeks

155. KARUPPU - 2 weeks

156. KING OF KINGS, THE - 2 weeks

157. KRISHNAVATARAM - 2 weeks

158. LABYRINTH 40TH ANNIVERSARY - 2 weeks

159. LAST WHALE SINGER, THE - 2 weeks

160. LEGALLY BLONDE 25TH ANNIVERSARY - 2 weeks

161. LEVITICUS - 2 weeks

162. LITTLE SOMETHING EXTRA, A - 2 weeks

163. LITTLE WOMEN - 2 weeks

164. LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, THE - 2 weeks

165. LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING, THE - 2 weeks

166. LUCKY STRIKE - 2 weeks

167. MAGNIFICENT LIFE, A - 2 weeks

168. MARAMA - 2 weeks

169. MAY CONTAIN: MY LIFE - 2 weeks

170. MIDWINTER BREAK - 2 weeks

171. MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM HATHAWAY: THE SORCERY OF NYMPH CIRCE - 2 weeks

172. MOSES THE BLACK - 2 weeks

173. MUMMY RETURNS 25TH ANNIVERSARY, THE - 2 weeks

174. NEGLECTED - 2 weeks

175. ONE SPOON OF CHOCOLATE, RZA’S - 2 weeks

176. OVER YOUR DEAD BODY - 2 weeks

177. PARIS HILTON INFINITE ICON: A VISUAL MEMOIR - 2 weeks

178. PATI PATNI AUR WOH DO - 2 weeks

179. PEDDI - 2 weeks

180. PILLION - 2 weeks

181. PLAGUE, THE - 2 weeks

182. POWER BALLAD - 2 weeks

183. PREMARITAL - 2 weeks

184. PRIVATE LIFE, A - 2 weeks

185. PROTECTOR - 2 weeks

186. PSYCHO KILLER - 2 weeks

187. RAAKAASAA - 2 weeks

188. RAD 40TH ANNIVERSARY - 2 weeks

189. RAJA SAAB, THE - 2 weeks

190. RETURN TO SILENT HILL - 2 weeks

191. REVOLUTIONARY AMERICA - 2 weeks

192. ROOM WITH A VIEW, A - 2 weeks

193. ROTTEN MOVIES, FRESH BEER: HOT ROD - 2 weeks

194. SCARED TO DEATH - 2 weeks

195. SECRET BETWEEN US, THE - 2 weeks

196. SPEED RACER - 2 weeks

197. STAND BY ME 40TH ANNIVERSARY - 2 weeks

198. STEAL THIS STORY, PLEASE! - 2 weeks

199. STEEL MAGNOLIAS - 2 weeks

200. STILL HOPE - 2 weeks

201. STORM RIDER: LEGEND OF HAMMERHEAD - 2 weeks

202. STRANGERS: CHAPTER 3, THE - 2 weeks

203. SUPERGIRL - 2 weeks

204. TALLADEGA NIGHTS: THE BALLAD OF RICKY BOBBY - 20TH ANNIVERSARY - 2 weeks

205. TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE, THE - 2 weeks

206. THAT TIME I GOT REINCARNATED AS A SLIME THE MOVIE: SCARLET BOND - 2 weeks

207. TMNT II: THE SECRET OF THE OOZE 35TH ANNIVERSARY - 2 weeks

208. TO WONG FOO, THANKS FOR EVERYTHING, JULIE NEWMAR - 2 weeks

209. TOW - 2 weeks

210. TOY STORY 5 - 2 weeks

211. TRAIN DREAMS - 2 weeks

212. TRAINSPOTTING - 2 weeks

213. TWISTER - 2 weeks

214. USTAAD BHAGAT SINGH - 2 weeks

215. WE BURY THE DEAD - 2 weeks

216. WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE - 2 weeks

217. WHISPER OF THE HEART 4K - 2 weeks

218. WHISTLE - 2 weeks

219. WIZARD OF THE KREMLIN, THE - 2 weeks

220. WOMAN KING, THE - 2 weeks

221. A.I.: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE - 1 week

222. AA BATA AAMA - 1 week

223. ALL YOU NEED IS KILL - 1 week

224. AMERICAN IN PARIS, AN - 1 week

225. APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN, THE - 1 week

226. ATTACK ON TITAN: THE LAST ATTACK - 1 week

227. AURORA: WHAT HAPPENED TO THE EARTH? - 1 week

228. BAD GUYS 2, THE - 1 week

229. BARBIE - 1 week

230. BEAST - 1 week

231. BEING TOWARDS DEATH - 1 week

232. BENDITO CORAZÓN (BLESSED HEART 2026) - 1 week

233. BERSHAMA - 1 week

234. BEST IN SHOW - 1 week

235. BETTER TOMORROW, A - 1 week

236. BHOOTH BANGLA - 1 week

237. BILLY IDOL SHOULD BE DEAD - 1 week

238. BLADE RUNNER: THE FINAL CUT - 1 week

239. BLAST - 1 week

240. BOOGIE NIGHTS - 1 week

241. BORDER 2 - 1 week

242. CABIN FEVER - 1 week

243. CABIN IN THE WOODS, THE - 1 week

244. CHAND MERA DIL - 1 week

245. CHAO - 1 week

246. CHORAL, THE - 1 week

247. CITIZEN KANE 85TH ANNIVERSARY - 1 week

248. COCKTAIL 2 - 1 week

249. COLD STORAGE - 1 week

250. DARK CRYSTAL, THE - 1 week

251. DEPARTED, THE - 1 week

252. DREAMS - 1 week

253. DRISHYAM 3 - 1 week

254. DUTCHMAN, THE - 1 week

255. ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND - 1 week

256. ETERNITY - 1 week

257. EVENT HORIZON - 1 week

258. EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY - 1 week

259. EVIL DEAD, THE - 1 week

260. FANTASY LIFE - 1 week

261. FIRST HYMN, THE - 1 week

262. FOR WORSE - 1 week

263. FRUITS BASKET: PRELUDE - 1 week

264. FRUITVALE STATION - 1 week

265. GABBY’S DOLLHOUSE: THE MOVIE - 1 week

266. GALE: YELLOW BRICK ROAD - 1 week

267. GARDENER, THE - 1 week

268. GHOST ELEPHANTS - 1 week

269. GODFREY: REBEL WITH A CAUSE - 1 week

270. GOVERNOR: THE SILENT SAVIOUR - 1 week

271. GREY, IN THE - 1 week

272. H IS FOR HAWK - 1 week

273. HAPPY RAJ - 1 week

274. HARD BOILED - HONG KONG CINEMA CLASSICS - 1 week

275. HAUNTED: ECHOES OF THE PAST - 1 week

276. HE CALLS ME DAUGHTER - 1 week

277. HOBBIT MARATHON, THE - 1 week

278. HOMECOMING: THE TOKYO SERIES - 1 week

279. HORRIBLE BOSSES - 1 week

280. HUBBLE - 1 week

281. HUNGRY - 1 week

282. HUNTING MATTHEW NICHOLS - 1 week

283. I CAN ONLY IMAGINE - 1 week

284. I LIVE HERE NOW - 1 week

285. I STILL BELIEVE - 1 week

286. IMAX SPACE STATION 3D - 1 week

287. IN COLD LIGHT - 1 week

288. INTERSTELLAR - 1 week

289. IRON GIANT, THE - 1 week

290. IRON MAIDEN: BURNING AMBITION - 1 week

291. JANA NAYAGAN - 1 week

292. JERRY MAGUIRE 30TH ANNIVERSARY - 1 week

293. JINSEI - 1 week

294. KAPODISTRIAS (THE GOVERNOR) - 1 week

295. KATTALAN - 1 week

296. KIDZ BOP LIVE: THE CONCERT MOVIE - 1 week

297. KILLER, THE - HONG KONG CINEMA CLASSICS - 1 week

298. KING’S WARDEN, THE - 1 week

299. KOKUHO - 1 week

300. LABYRINTH - 1 week

301. LAND BEFORE TIME, THE - 1 week

302. LAST STARFIGHTER, THE - 1 week

303. LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN, A - 1 week

304. LEGENDS OF THE LOST ARK - 1 week

305. LEGO MOVIE 3D EXCLUSIVE, THE - 1 week

306. LEGO MOVIE, THE - 1 week

307. LIFEHACK - 1 week

308. LOCKBOX - 1 week

309. LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING 2026, THE - 1 week

310. LOVE & BASKETBALL - 1 week

311. LUPIN THE IIIRD: THE MOVIE-THE IMMORTAL BLOODLINE - 1 week

312. MADAGASCAR 20TH ANNIVERSARY - 1 week

313. MAGIC MIKE XXL - 1 week

314. MAIN VAAPAS AAUNGA - 1 week

315. MAMMA MIA! - 1 week

316. MANA SHANKARAVARAPRASAD GARU - 1 week

317. MARDAANI 3 - 1 week

318. MEN IN BLACK - 1 week

319. MILE END KICKS - 1 week

320. MILK - 1 week

321. MINECRAFT MOVIE, A - 1 week

322. MINIONS & MONSTERS - 1 week

323. MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU - 1 week

324. MOMENT, THE - 1 week

325. MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL - 1 week

326. MOONLIGHT - 1 week

327. MORTAL KOMBAT - 1 week

328. MORTUARY ASSISTANT, THE - 1 week

329. MRITHUNJAY - 1 week

330. MUPPET MOVIE, THE - 1 week

331. NEWBORN - 1 week

332. NIGHT PATROL - 1 week

333. O HORIZON - 1 week

334. OCEAN’S ELEVEN 25TH ANNIVERSARY - 1 week

335. OM SHANTI SHANTI SHANTIHI - 1 week

336. OPTIMIST: THE BRAVEST ACT IS TRUTH, THE - 1 week

337. OTHELLO - 1 week

338. PADDINGTON - 1 week

339. PADDINGTON IN PERU - 1 week

340. PANDAS - 1 week

341. PARIMALA AND CO - 1 week

342. PAST LIVES - 1 week

343. PONYO - STUDIO GHIBLI FEST 2026 - 1 week

344. POWER TO THE PEOPLE: JOHN & YOKO LIVE IN NYC - 1 week

345. PRATHICHAYA - 1 week

346. PRESIDENT’S CAKE, THE - 1 week

347. PRETTY IN PINK 40th ANNIVERSARY - 1 week

348. PRIDE & PREJUDICE 20TH ANNIVERSARY RE-RELEASE - 1 week

349. PRINCE OF EGYPT, THE - 1 week

350. PURPLE RAIN - 1 week

351. REDUX REDUX - 1 week

352. RESERVOIR DOGS - 1 week

353. REVENANT 10TH ANNIVERSARY RE-RELEASE, THE - 1 week

354. ROSE: COME BACK TO ME, THE - 1 week

355. ROTTEN MOVIES, FRESH BEER: BAD BOYS - 1 week

356. ROTTEN MOVIES, FRESH BEER: HOOK - 1 week

357. SACCHARINE - 1 week

358. SACRED HEART: HIS REIGN HAS NO END - 1 week

359. SAMPRADAYINI SUPPINI SUDDAPOOSANI - 1 week

360. SCARE OUT - 1 week

361. SCARLET - 1 week

362. SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD - 1 week

363. SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY 4K, THE - 1 week

364. SHEEPDOG - 1 week

365. SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN - 1 week

366. SMURFS - 1 week

367. SPACEBALLS - 1 week

368. STARDUST - 1 week

369. STARSHIP TROOPERS - 1 week

370. STORY OF EVERYTHING, THE - 1 week

371. STRAY KIDS: THE DOMINATE EXPERIENCE - 1 week

372. SUPERPOWER DOGS: AN IMAX 3D EXPERIENCE - 1 week

373. TAFITI: ACROSS THE DESERT - 1 week

374. TEKKONKINKREET - 1 week

375. THAT THEY MAY BE ONE - 1 week

376. THEY LIVE - 1 week

377. THIS IS NOT A TEST - 1 week

378. THREE AMIGOS! - 1 week

379. TIME HOPPERS: THE SILK ROAD - 1 week

380. TWILIGHT - 1 week

381. TWILIGHT SAGA MARATHON, THE - 1 week

382. UNDER THE SEA - 1 week

383. UNSUNG HERO - 1 week

384. URBAN COWBOY - 1 weeks

385. VANISHING POINT - 1 week

386. VERTIGO - 1 week

387. VISHNU VINYASAMM - 1 week

388. WHIPLASH - 1 week

389. WITH LOVE - 1 week

390. WIZARD OF OZ, THE - 1 week

391. WOLF OF WALL STREET, THE - 1 week

392. WORLDBREAKER - 1 week

393. YETI, THE - 1 week

394. YOU’RE DATING A NARCISSIST! - 1 week

395. YOUNG WASHINGTON - 1 week

396. ZOMBIELAND SAGA: YUMEGINGA PARADISE - 1 week

Weekly posts include short notes on various cinematic topics, followed by the Now Showing in Madison guide to commercial theaters and alternative venues.

I know how you feel. It has been a tough week, with the cancellation of the remainder of the UW-Cinematheque summer series. The cooling pipe breakdown on the UW-Madison campus has been a complete disaster, not only for Vilas Hall but for several other buildings. I won’t go into the details here, but you can read Chali Pittman’s Isthmus coverage of the ongoing nighmare, including a quote from the Cinematheque’s Ben Riser.

But keep your chin up! There are still interesting options this week, including Bloody Nose Empty Pockets (pictured above, trailer below) presented by Four Star Video at the Bartell Theater on Sunday, July 5, 5:00pm

Somehow I missed tonight’s screening of the Oscar-winning documentary Mr. Nobody Against Putin in my last few weekly listings! It screens tonight at the Bartell Theater, 7:30pm. Other films at the Bartell this weekend include Jaws (Friday, July 3, 6:30pm) and the sing-along version of Grease (with on-screen lyrics, Sunday, July 5, 2:00pm)

MMoCA Rooftop Cinema: Schedule now posted

I’ll have a lot more to say about the newly posted Rooftop Cinema schedule in the next few days, between now and the first screening on Thursday, July 30. But for now, here’s the lineup with some brief descriptions. You can also find the schedule at the MMoCA website.

Thursday, July 30, 9:00pm
GIRL INTERNET SHOW: A KATI KELLI MIXTAPE | Kati Kelli | USA | 2013-2019 | 80 minutes

Underground web personality Kati Kelli produced an avant-garde YouTube series, Girl Internet Show, from 2013 until her death from asthma in 2019. This compilation, assembled by Kelli’s widower Jordan Wippel and filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow), presents a raw and unfiltered look at Kelli’s absurd, surreal sketches and her unsettling direct-address persona, including her first and final short film, Total Body Removal Surgery.

Thursday, August 6, 8:30pm
AMERICA: EVERYTHING YOU’VE EVER DREAMED OF | USA | Tony Ganz and Rhody Streeter | 1971-1973 | 80 minutes

The short documentaries of Tony Ganz and Rhody Streeter are as funny as they are unsettling, as affectionate as they are trenchant, and made with a refreshing concision that belies the depth of their cultural and social observations. Their films have been newly restored and are poised to regain their rightful place as some of the most eccentric and hilarious examples of American independent documentary filmmaking.

Thursday, August 13, 8:30pm
GANGSTERISM | Isiah Medina | Canada | 2025 | 84 minutes

As he mulls over the budget for his new film, director-gangster Clem (Mark Bacolcol) sends his artist cronies after an old comrade rumoured to be a leaker. Selected as the Closing Night Feature at the 2026 Onion City Experimental Film Festival (Chicago).

Thursday, August 20, 8:15pm
KIN DZA-DZA! | Georgiy Daneliya | Soviet Union | 1986 | 135 minutes

Imagine Andrei Tarkovsky (Solaris) directing Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and you’ll come close to the existential weirdness of the wonderfully loopy Soviet-era sci-fi comedy Kin-Dza-Dza! It’s a deadpan, absurdist mixture of Kurt Vonnegut, Monty Python, Samuel Beckett and Alejandro Jodorowsky’s never-made Dune, as well as a savage satire of bureaucratic idiocy and dysfunction no matter what political system you’re living under—or what planet you’re living on.

Halfway through 2026: Where have we been, where are we going?

I’m going to post a few mid-year surveys of Madison’s theatrical film market over the next few days, including:

• A list of all 400 (or so) films that played in town between January and June 2026, and how many weeks they played. This first post (probably tomorrow) will more or less just be the list, with subsequent posts providing some analysis of the data.

• A look at the many, many Best of 2026 (so far) lists, in relation to Madison’s theatrical market. (To get you started, here’s Rob Thomas’s list.)

• And a closer look at the international films that have played in Madison so far in 2026. If you’re a regular reader here, you probably don’t need to guess the top countries of origin for international films that play in Madison (clue: they’re not in Europe).

Now Playing In Madison: July 3–July 8, 2026

Please confirm showtimes with the venues (follow venue links where provided). The commercial theaters update their weekend listings on Wednesdays. Another valuable source that posts on Wednesdays with now playing lists is The Horizon Line Madison. When possible, I will provide links to reviews by Rob Thomas at Not That Rob Thomas, who gets around to far more proper reviews than I do.

Comments here are not reviews of the films, they are usually a response to the trailer, a summary of the buzz I have heard, or just snark. They are not always particularly accurate, according to reader feedback. I add trailers to new films of interest that you might not know about (American indies, international features, etc.).

Bartell Theater

• JAWS, Friday, July 3, 6:30pm

• FLASH GORDON (1980), Friday, July 3, 9:00pm

• GREASE (Sing Along Version), Sunday, June 5, 2:00pm

• BLOODY NOSE, EMPTY POCKETS, Sunday, June 5, 5:00pm

  • A 2020 docu-fiction hybrid film from directors Bill and Turner Ross, which examines the last day of operations for a dive bar in Las Vegas. This screening will be presented by Four Star Video Rental.

Highway 18 Outdoor Theater, Jefferson, Wisconsin

WUD Film Lakeside Cinema

• FINDING NEMO (2003), The Terrace @ Memorial Union, Monday, 7/6, 9:00 P.M.

• Lakeside Cinema, Monday nights at the Memorial Union Terrace returns with monthly themes: “Sports” (June), “Under the Lake,” (July), “Back to the 80’s” (August).

Side Room Cinematheque

• MIRANDA JULY TRIPLE FEATURE, Thursday, July 9, 8:00pm

• DM @sideroomcinematic (Instagram) for screening details.

Commercial Theaters:
AMC Theatres
Flix Brewhouse
Marcus Theatres (Palace and Point)

This list seems short, probably because all of the screens taken up by Supergirl (for now), Toy Story 5, and Minions & Monsters.

• ALPHA (2026) at AMC.

  • Indian Hindi-language action film, the latest installment in the YRF Spy Universe from Yash Raj Studios. So that always means a cameo by a star from another film in the series, in this case Hrithik Rashan (the striking green eyes at the end of the trailer).

• BACKROOMS: EVERYTHING MUST GO EDITION W/ BONUS FOOTAGE (2026) at AMC, Flix.

  • If you want that little bit more of the recent box office hit, this is for you. Meanwhile, here is Rob Thomas’s review of the original release.

• BLEACH: THOUSAND-YEAR BLOOD WAR - THE CALAMITY (2026) at AMC.

  • Anime feature, taken from the popular television series.

• CITIZEN KANE 85TH ANNIVERSARY at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

  • So see it already! So that I can tell non-spoilery film-snob jokes about it. But seriously, go see it if you haven’t, or see it again if you have.

• DEEP SKY (2023) at AMC.

• DISCLOSURE DAY (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• GATTA KUSTHI 2 (2026) at AMC.

  • Indian Tamil-language romantic comedy / sports drama, a sequel to a 2022 film. Title roughly translates as “Tied wrestling.”

• GIRLS LIKE GIRLS (2026) at AMC.

• HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (2025) at AMC.

• JACKASS: BEST AND LAST (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

  • I never was a fan when Jackass was on television, but I have to admit I have enjoyed some of the films. I might go see this.

• LEVITICUS (2026) at Point.

• LOCKBOX (2026) at AMC.

  • Supernatural horror film starring Carla Gugino.

• LUCKY STRIKE (2026) at AMC, Point.

  • World War II action drama starring Scott Eastwood. Read Rob Thomas’s review.

• MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace.

• MINIONS & MONSTERS (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

  • This latest entry in the Minions franchise apparently has a lot of film buff jokes, if that sways you. Read Rob Thomas’s review.

• OBSESSION (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• PADDINGTON (2015) at Point.

• PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH (2022) at Flix.

• RAO BAHADUR (2026) at AMC.

  • Indian Telugu-language psychological drama starring Satyadev.

• SCARY MOVIE (2026) at AMC, Palace, Point.

• STAR WARS: THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU (2026) at Palace, Point.

• SUPERGIRL (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

  • Read Rob Thomas’s review.

• TOY STORY 5 (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• TUNER (2026) at AMC.

• YOUNG WASHINGTON (2026) at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

Have you used the Now Showing in Madison listings at least once to find something interesting to see? Have you discovered a film that you didn’t realize was playing in town? Please consider supporting these efforts directly by clicking the “Buy Me a Popcorn” button and making a modest donation on those occasions when you find this resource valuable to your moviegoing in Madison.

Buy Me a Popcorn

Looking Ahead:

Local filmmaker Michael Doyle Olson has started what he hopes to be a comprehensive, collaborative public calendar of alternative film screenings in Madison. It is still a work in progress, but check it out at www.mdo.me/film.

MMoCA Cinema, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art

• See Rooftop Cinema schedule discussed above. Series starts July 30.

Highway 18 Outdoor Theater, Jefferson, Wisconsin

• Keen-eyed readers have noticed that the image for Supergirl is not Milly Alcock. But hey, they do what they can with these Facebook posts.

Cinesthesia at Madison Public Library Central Branch

• FULL METAL JACKET (Stanley Kubrick, 1987), Wednesday July 14, 6:30pm.

Mills Folly Microcinema at Arts + Literature Laboratory

• PROJECT PROJECTION, local film and video showcase, Wednesday, July 29, 7:00pm

• Now taking submissions of experimental film/video art, short docs, animation, and music videos (10 minute limit). Submit your work at artlitlab.org, deadline Friday, July 17.

Weekly posts include short notes on various cinematic topics, followed by the Now Showing in Madison guide to commercial theaters and alternative venues.

The UW-Cinematheque joins the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles and over 100 theaters in 73 cities around the world in celebrating (or observing?) Bleak Week, “an annual festival of despair.” A complete list of participating theaters, with links to their Bleak Week film schedules, can be found at the American Cinematheque website.

For a preview of the UW-Cinematheque’s Bleak Week lineup, consult Grant Phipps’ coverage at Isthmus, which also includes some notes about the remaining Ctek summer schedule, which continues through July 24. At Not that Rob Thomas, Rob interviews Ctek programmer Josh Martin about his Bleak Week selections. And, of course, the complete UW-Cinematheque summer schedule can be found at cinema.wisc.edu.

After Bleak Week, the two titles this summer that I’m most interested in are The Taste of Tea (Katsuhito Ishii, 2004) on Wednesday, July 22 and Letty Lynton (Clarence Brown, 1932) on Thursday, July 24. The latter, starring Joan Crawford, has earned a lot of attention as it has been generally unavailable until the recent home media release from Warner Archives. The Cinematheque, of course, will present the film in a 4K DCP. Letty Lynton was directed by Clarence Brown, a name Duck Soup Cinema fans will recognize as the director of the most recent screening, The Signal Tower.

MMoCA Rooftop Cinema: Coming Soon!

The films have been selected for this season’s Rooftop Cinema, Thursdays from June 30 through August 20. I hate to be a tease, but I’ll have to wait just a little bit longer to post the schedule here. But mark your calendar now for those Thursday nights!

Now Playing In Madison: June 23–June 29, 2026

Please confirm showtimes with the venues (follow venue links where provided). The commercial theaters update their weekend listings on Wednesdays. Another valuable source that posts on Wednesdays with now playing lists is The Horizon Line Madison. When possible, I will provide links to reviews by Rob Thomas at Not That Rob Thomas, who gets around to far more proper reviews than I do.

Comments here are not reviews of the films, they are usually a response to the trailer, a summary of the buzz I have heard, or just snark. They are not always particularly accurate, according to reader feedback. I add trailers to new films of interest that you might not know about (American indies, international features, etc.).

UW Cinematheque

Bleak Week films every evening from June 24 through June 30.

• MIRACLE MILE, 4070 Vilas Hall, Wednesday, June 24, 7 p.m.

  • Steve De Jarnatt, USA, 1989, 87 min.

• THE GREAT SILENCE, 4070 Vilas Hall, Thursday, June 25, 7 p.m.

  • Sergio Corbucci, France, Italy, 1968, 105 min.

• CHIME, 4070 Vilas Hall, Friday, June 26, 7 p.m.

  • Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Japan, 2024, 45 mins.

• CURE, 4070 Vilas Hall, Friday, June 26, 8 p.m.

  • Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Japan, 1997, 111 mins.

• MESSIAH OF EVIL, 4070 Vilas Hall, Saturday, June 27, 4 p.m.

  • Willard Huyck, Gloria Katz, USA, 1974, 90 min.

• LE BONHEUR, 4070 Vilas Hall, Sunday, June 28, 5 p.m.

  • Agnès Varda, France, 1965, 80 min.

• SUCH A PRETTY LITTLE BEACH, 4070 Vilas Hall, Sunday, June 28, 7 p.m.

  • Yves Allégret, France, 1949, 91 min.

• THE HOLE, 4070 Vilas Hall, Monday, June 29, 7 p.m.

  • Tsai Ming-Liang, Taiwan, France, 1998, 95 min.

• TESTAMENT, 4070 Vilas Hall, Tuesday, June 30, 7 p.m.

  • Lynne Littman, USA, 1983, 89 min.

• The remaining summer schedule is posted at the UW-Cinematheque website.

MMoCA Cinema, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art

• KÖLN 75 (2025), Thursday, June 25, 7:00pm, 227 State Street. Presented with the Madison Jazz Festival. The story behind the best-selling jazz album (Keith Jarret’s The Köln Concert) that almost never was, told through the eyes of the 18-year-old concert promoter who made the legendary live performance possible.

Highway 18 Outdoor Theater, Jefferson, Wisconsin

• Confirm this weekend’s double feature at highway18.com.

WUD Film Lakeside Cinema

• CHALLENGERS, The Terrace @ Memorial Union, Monday, 6/29, 9:00 P.M.

• Lakeside Cinema, Monday nights at the Memorial Union Terrace returns with monthly themes: “Sports” (June), “Under the Lake,” (July), “Back to the 80’s” (August).

Commercial Theaters:
AMC Theatres
Flix Brewhouse
Marcus Theatres (Palace and Point)

I’m slowly working my way back to snarky comments for current releases, but for now I’m just including trailers for a few interesting new releases.

• 7 DOGS at AMC.

  • A Saudi Arabian-backed Arabic-language globetrotting action film.

• BACKROOMS at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• BLEACH: THOUSAND-YEAR BLOOD WAR - THE CALAMITY at AMC, Palace, Point.

• BORN TO BE WILD at AMC.

• BUFFALO KIDS at Palace, Point.

• COCKTAIL 2 at AMC.

  • Indian Hindi-language comedy, a sequel to 2012’s Cocktail.

• COUTURE at AMC.

  • Angelina Jolie stars in the latest film from Alice Winocour (Proxima, Mustang)

• DAVID at AMC.

• DEATH OF ROBIN HOOD, THE at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• DISCLOSURE DAY at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• DOG MAN at Palace, Point.

  • Dreamworks animated film.

• FURIOUS, THE at AMC, Palace, Point.

  • Read Rob Thomas’s review. My brief review: Go see this if you have any interest in batshit crazy fight choreography (which I certainly do).

• GIRLS LIKE GIRLS at AMC, Point.

• JACK JOHNSON: SURFILMUSIC at Point.

• JACKASS: BEST AND LAST at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• LEVITICUS at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• LUCKY STRIKE at AMC, Point.

  • World War II action drama starring Scott Eastwood.

• MARCUS MYSTERY MOVIE at Palace, Point.

• MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE at AMC, Flix, Palace.

• MICHAEL at AMC, Palace, Point.

• MINIONS & MONSTERS: XFINITY EARLY ACCESS SCREENINGS at Palace, Point.

• MOONLIGHT at AMC.

• MUPPET MOVIE, THE at Flix.

• O HORIZON at AMC.

  • Sci-fi indie comedy directed by Madeleine Sackler, yes the Sackler family heiress Madeleine Sackler.

• OBSESSION at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• OCEAN’S ELEVEN 25TH ANNIVERSARY at Flix, Palace, Point.

• PADDINGTON IN PERU at AMC.

• PROJECT HAIL MARY at AMC.

• SCARY MOVIE at AMC, Palace, Point.

• SHEEP DETECTIVES, THE at AMC, Palace, Point.

• STAR WARS: THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• STOP! THAT! TRAIN! at AMC, Palace, Point.

• SUPERGIRL at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• SUPERGIRL: FAN FIRST SCREENINGS at AMC, Palace, Point.

• TALLADEGA NIGHTS: THE BALLAD OF RICKY BOBBY - 20TH ANNIVERSARY at AMC, Point.

• TO WONG FOO, THANKS FOR EVERYTHING, JULIE NEWMAR at AMC.

• TOY STORY 5 at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• TWISTER at Flix.

• WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE at AMC.

  • Akshay Kumar stars in this Indian Hindi-language action comedy.

Have you used the Now Showing in Madison listings at least once to find something interesting to see? Have you discovered a film that you didn’t realize was playing in town? Please consider supporting these efforts directly by clicking the “Buy Me a Popcorn” button and making a modest donation on those occasions when you find this resource valuable to your moviegoing in Madison.

Buy Me a Popcorn

Looking Ahead:

Local filmmaker Michael Doyle Olson has started what he hopes to be a comprehensive, collaborative public calendar of alternative film screenings in Madison. It is still a work in progress, but check it out at www.mdo.me/film.

Cinesthesia at Madison Public Library Central Branch

• FULL METAL JACKET (Stanley Kubrick, 1987), Wednesday July 14, 6:30pm.

Side Room Cinematheque

• Consult Instagram @sideroomcinematic for screening details, second Thursday of the month, and last Monday of the month.

Bartell Theater

• JAWS, Friday, July 3, 6:30pm

• FLASH GORDON (1980), Friday, July 3, 9:00pm

• GREASE (Sing Along Version), Sunday, June 5, 2:00pm

• BLOODY NOSE, EMPTY POCKETS, Sunday, June 5, 5:00pm

  • A 2020 docu-fiction hybrid film from directors Bill and Turner Ross, which examines the last day of operations for a dive bar in Las Vegas. This screening will be presented by Four Star Video Rental.

Weekly posts include short notes on various cinematic topics, followed by the Now Showing in Madison guide to commercial theaters and alternative venues.

I think that things will finally calm down for me, now that Duck Soup Cinema has completed its season and Mills Folly Microcinema only has one more event for the summer (Project Projection, June 29).

But wait…I’m not done with my busy season! I have to finalize MMoCA Rooftop Cinema for this summer (late July) and book next year’s Duck Soup Cinema. More on those projects soon. Meanwhile, yet again this will be a brief post.

Special Screenings at MMoCA

The MMoCA Teen Forum has organized a screening of The Wizard of Oz (1939) as a means to explore themes that can also be seen in the current MMoCA exhibition, David R. Harper, Good Morning Sweetheart. The screening is set for Thursday, June 18, 7:00pm. Admission is free, and you can register at the MMoCA website.

Another film program has been added at MMoCA for next week. The Madison Jazz Festival 2026 will present Köln 75 on Thursday, June 25 at 7:00pm. Again, admission is free and you can register at the MMoCA website.

Köln 75 is the story behind the concert that produced the best selling solo jazz album of all time, focusing on the teenage concert promoter who organized the concert at the Colonge Opera House in January, 1975. Scroll down to watch the trailer in the Looking Ahead section.

A Conversation on WORT-FM’s Access Hour

Nicholas Wootton invited me to participate in an interview on The Access Hour last night on Madison’s community radio station, WORT 89.9 FM. It ended up being a wide ranging interview about the evolution of my interest in experimental film, as well as a quick survey of my film programming in Madison over the years.

You can hear the interview in the WORT-FM Archive (Access Hour, Monday, June 15, 7:00pm). The interview ends with a question that I promised Nicholas that I’d answer in a post on Moving Image Madison. I’ll need a little more time to think about that answer, and I will post it here soon!

Now Playing In Madison: June 16–June 22, 2026

Please confirm showtimes with the venues (follow venue links where provided). The commercial theaters update their weekend listings on Wednesdays. Another valuable source that posts on Wednesdays with now playing lists is The Horizon Line Madison. When possible, I will provide links to reviews by Rob Thomas at Not That Rob Thomas, who gets around to far more proper reviews than I do.

Comments here are not reviews of the films, they are usually a response to the trailer, a summary of the buzz I have heard, or just snark. They are not always particularly accurate, according to reader feedback. I add trailers to new films of interest that you might not know about (American indies, international features, etc.).

Cinesthesia at Madison Public Library Central Branch

• MIDNIGHT COWBOY (John Schlesigner , 1993), Wednesday June 17, 6:30pm.

Madison Museum of Contemporary Art

• THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939), Thursday, June 18, 7:00pm, 227 State Street. Organized by the Teen Forum, in conjunction with the exhibition, “David R. Harper: Good Morning Sweetheart” now on display at the museum.

Highway 18 Outdoor Theater, Jefferson, Wisconsin

WUD Film Lakeside Cinema

• BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM (2002), The Terrace @ Memorial Union, Monday, 6/22, 9:00 P.M.

• Lakeside Cinema, Monday nights at the Memorial Union Terrace returns with monthly themes: “Sports” (June), “Under the Lake,” (July), “Back to the 80’s” (August).

Commercial Theaters:
AMC Theatres
Flix Brewhouse
Marcus Theatres (Palace and Point)

I’m slowly working my way back to snarky comments for current releases, but for now I’m just including trailers for a few interesting new releases.

• ADOLESCENCE OF UTENA at Point.

• AMAZING DIGITAL CIRCUS: THE LAST ACT, THE at AMC, Palace, Point.

• BACKROOMS at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• BREADWINNER, THE at AMC, Palace, Point.

• BUFFALO KIDS at Palace, Point.

• CALL ME BY YOUR NAME at AMC.

• CHARLIE THE WONDERDOG at Palace.

• COCKTAIL 2 at AMC.

• DEATH OF ROBIN HOOD, THE at AMC, Flix, Point.

• DEEP SEA 3D at AMC.

• DEVIL WEARS PRADA 2, THE at AMC, Flix, Point.

• DISCLOSURE DAY at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• FURIOUS, THE at AMC, Point.

• GIRLS LIKE GIRLS at AMC, Point.

• GOVERNOR: THE SILENT SAVIOUR at AMC.

• GREGG ALLMAN: THE MUSIC OF MY SOUL at Point.

• HAUNTED: ECHOES OF THE PAST at AMC.

• I LOVE BOOSTERS at AMC.

• JINSEI at AMC.

• KPOP DEMON HUNTERS at Palace.

• LEVITICUS at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• MAIN VAAPAS AAUNGA at AMC.

• MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• MICHAEL at AMC, Palace, Point.

• MIDSOMMAR at Flix.

• MOONLIGHT at AMC.

• OBSESSION at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• OCEAN’S ELEVEN 25TH ANNIVERSARY at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• PADDINGTON at Flix.

• PATRIOT, THE at Flix.

• PONYO - STUDIO GHIBLI FEST 2026 at AMC, Palace, Point.

• POWER BALLAD at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• PRESSURE at Palace, Point.

• PROJECT HAIL MARY at AMC.

• RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK at AMC, Palace, Point.

• SCARY MOVIE at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• SECRET FLIX at Flix.

• SHEEP DETECTIVES, THE at AMC, Flix, Point.

• STAR WARS: THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• STOP! THAT! TRAIN! at AMC, Point.

• TOY STORY 5 at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• TUNER at AMC.

Have you used the Now Showing in Madison listings at least once to find something interesting to see? Have you discovered a film that you didn’t realize was playing in town? Please consider supporting these efforts directly by clicking the “Buy Me a Popcorn” button and making a modest donation on those occasions when you find this resource valuable to your moviegoing in Madison.

Buy Me a Popcorn

Looking Ahead:

Local filmmaker Michael Doyle Olson has started what he hopes to be a comprehensive, collaborative public calendar of alternative film screenings in Madison. It is still a work in progress, but check it out at www.mdo.me/film.

MMoCA Cinema, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art

• KÖLN 75 (2025), Thursday, June 25, 7:00pm, 227 State Street. Presented with the Madison Jazz Festival. The story behind the best-selling jazz album (Keith Jarret’s The Köln Concert) that almost never was, told through the eyes of the 18-year-old concert promoter who made the legendary live performance possible.

UW Cinematheque

• UW Cinematheque will resume with “Bleak Week” from Wednesday, June 24 through Tuesday, June 30.

• The remaining summer schedule is now posted at the UW-Cinematheque website.

Side Room Cinematheque

• Consult Instagram @sideroomcinematic for screening details, second Thursday of the month, and last Monday of the month.

Bartell Theater

• JAWS, Friday, July 3, 6:30pm

• FLASH GORDON (1980), Friday, July 3, 9:00pm

• GREASE (Sing Along Version), Sunday, June 5, 2:00pm

• BLOODY NOSE, EMPTY POCKETS, Sunday, June 5, 5:00pm

  • This last film is a 2020 docu-fiction hybrid film from directors Bill and Turner Ross, which examines the last day of operations for a dive bar in Las Vegas. It will be presented by Four Star Video Rental.

Weekly posts include short notes on various cinematic topics, followed by the Now Showing in Madison guide to commercial theaters and alternative venues.

Once again, I’ve had a very busy week, and I’m darting around today putting finishing touches on recent projects. But here are a few short notes about what I’ve been up to and what you should put on your appointment schedule.

Tonight: Filmmaker Emily Pelstring, Mills Folly Microcinema, 7:00pm at Arts + Literature Laboratory. I mentioned this last week, but it is worth repeating one more time because it will be a fantastic show. Grant Phipps has led the charge to make this screening happen. If you want a short preview of the screening, you can see one of Pelstring’s films at Cartoon Brew, posted when A Flame the Colour of Air (2025) was selected as a Cartoon Brew Pick.

Saturday: The Signal Tower (1924) at Duck Soup Cinema, 2:00pm and 7:00pm at the Overture Center. In addition to the feature film with live accompaniment on the Grand Barton Organ, the screening will include the early American avant-garde film The Life and Death of 9413: A Hollywood Extra (1928), with live accompaniment by experimental composer and saxophonist Nick Zoulek. It should be very interesting to see how the combination of sound and image plays to the Duck Soup Cinema audience.

Monday: The Access Hour, WORT 89.9 FM, 7:00pm, host Nicholas Wootton has invited me to be one of the guests. Nicholas and I know each other from his several contributions as a filmmaker to Project Projection screenings at Mills Folly Microcinema, as well as my visits to WORT’s 8 O’Clock Buzz on Mondays, where Nicholas serves as a producer. Nicholas has invited a series of guests whom he knows, and with whom he would like to sit down and ask questions. So we’ll likely talk about flim programming and film culture in Madison, but the chat could also be more wide ranging than that. I’ll post a link to the WORT archive if you miss it live.

Announced for Thursday, June 25: Madison Jazz Festival will present a free screening of Köln 75 (2025) at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art at 7:00pm. I’ll have more to say on this in the coming weeks. In a nutshell, this narrative feature tells the story behind the concert that was recorded and released as Keith Jarrett’s album, The Köln Concert, which became the best selling solo album in jazz history.

In other MMoCA news, the opening reception and anniversary party went very well last Thursday. It was great to see filmmaker Bill Bedford enjoy the occasion. Be sure to catch Films by Bill Bedford during its run in the Video Gallery through September 6.

New Crestwood Elementary animation debuts on YouTube on Friday, 7:00pm.

One last bit of local film news: I received an email from Luke Bassuener with news about a new animated short by his Crestwood Elementary students. As many of you know, previous Crestwood shorts have been featured at the Wisconsin Film Festival and other regional and national film festivals.

Luke wrote, “This Friday June 12th at 7pm (Central), we’ll be premiering Crestwood Elementary’s newest animated short, “Arachne” for a limited time on the “Crestwood Art” YouTube channel. We’d love to have you tune in! The film is a delightfully askew adaptation of a well-known Greek myth, twisted with just the right amount of Gen Alpha weirdness. Our 4th and 5th graders have been working hard on this for months, and we’re thrilled to share it with you. We will hopefully have some of the kids on for a live chat during the screening.”

Here’s the trailer:

Now Playing In Madison: June 10–June 15, 2026

Please confirm showtimes with the venues (follow venue links where provided). The commercial theaters update their weekend listings on Wednesdays. Another valuable source that posts on Wednesdays with now playing lists is The Horizon Line Madison. When possible, I will provide links to reviews by Rob Thomas at Not That Rob Thomas, who gets around to far more proper reviews than I do.

Comments here are not reviews of the films, they are usually a response to the trailer, a summary of the buzz I have heard, or just snark. They are not always particularly accurate, according to reader feedback. I add trailers to new films of interest that you might not know about (American indies, international features, etc.).

Mills Folly Microcinema

• OUR PSYCHEDELIC NATURE: SHORT FILMS BY EMILY PELSTRING, Wednesday, June 10, 7:00pm at Arts + Literature Laboratory, 111 S. Livingston Street, Suite 100.

• Mills Folly Microcinema welcomes Canadian artist and animator Emily Pelstring for an in-person visit and screening of her recent work.

Side Room Cinematheque

• CULT FILMS: COVENS AND COVER-UPS, Thursday, June 11, 8:00pm, 1444 E. Washington Avenue. RED STATE (2011) and ROSEMARY’S BABY (1968) plus selected shorts. Program duration: 4hrs, 30min.

• Consult Instagram @sideroomcinematic for screening details, second Thursday of the month, and last Monday of the month.

Highway 18 Outdoor Theater, Jefferson, Wisconsin

Duck Soup Cinema at Overture Center

• THE SIGNAL TOWER (Clarence L. Brown, 1924), Saturday, June 13, 2:00pm and 7:00pm, Capitol Theater in the Overture Center, 201 State Street.

• In an extra special bonus, experimental musician Nick Zoulek will provide live accompaniment to the early American avant-garde short, LIFE AND DEATH OF A 9413: A HOLLYWOOD EXTRA (1928), at each screening.

SOGO Film Festival, Stoughton Village Players Theater

• Friday, June 12 through Sunday, June 14 at the Stoughton Village Players Theater, 225 E. Main Street, Stoughton, Wisconsin. Screening schedule at sogo.film.

WUD Film Lakeside Cinema

• SPEED RACER (2008), The Terrace @ Memorial Union, Monday, 6/15, 9:00 P.M.

• Lakeside Cinema, Monday nights at the Memorial Union Terrace returns with monthly themes: “Sports” (June), “Under the Lake,” (July), “Back to the 80’s” (August).

Commercial Theaters:
AMC Theatres
Flix Brewhouse
Marcus Theatres (Palace and Point)

Unfortunately, this will be another bare-bones list this week due to other project commitments. But snarky comments will return at some point!

• AMAZING DIGITAL CIRCUS: THE LAST ACT, THE at AMC, Palace, and Point.

• AMC SCREEN UNSEEN: JUNE 15 at AMC.

• BACKROOMS at AMC, Flix, Palace, and Point.

• BEAUTIFUL PLANET IMAX, A at AMC.

• BIRDCAGE 30TH ANNIVERSARY, THE at AMC, Flix, Palace, and Point.

• BREADWINNER, THE at AMC, Flix, Palace, and Point.

• BTS WORLD TOUR ‘ARIRANG’ IN BUSAN: LIVE VIEWING at Palace and Point.

• CAROLINA CAROLINE at AMC.

• CHARLIE THE WONDERDOG at Palace and Point.

• CRUNCHYROLL ANIME NIGHTS SNEAK PEEK at AMC and Point.

• DEVIL WEARS PRADA 2, THE at AMC and Point.

• DISCLOSURE DAY at AMC, Flix, Palace, and Point.

• FURIOUS, THE at AMC and Point.

• GABBY’S DOLLHOUSE: THE MOVIE at Palace.

• GOVERNOR: THE SILENT SAVIOUR at AMC.

• HAI JAWANI TOH ISHQ HONA HAI at AMC.

• HAUNTED: ECHOES OF THE PAST at AMC.

• I LOVE BOOSTERS at AMC.

• JACK JOHNSON: SURFILMUSIC at Point.

• JINSEI at AMC.

• LAST WHALE SINGER, THE at AMC, Palace, and Point.

• MAIN VAAPAS AAUNGA at AMC.

• MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE at AMC, Flix, Palace, and Point.

• MICHAEL at AMC, Palace, and Point.

• MILK at AMC.

• OBSESSION at AMC, Flix, Palace, and Point.

• PARIMALA AND CO at AMC.

• PEDDI at AMC.

• PONYO - STUDIO GHIBLI FEST 2026 at AMC, Palace, and Point.

• POWER BALLAD at AMC, Flix, Palace, and Point.

• PRESSURE at AMC, Flix, Palace, and Point.

• PRINCE OF EGYPT, THE at Flix.

• PROJECT HAIL MARY at AMC.

• PURPLE RAIN at Flix.

• ROTTEN MOVIES, FRESH BEER: HOOK at Flix.

• SACRED HEART: HIS REIGN HAS NO END at Palace and Point.

• SCARY MOVIE at AMC, Flix, Palace, and Point.

• SHEEP DETECTIVES, THE at AMC and Point.

• SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN at AMC.

• STAR WARS: THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU at AMC, Flix, Palace, and Point.

• STOP! THAT! TRAIN! at AMC and Point.

• TRAINSPOTTING at Point.

• TUNER at AMC and Point.

Have you used the Now Showing in Madison listings at least once to find something interesting to see? Have you discovered a film that you didn’t realize was playing in town? Please consider supporting these efforts directly by clicking the “Buy Me a Popcorn” button and making a modest donation on those occasions when you find this resource valuable to your moviegoing in Madison.

Buy Me a Popcorn

Looking Ahead:

Local filmmaker Michael Doyle Olson has started what he hopes to be a comprehensive, collaborative public calendar of alternative film screenings in Madison. It is still a work in progress, but check it out at www.mdo.me/film.

Cinesthesia at Madison Public Library Central Branch

• MIDNIGHT COWBOY (Joh , 1993), Wednesday June 17, 6:30pm.

MMoCA Cinema, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art

• THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939), Thursday, June 18, 7:00pm, 227 State Street. Organized by the Teen Forum, in conjunction with the exhibition, “David R. Harper: Good Morning Sweetheart” now on display at the museum.

• KÖLN 75 (2025), Thursday, June 25, 7:00pm, 227 State Street. Presented with the Madison Jazz Festival. The story behind the best-selling jazz album (Keith Jarret’s The Köln Concert) that almost never was, told through the eyes of the 18-year-old concert promoter who made the legendary live performance possible.

UW Cinematheque

• UW Cinematheque will resume with “Bleak Week” from Wednesday, June 24 through Tuesday, June 30.

• The remaining summer schedule is now posted at the UW-Cinematheque website.

Tuesday weekly posts feature some short notes on various cinematic topics, followed by the Now Showing in Madison guide to commercial theaters and alternative venues.

Once again, deadlines for many projects will restrict my time available for Moving Image Madison this week, but I wanted to make sure that two upcoming experimental film opportunities are on your radar.

First, films by Watertown-based experimental filmmaker Bill Bedford will begin screening in the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art video gallery (227 State Street) starting Friday, June 4, and running through September 6. Fans of the Wisconsin Film Festival will recognize Bedford’s name, because his films have been featured in several experimental film programs at Festival in recent years.

I have a hand in bringing Bedford’s films to MMoCA in my role as Assistant Curator of Film and Art Video. Here are a few notes I prepared for Films by Bill Bedford:

Filmmaker and photographer Bill Bedford has investigated the relationship between still and moving images since the mid-1970s. He creates what he calls “moving, semi-moving, and non-moving pictures” in short films that move between documentation and abstraction. Sometimes this abstraction evolves while filming, through camera movement or objects moving in front of the camera. Other times Bedford creates or discovers abstract shapes and patterns during the editing process.

I’m very pleased to share Bedford’s films with MMoCA visitors. Friday also marks the 125th anniversary of MMoCA (in its various incarnations) and a special Spring Opening Celebration to celebrate the opening of Extended Play: A-Side, an exhibition of groundbreaking abstract art associated with Sam Gillam and the Washington Color School. The public reception on Friday from 6:00pm to 9:00pm will be your first opportunity to see Bedford’s films in the newly renovated MMoCA video gallery. But you’ll have plenty of opportunities to walk in during gallery hours and see the program through September.

Our Psychedelic Nature: Short Films by Emily Pelstring

Meanwhile, you won’t have as much time to see work by Canadian filmmaker Emily Pelstring, so mark Wednesdsay, June 10 on your calendar now.

Pelstring will attend a program of her short films, Our Psychedelic Nature, at Mills Folly Microcinema on Wednesday, June 10, 7:00pm at Arts + Literature Laboratory, 111 S. Livingston Street, Suite 100.

I plan to have more about this special screening in next Tuesday’s post. But here is a brief introduction from the program’s promotional material and Pelstring’s website:

Emily Pelstring is a Canadian artist and tenured professor in the Department of Film and Media at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. Her animated short films have screened widely at film festivals, including Slamdance, the Ann Arbor Film Festival, Transmediale Berlin, Images, and Internationale Short Film Festival Oberhausen. The Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF) presented a 13-film retrospective of her work in 2020. In 2023, the GIRAF Festival presented a second retrospective of her work.

Pelstring’s A Flame the Colour of Air (2025, pictured above) won 2nd Prize for Best Experimental Film at the ASIFA East Awards.

Mills Folly programmer Grant Phipps has been working with Pelstring to facilitate her visit next week. It should be a special screening, so I hope you can join us!

Now Playing In Madison: June 2–June 8, 2026

Please confirm showtimes with the venues (follow venue links where provided). The commercial theaters update their weekend listings on Wednesdays. Another valuable source that posts on Wednesdays with now playing lists is The Horizon Line Madison. When possible, I will provide links to reviews by Rob Thomas at Not That Rob Thomas, who gets around to far more proper reviews than I do.

Comments here are not reviews of the films, they are usually a response to the trailer, a summary of the buzz I have heard, or just snark. They are not always particularly accurate, according to reader feedback. I add trailers to new films of interest that you might not know about (American indies, international features, etc.).

Wisconsin 48 Hour Film Project

• THE WISCONSIN 48 B.O.W.s (Best of Weekend), Sunday, June 7, 1:00pm, Crucible Madison, 3112 Commercial Avenue.

• The 48hr Film Project folks will screen the films produced back on the weekend of May 17 that have advanced to the “Yes We Cannes” competition.

WUD Film Lakeside Cinema

Based on the sources provided, there is only one film scheduled to play at WUD Film during the specified period of Tuesday, June 2 through Monday, June 8, 2026:

• WHIP IT, The Terrace @ Memorial Union, Monday, 6/8, 9:00 P.M.

• Lakeside Cinema, Monday nights at the Memorial Union Terrace returns with monthly themes: “Sports” (June), “Under the Lake,” (July), “Back to the 80’s” (August).

Commercial Theaters:
AMC Theatres
Flix Brewhouse
Marcus Theatres (Palace and Point)

Unfortunately, this will be a bare-bones list this week due to other project commitments. But snarky comments will return next week!

• A.I.: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE at Flix.

• AMAZING DIGITAL CIRCUS: THE LAST ACT, THE at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• BACKROOMS at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• BIRDCAGE 30TH ANNIVERSARY, THE at AMC, Point.

• BLAST at AMC.

• BREADWINNER, THE at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• CAROLINA CAROLINE at AMC.

• DEVIL WEARS PRADA 2, THE at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• HAI JAWANI TOH ISHQ HONA HAI at AMC.

• HUNGRY at AMC.

• I LOVE BOOSTERS at AMC, Palace.

• KATTALAN at AMC.

• LAST WHALE SINGER, THE at AMC, Palace, Point.

• MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE EARLY ACCESS SCREENING at AMC, Palace, Point.

• METROPOLITAN OPERA: EL ÚLTIMO SUEÑO DE FRIDA Y DIEGO, THE at Point.

• MICHAEL at AMC, Palace, Point.

• MORTAL KOMBAT II at AMC, Flix.

• OBSESSION at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• PASSENGER at AMC, Palace, Point.

• PEDDI at AMC, Palace, Point.

• POWER BALLAD at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• PRESSURE at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• PROJECT HAIL MARY at AMC.

• REVOLUTIONARY AMERICA at Palace.

• SCARY MOVIE at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• SCARY MOVIE: FAN EVENT at Flix, Palace, Point.

• SHEEP DETECTIVES, THE at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• STAR WARS: THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• SUPER MARIO GALAXY MOVIE, THE at AMC.

• TRAINSPOTTING at AMC, Point.

• TUNER at AMC, Palace, Point.

Have you used the Now Showing in Madison listings at least once to find something interesting to see? Have you discovered a film that you didn’t realize was playing in town? Please consider supporting these efforts directly by clicking the “Buy Me a Popcorn” button and making a modest donation on those occasions when you find this resource valuable to your moviegoing in Madison.

Buy Me a Popcorn

Looking Ahead:

Local filmmaker Michael Doyle Olson has started what he hopes to be a comprehensive, collaborative public calendar of alternative film screenings in Madison. It is still a work in progress, but check it out at www.mdo.me/film.

Mills Folly Microcinema

• OUR PSYCHEDELIC NATURE: SHORT FILMS BY EMILY PELSTRING, Wednesday, June 10, 7:00pm at Arts + Literature Laboratory, 111 S. Livingston Street, Suite 100.

• Mills Folly Microcinema welcomes Canadian artist and animator Emily Pelstring for an in-person visit and screening of her recent work.

UW Cinematheque

• UW Cinematheque will resume with “Bleak Week” from Wednesday, June 24 through Tuesday, June 30.

• The remaining summer schedule is now posted at the UW-Cinematheque website.

Side Room Cinematheque

• Consult Instagram @sideroomcinematic for screening details, second Thursday of the month, and last Monday of the month.

Cinesthesia at Madison Public Library Central Branch

• MIDNIGHT COWBOY (Joh , 1993), Wednesday June 17, 6:30pm.

Rob and I saw an advance screening of Tuner a few weeks ago, and we recorded this discussion in the same session as our Wizard of the Kremlin review (thus the familiar combination of shirts).

For Rob’s written review, be sure to hop over to his Substack, Not That Rob Thomas.

As mentioned in the video, Rob liked Tuner more than I did. It is a well made film, overall, but I frequently found myself frustrated by how neat and tidy it is in its storytelling. More often than not, I praise films for narrative efficiency, especially in short 90-minute gems that come together perfectly. But in Tuner, the efficiency comes across as connecting the dots, especially where the romantic relationship is concerned.

Rob and I agree about the strong performances in the film, especially from Havana Rose Liu as Ruthie, the classical pianist and composer who meets the central character, Niki (Leo Woodall) during one of her rehearsal sessions. It took me forever to figure out where I had seen Liu before. Then just a few minutes before finishing this post I discovered that she played Isabel in Bottoms, a film I admired quite a bit.

Come back tomorrow for the next Now Showing in Madison post!

Tuesday weekly posts feature some short notes on various cinematic topics, followed by the Now Showing in Madison guide to commercial theaters and alternative venues.

Not everything has to work to be great.

If I put a little more thought into it, I could come up with a list of moments and ideas that don’t really work in Boots Riley’s fashion heist comedy / social satire I Love Boosters. But I found myself smiling, and often laughing out loud, at many of these ideas because Riley is perfectly willing to throw a lot of pasta at the wall to see what sticks. And even what doesn’t stick is always thought provoking in an era when independent film often takes itself far too seriously.

In the moment, I Love Boosters was one of the most enjoyable movie going experiences I’ve had in a while. And overall I think the film is best viewed as a series of great scenes rather than as a coherent three-act narrative within a particular genre.

“Boosters” are shoplifters who sell the clothes they steal at a deep discount. The central conflict in the film sets a group of boosters, The Velvet Gang, led by Corvette (Keke Palmer) against legendary designer Christie Smith (Demi Moore) and her Metro Designers chain of high fashion clothing stores. The Velvet’s scheme to hit one particular Metro Designers location is undermined when the entire inventory is stolen by a mysterious woman and a “magic bag.” The magic bag turns out to be a teleportation device stolen by Jianhu (Poppy Liu), a Chinese sweatshop worker who has teleported to the United States to plot revenge against Christie Smith for Smith’s inhumane labor practices in her Chinese factories.

And I should mention that Corvette may or may not be seduced by a mysterious and handsome man (LaKeith Stanfield) who is rumored to suck out a woman’s soul during oral sex. Stanfield’s character, the teleporter, and a third act reveal provided far more supernatural and science fiction elements than I expected going into the film. But I wouldn’t call I Love Boosters science fiction. These elements are just part of the mix that (more or less) make sense within the flow of the film.

Needless to say, there are a lot of ideas flowing in I Love Boosters. Not all of these ideas are fully developed or pay off beyond one scene. In fact, even the central idea of boosting, reselling the goods at a discount, is more-or-less dropped after the first scene where Corvette brings a man home from the club and sells him some shoes (when the man was expecting sex). Boosting after that scene focuses on the theft side of the process, with more elaborate and absurd heist schemes.

But I didn’t really care about the plot of I Love Boosters, because I had as much fun watching it as Boots Riley and his cast seem to have had making it. While plot ideas are not fully developed, many visual gags are developed to explore the logic of their premise. The key example here is the Metro Designers headquarters, and Christie Smith’s corporate office. Can describing an office count as a spoiler? In this case, yes it can, so I’ll leave it alone so that you can discover it yourself.

It’s interesting to compare the experience of the film to watching work by other stylistically flamboyant directors. I Love Boosters has the audacious color palette of Wes Anderson, with joyful playfulness instead of rigid formalism. It has the in-your-face style of (old-school) Sam Raimi without the gore. It has the cartoony feel of Tim Burton (or Frank Tashlin) without the so-white casting. But even after the success of Sorry to Bother You and now I Love Boosters, Riley probably will not be discussed with any depth in terms of visual style. I hope I’m wrong about that.

I Love Boosters may be the funniest film to include a literal explanation of dialectical materialism. The anti-corporate and pro-labor themes in the film are presented a little too broadly to have real bite. And issues of representation are not completely resolved by the diverse casting—the Asian characters in the film easily could have come from a 1980s comedy. But there was something exhilarating about watching an American indie comedy with an ambitious sense of style and a brain in its head.

Now Playing In Madison: May 26–June 1, 2026

Please confirm showtimes with the venues (follow venue links where provided). The commercial theaters update their weekend listings on Wednesdays. Another valuable source that posts on Wednesdays with now playing lists is The Horizon Line Madison. When possible, I will provide links to reviews by Rob Thomas at Not That Rob Thomas, who gets around to far more proper reviews than I do.

Comments here are not reviews of the films, they are usually a response to the trailer, a summary of the buzz I have heard, or just snark. They are not always particularly accurate, according to reader feedback. I add trailers to new films of interest that you might not know about (American indies, international features, etc.).

WUD Film Lakeside Cinema

• Lakeside Cinema, Monday nights at the Memorial Union Terrace, returns June 1 with Space Jam. Monthly themes will be “Sports” (June), “Under the Lake,” (July), “Back to the 80’s” (August).

• SPACE JAM, The Terrace @ Memorial Union, Monday, 6/1, 9:00 P.M.

C-FAM at Marcus Point Cinemas

• The Children’s Film Academy of Madison will screen three of their recent short productions on Monday, June 1, 6:30pm at Marcus Point.

• SMALL TOWN ROCK STARS is a coming-out story set in 1980s Racine, Wisconsin. WRESTLING is about a girl who grew up in the Mormon faith and becomes a high school wrestler. LEGEND OF THE PADDLE FISH was made in collaboration with Friends of the Lower Wisconsin River Way.

Commercial Theaters:
AMC Theatres
Flix Brewhouse
Marcus Theatres (Palace and Point)

• AMC SCREEN UNSEEN: JUNE 1 at AMC.

• BACKROOMS at AMC, Palace, Point.

  • I assume that most people reading this know the history behind the “Backrooms” meme, and its connection to Oshkosh, Wisconsin. But you can read a quick summary of that history in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.1Meanwhile, this has all (or most) of the hallmarks of another potential A24 hit.

• BREADWINNER, THE at AMC, Palace, Point.

  • I know what you’ve all been thinking: can comedian Nate Bargatze carry a feature film comedy? Well, we’ll all find out after The Breadwinner opens on Friday.

• CHAND MERA DIL at AMC.

  • Indian Hindi-language romantic drama starring Ananya Panday and Lakshya.

• CORPORATE RETREAT at AMC, Palace, Point.

  • Horror film (veering into broad social satire) that appears to tap into everyone’s contempt for corporate culture.

• DEVIL WEARS PRADA 2, THE at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• GODZILLA MINUS ONE at AMC.

  • Re-release of 2023 film which managed to win an Oscar for special effects. I actually liked this film quite a bit, but my preference of recent Godzilla films remains Shin Godzilla (2016).

• I LOVE BOOSTERS at AMC, Palace, Point.

  • See my comments, above. The upshot: go see it. Crime comedy from rapper/filmmaker Boots Riley, lead vocalist of The Coup, whose Sorry to Bother You (2018) was a surprise hit. Also read Rob Thomas’s review.

• IN THE GREY at AMC, Palace, Point.

  • If you have been to any film in any theater in the last month or so, there is a very good chance that you’ve seen this trailer for the latest Guy Ritchie action drama starring Henry Cavil, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Eliza Gonzalez. Might be fun, but appears to be getting mediocre to negative reviews.

• IS GOD IS at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

  • I seem to have had the wrong impression about this in my original Now Playing comments…it is actually getting some decent reviews, 98% on Rotten Tomatoes in fact. It still seems a bit over the top, but I’m intrigued.

• LEGALLY BLONDE 25TH ANNIVERSARY at AMC, Flix, Point.

• MAY CONTAIN: MY LIFE at AMC.

  • Documentary about the dangers associate with living with food allergies.

• METROPOLITAN OPERA, THE: EL ÚLTIMO SUEÑO DE FRIDA Y DIEGO at Palace, Point.

• MICHAEL at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

  • Apparently people didn’t know how much they needed a Michael Jackson music-filled bio-pic that doesn’t go beyond the Bad tour in 1988. I guess that makes sense to someone my age, I seem to recall disliking almost everything in the Michael Jacksons ouvre after (and including) Scorsese’s Bad video. As of this writing, Michael is the fourth-highest grossing film of 2026.

• MORTAL KOMBAT II at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

• OBSESSION at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

  • Horror film with the ol’ Be Careful What You Wish For theme. Young man buys a supernatural toy and wishes that his crush would fall hopelessly in love with him. Dude, you know you should have added “while respecting ourselves as individuals and providing sufficient space when needed.” This seems to be getting a strong response from viewers beyond horror fans.

• PASSENGER at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

  • Supernatural horror film about a young couple on a road trip who are pursued by a demonic stalker. That old saw. Latest film from André Øvredal (Trollhunter 2016, Voyage of the Demeter 2023).

• PRESSURE at AMC, Palace, Point.

  • Adaptation of a play by David Haig, about the meteorologist James Stagg (Andrew Scott) who advises General Dwight D. Eisenhower (Brendan Fraser) on whether or not to proceed with the D-Day invasion.

• PROJECT HAIL MARY at AMC, Flix, Point.

• REVOLUTIONARY AMERICA at AMC, Palace, Point.

  • Documentary narrated by Tom Selleck. Produced by Hillsdale Studios, which is associated with Hillsdale College, the Christian liberal arts college in Michigan. A Fathom Events release.

• SACCHARINE at AMC.

  • Australian supernatural horror film, which had its world premiere in the Midnight section of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. Co-distributed by Independent Film Company and Shudder.

• SHEEP DETECTIVES, THE at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

  • Okay, I have no idea if this is any good. Word-of-mouth so far is that it is seems to be better than the first impressions I had from the trailer. In fact, several friends have said that they enjoyed it on social media. But does it need a New Yorker think-piece from Jill Lepore (who just won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for History) titled, “What ‘The Sheep Detectives’ Doesn’t Understand About Sheep”? Someone behind the paywall can tell me if it is worth it.

• SHREK 25TH ANNIVERSARY at AMC.

• STAR WARS: THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU at AMC, Flix, Palace, Point.

  • Well, here’s some more if you want it.

• SUPER MARIO GALAXY MOVIE, THE at AMC, Palace, Point.

• TEKKONKINKREET 20TH ANNIVERSARY at AMC and Point.

  • A 4K remaster of the 2006 anime feature film based on the manga of the same name (originally published 1993-94).

• TOP GUN 40TH ANNIVERSARY at Palace, Point.

• TOP GUN: MAVERICK RE-RELEASE at Point.

  • You know, when I finally caught up with this, I really regretted not having seen it on a big screen. I’m not quite sure if I’ll take the time to do so this particular week, but it is very tempting.

• TUNER at AMC, Palace, Point.

  • Read Rob Thomas’s review here. Watch Rob and I discuss Tuner in a video to be posted on Wednesday.

• VANISHING POINT at AMC.

  • Chinese crime suspense drama about a series of disturbing incidents at a usually quiet apartment building.

Have you used the Now Showing in Madison listings at least once to find something interesting to see? Have you discovered a film that you didn’t realize was playing in town? Please consider supporting these efforts directly by clicking the “Buy Me a Popcorn” button and making a modest donation on those occasions when you find this resource valuable to your moviegoing in Madison.

Buy Me a Popcorn

Looking Ahead:

Local filmmaker Michael Doyle Olson has started what he hopes to be a comprehensive, collaborative public calendar of alternative film screenings in Madison. It is still a work in progress, but check it out at www.mdo.me/film.

Wisconsin 48 Hour Film Project

• THE WISCONSIN 48 B.O.W.s (Best of Weekend), Sunday, June 7, 1:00pm, Crucible Madison, 3112 Commercial Avenue.

• The 48hr Film Project folks will screen the films produced back on the weekend of May 17 that have advanced to the “Yes We Cannes” competition.

Mills Folly Microcinema

• OUR PSYCHEDELIC NATURE: SHORT FILMS BY EMILY PELSTRING, Wednesday, June 10, 7:00pm at Arts + Literature Laboratory, 111 S. Livingston Street, Suite 100.

• Mills Folly Microcinema welcomes Canadian artist and animator Emily Pelstring for an in-person visit and screening of her recent work.

UW Cinematheque

• UW Cinematheque will resume with “Bleak Week” from Wednesday, June 24 through Tuesday, June 30.

• The remaining summer schedule is now posted at the UW-Cinematheque website.

Side Room Cinematheque

• Consult Instagram @sideroomcinematic for screening details, second Thursday of the month, and last Monday of the month.

Cinesthesia at Madison Public Library Central Branch

• MIDNIGHT COWBOY (Joh , 1993), Wednesday May 20, 6:30pm.