The BSR January 2025 repertory film roundup

The highlights

Dinner in America
Friday, January 24
7pm and 10pm
Philadelphia Film Center, 1412 Chestnut Street

A welcome development in the last year has been the re-releases of some films that originally arrived during the pandemic, especially the ones, like Tenet, that benefit from showing in front of a raucous audience.

One such film is Dinner in America, directed by Adam Rehmeier. The film is about an abrasive punk rocker (Kyle Gallner) and his road trip around the country with a bullied college dropout (Emily Skaggs), and a series of family dinners that end terribly. It’s an outrageous, very funny film, one that I—like I would imagine most people who saw it—have only ever watched on Hulu.

I’m fairly sure Dinner in America never played on the big screen locally when it was first released, but the film is coming to the Film Society Center for two Friday night showings, with Rehmeier, Gallner, and Skaggs on hand for a Q&A at both, along with producer Ross Putman. And while you wait, I highly recommend Rehmeier’s 2024 follow-up film, Snack Shack, which is now streaming on Prime Video.

Glen or Glenda
Monday, January 27, 7:30pm
PhilaMOCA, 531 North 12th Street

Ed Wood has often been called the worst filmmaker of all time, but not many bad filmmakers made movies that still get shown 72 years after they were made. Described as “the world’s first trans-centric movie,” Glen or Glenda was Wood’s 1953 directorial debut. It’s presented as part of PhilaMOCA’s Cult Movie Monday series and comes from an “ultra-rare film print” from AGFA + Something Weird.

Also coming to PhilaMOCA this month are local premieres of a pair of movies that, judging by their titles, might have even given Ed Wood pause: Fish Piss and The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man.

The Act of Killing
Saturday, January 25
Monday, January 29
Film Society Center, 1412 Chestnut Street

Probably the most acclaimed documentary of the 21st century is this astonishing 2012 film directed by Joshua Oppenheimer and Christine Cynn. The filmmakers went to Indonesia and interviewed a group of gangsters who led death squads in that country in the 1960s and—knowing they’re all movie buffs—asked them to reenact their crimes.

It’s chilling, absurd, and almost impossible to imagine that it exists- and it was brought to us by an Indonesian crew that appears almost entirely anonymous in the credits.

More cinema screenings

Casablanca
Tuesday, January 7
Ritz Five
Sunday, January 26
The Colonial Theatre

The Hustler
Wednesday, January 8
Film Society Center

The Devil, Probably
Wednesday, January 8
Lightbox Film Center (at the Bok)

The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Friday, January 10
Ritz Five

Aliens
Friday, January 10
Ritz Five

The Blues Brothers
Friday, January 10
The Colonial Theatre

Don’t Look Now
Saturday, January 11
Saturday, January 25
Film Society Center

The People Under the Stairs
Saturday, January 11
Saturday, January 18
Film Society Bourse

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Saturday, January 11
Water Tower Cinema

The Mighty Ducks
Saturday, January 11
The County Theater

Naked Acts
Sunday, January 12
Philadelphia Museum of Art

American Fiction
Wednesday, January 15
Parkway Central Library

Lancelot du Lac
Wednesday, January 15
Lightbox Film Center (at the Bok)

Mallrats
Friday, January 17
Ambler Theater

Above the Rim
Saturday, January 18
The Colonial Theatre

The Goonies
Sunday, January 19
Monday, January 20
Various theaters (Fathom Events)

The Deer Hunter
Tuesday, January 21
Ritz Five

Bona
Wednesday, January 22
Lightbox Film Center (at the Bok)

You Can’t Take it With You (Cinema Classics Seminar)
Wednesday, January 22
Bryn Mawr Film Institute

Best in Show
Thursday, January 23
Film Society Center

Silver Linings Playbook
Friday, January 24
The Colonial Theatre

Marty
Monday, January 27
Bryn Mawr Film Institute