This weekend, you can start preparing early for the 2017 Academy Awards by watching these likely nominees—but there are also plenty of other screenings our critics recommend, including must-see Hollywood noir The Maltese Falcon, the poetry-filled drama/comedy Paterson, John Carpenter's The Thing, and the clever, beautiful re-created documentary Notes on Blindness. As always, check out our complete movie times calendar for more options, or our Things To Do calendar for everything happening this weekend.

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Jump to: Thursday Only | Friday—Sunday | Sunday Only | All Weekend

THURSDAY ONLY
1. Doctor Strange
The psychedelic visuals, the clever asides, the pure pleasure of having as good an actor as Cumberbatch at the center of a silly superhero epic—all of that cast a spell on me, and I came out of the theater utterly content. Doctor Strange might have a lot of baggage, but more than anything else, it’s fun. SUZETTE SMITH
Meridian 16

2. Harry Benson: Shoot First
Whether or not you've heard of Harry Benson, you're familiar with his work. From the image of Muhammad Ali standing alongside the Beatles, Ali playfully pretending to punch George Harrison's ear, to the shot of Bobby Kennedy with three bullets in him, lying on the floor of the kitchen in the Ambassador Hotel, Benson's photographs are a part of our culture, a part of us. The entertaining documentary Harry Benson: Shoot First puts together the pieces of what audiences already subconsciously know about the career of the famous photographer. Even the on-screen interviewees (active admirers of Benson's work) flip through his portfolio and exclaim, "He took this one too?" as they stop to look at yet another familiar photo. JULIA RABAN
Northwest Film Forum

FRIDAY—SUNDAY
3. Elle
Elle, Paul Verhoeven's first feature since 2006’s Black Book, is a breathtakingly twisted piece of work, utilizing a tremendous central performance by Isabelle Huppert that bridges some markedly taboo fault lines concerning power and sexuality. And somehow the damned thing is also funny, usually at the least opportune moments. Based on a novel by Philippe Djian, the plot follows a rich, gives-no-shits Parisian video game producer (Huppert), who suffers a horrific sexual assault at the hands of a masked home invader. After the attack, she proceeds to do... virtually nothing expected, investigating her friends and neighbors while moving towards an endgame that even she seems to find mysterious. Her small smile while buying an axe could launch a thousand think pieces. ANDREW WRIGHT
Grand Illusion

4. The Maltese Falcon
If you are 21 and do not want to be what Mr. Potato Head calls Hamm the piggy bank in Toy Story (“uncultured swine”), then you must, must, must watch The Maltese Falcon. Directed by the lusty John Huston, starring the mid-century Hollywood hunk Humphrey Bogart and the mid-century Hollywood creep Peter Lorre, and based on a novel by the great hack Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon is lowbrow culture at its highest. Indeed, you will be an uncultured swine until you are familiar with all of the great French, German, and Hollywood noirs. CHARLES MUDEDE
Central Cinema

5. Notes on Blindness
Visually depicting sightlessness is a tough task for even the most inventive of moviemakers. (Derek Jarman’s 1993 film Blue, in which Tilda Swinton and others talk over a hypnotically static shade of the title color, remains the experimental gold standard.) The re-created documentary Notes on Blindness takes a distinctly proactive approach to this dilemma, utilizing a steady array of clever effects to depict the rapidly deteriorating vision of its subject. While the film’s other device of having actors lip-synch from existing tape recordings may seem clunky in theory, the sounds and images come together beautifully in practice. ANDREW WRIGHT
Northwest Film Forum

6. The Thing
The John Carpenter horror flick about the worst dog ever.
Central Cinema

SUNDAY ONLY
7. The Road to Nickelsville
This film about homelessness in Seattle prioritizes personal stories from residents of Nickelsville, a local encampment (from which residents were evicted last March). The individual narratives are presented alongside an institutional perspective from the director of the Low Income Housing Institute and a district court judge. This screening will be followed by a panel discussion hosted by Christopher Ruffo and Casey Jaywork of The Seattle Weekly. *Sold Out*
Northwest Film Forum

8. Singin' in the Rain 65th Anniversary
Paul Constant wrote that "you haven't seen a movie musical until you've seen Singin' in the Rain; it's so full of huge production numbers, catchy songs, and fancy dance steps that it makes Chicago look like Lady in the Water." Celebrate the 65th anniversary of the quintessential film at this special screening that will include an introduction from Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz.
Meridian 16 & Pacific Place

ALL WEEKEND
9. Arrival
Arrival is an ominous, thrumming, beautiful thing that starts out being about aliens who need a decoder ring. It ends up being about something quite different. Arrival is about Big Things—and the manner in which Villeneuve gets to them, as his camera slowly traces structures and landscapes both familiar and strange, can’t help but surprise and impress. Visually and aurally remarkable, Arrival sometimes unfolds like a clever puzzle and other times like a raw-nerve thriller; throughout, with heart and wit, Heisserer and Villeneuve never lose sight of the film’s characters—creatures in a situation that’s weird and mournful, exciting and threatening. ERIK HENRIKSEN
Meridian 16 & Sundance Cinemas

10. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
"I'm annoying," says Eddie Redmayne to Dan Fogler in the opening half-hour of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. He’s like Doctor Who with gout, and yet—just like the good Doctor in even his lamest incarnations, there’s just enough charm glimmering beneath the surface and shining through the contrivances that you can’t write him off entirely. Fantastic Beasts, featuring an original screenplay by J.K. Rowling, is annoying in the manner of Scamander: It is eager to please and amaze, but undersells its spectacle until that spectacle becomes perfunctory. It’s a goofy blast of kid-lit in love with Looney Tunes-inspired adventure—except when it’s a sour metaphor for child abuse and intolerance that owes one hell of a debt to Stephen King’s famous prom queen. But somehow, the two stories are sewed together just tightly enough that the TV pilot-esque clumsiness of Fantastic Beasts (there will be four more of these films, likely transforming ASAP into The Dumbledore Prequels) can be forgiven for the power in its climax. BOBBY ROBERTS
Pacific Place

11. Fences
Recently, while leaving a screening of the solid and engaging film adaptation of August Wilson's play Fences, which was directed by Washington himself, a man walking behind me said to the woman walking next to him that this is not the kind of Denzel Washington film he likes. It's too act-y, it's all about the Academy Awards. Clearly, he wanted Washington to shoot more and talk less. But Fences has no guns and a whole lot of talking about life—it deals with failed dreams, race relations in mid-century America, marital problems, parenting problems, working-class problems, drinking problems, problems with debts, mental health, and, ultimately, death. What might kill the character Washington plays in Fences, Troy Maxson, is not a car chase or a shoot-out, but blocked arteries to the heart. He is a normal guy with a very standard suite of personal and social issues. The man behind me was correct: It is likely that Washington will be recognized by the Academy for this performance. And thank God! It is good to see a great actor take a break from his fall into the abyss of crap and produce something of social, artistic, and cultural value. The Academy will probably also recognize Viola Davis, who plays Rose Maxson, Troy's wife. CHARLES MUDEDE
Various locations

12. Hidden Figures
The function of white ideology is to place the blame of black poverty on black people themselves. They are not smart enough, they are lazy, they are like children—therefore they live in the projects, they are on welfare, they perform poorly academically. But the golden bowl of this logic gets a crack whenever a person or an event makes the truth visible: Blacks are as stupid or as smart as any other group of people. This is why a movie like Hidden Figures is so important—a film about a black mathematician, Katherine Johnson (played by Taraji P. Henson), who worked for NASA and participated in its key projects in the 1960s. The mathematician was also a woman, and so she challenged not only white ideology but also male ideology. She had to be hidden twice. The movie also stars Janelle Monáe, who made her mark in the best movie of 2016, Moonlight. CHARLES MUDEDE
Various locations

13. Jackie
Natalie Portman’s portrayal of then-First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy is nothing less than amazing, perfectly capturing Jacqueline’s intense drive, strength, occasional pettiness, and overwhelming grief. She, along with director Pablo Larraín and a talented cast, go a long way to reshape our shared memories of Kennedy as simply a fashion plate in a pink pillbox hat, revealing a figure far more complicated and heroic. Jackie is a stunning, heart-wrenching meditation on truth, the American ideal, and the incredible pressure on first ladies—women who represent just as much, if not more, than their husbands. WM. STEVEN HUMPHREY
Various locations

14. La La Land
You guys, I LOVED La La Land, and you will too. Don’t be afraid of it just because it’s a musical about a struggling actress (Emma Stone) and a pretentious jazz musician (Ryan Gosling) who meet and fall in love and sing and dance in a romanticized, cartoony LA. Yeah, it’s splashy and grandiose and full of hazy violet Southern California sunsets, but its emotional core is genuine. Take it from shriveled-hearted me, the Unearned Sentiment Police: La La Land is a grand, over-the-top, razzly-dazzly love story that won’t make you puke one bit. It might even help you forget the horrors of reality, however momentarily—and after the year we’ve had, that practically makes La La Land a public service. MEGAN BURBANK
Various locations

15. Lion
Based on Saroo Brierley’s memoir A Long Way Home, the film, an inspiring drama that earns tears without jerking them, begins with five-year-old Saroo (played by a bouncing ball of energy named Sunny Pawar) becoming separated from his mother and brother and ending up a thousand miles away in Calcutta. Saroo’s path may be unclear, but Lion’s isn’t: Like the train that took him away in the first place, the film moves steadily toward its tearful destination, propelled by sincere performances and Volker Bertelmann and Dustin O’Halloran’s gently urgent musical score. Kidman shows great tenderness as the adoptive mother, underscoring the theme of “family” not being limited by biology, and Patel is serious-minded and haunted. But it’s little dynamo Sunny Pawar that you’ll remember best, his infectious cheery optimism encapsulating the film’s hopeful tone. ERIC D. SNIDER
Sundance Cinemas & Meridian 16

16. Live by Night
Live by Night suggests that Affleck may be on one of his many upswings. It’s a far from perfect movie—I hesitate to even call it a good one—but there’s effort and care and ambition within its muddled narrative. Severely condensed from the middle volume in Dennis Lehane’s three-book gangster series (I have not read Live by Night, but its follow-up, World Gone By, is excellent), the film has all the problems inherent in cramming a 400-page epic into a two-hour runtime. Fortunately, it also hangs on to some of the things that make Lehane a superb writer—namely, a fresh framing of gangster tropes with an eye to historical accuracy, and a tight interweaving of plot and character that give stretches of Affleck’s film real momentum. There are scenes in Live by Night that’re as good as anything I’ve seen on a screen this past year. There are also numerous sequences that are flat-out baffling. NED LANNAMANN
Pacific Place

17. Manchester by the Sea
In Manchester, Lee Chandler (Affleck) seems content to shovel walkways and unclog toilets for a living in Boston, until word comes that his older brother Joe (Kyle Chandler, seen in flashbacks) has died of a heart attack. Joe’s will stipulates that he wants Lee to move back to his titular hometown and become Patrick’s guardian. Lee, however, is haunted by past events and resists, with a toddler’s tenacity, every effort by the people around him to help him come to terms. I feel for the guy, and you will too, but after two hours, I wanted to grab him by the collar and tell him to buck up. After all, he’s at least going to get an Oscar nomination out of it. MARC MOHAN
Various locations

18. Mifune: The Last Samurai
Toshiro Mifune was an actor who made the very concept of 3-D seem absurd. Over the span of nearly 200 films—most notably his 16 legendary collaborations with Akira Kurosawa—Mifune presented a figure whose magnetism was off the charts, with a physicality that always seemed to be a few milliseconds ahead of conscious thought. Even in still photos, he’s somehow on the move. Mifune: The Last Samurai is a pretty good documentary about a truly great subject. ANDREW WRIGHT
Grand Illusion

19. Moana
Moana is the Disney princess movie everyone needs right now—or, at the very least, Moana is the princess I've been dreaming of since I was a little girl. Not every kindergartner can see herself in Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, or, even nowadays, Frozen. After years of witnessing people of color gunned down and beaten on-screen, having a whole movie dedicated to showcasing the knowledge and beauty of brown people felt restorative. Yes, Moana is an animated children's movie, but it is important for children of color to be able to see movie audiences sit in awe of their people's stories. Representation matters regardless of age. ANA SOFIA KNAUF
Meridian 16 & Varsity

20. Moonlight
Moonlight is a film that has all of the major film critics in the country singing the loudest praises, and is already breaking box-office records, and happens to be a coming-of-age tale of a black American male. But I want to make this clear: The director of Moonlight, Barry Jenkins, did not come out of nowhere. He also directed and wrote one of the best films of the previous decade, Medicine for Melancholy (2008). The wonder is that it took him so long to make his second feature, which will most likely make a big splash at the next Oscars. Expect Jenkins to be one of the few black Americans to win the award for best director. CHARLES MUDEDE
Various locations

21. Office Christmas Party
Office Christmas Party rolls out joke after joke like an ever-patient Santa with a bottomless bag of toys—plenty of ’em don’t work, but only a Grinch wouldn’t crack a smile as the party devolves into expected chaos. McKinnon, as the office’s repressed HR rep, is an expected standout, but I was surprised by Aniston, whose unbelievably mean boss might be even funnier. You probably won’t want to talk about it the morning after, but this Office Christmas Party is a surprisingly fun time while it lasts. NED LANNAMANN
Varsity

22. Paterson
Paterson is beautiful throughout—visually, in how Jim Jarmusch and cinematographer Frederick Elmes capture the wondrousness of an urban morning, and aurally, with Paterson's poems (written by Ron Padgett) becoming as much a part of the film as Laura's bulletproof optimism or the rumble of the 23. But there's something else beautiful about Paterson: Jarmusch's clearheaded, straightforward reminder that the most worthwhile art is made by those who scrounge, who have day jobs, who are the same as us: the people who drive and ride the bus, or who try to take up guitar and wonder if they can sell their cupcakes, or who hone their rhymes while waiting for the washing machine. The people who get through each day, finding and sharing bits of hope and truth as the world crumbles around them. ERIK HENRIKSEN
Meridian 16

23. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
This is one of the darkest films in the Star Wars series. In Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the theology of that faraway galaxy with its Force takes a backseat, and the troubled soul of the rebellion is at the controls. The Empire is not a joke. Its economic and military power is immense, and the power of its uniformity is almost unstoppable. To challenge it, you need more than just the Force. A rebel must, above all, feel that the realization of the ideal future—here in the form of a harmonious, heterogeneous galactic society—far surpasses (1) the evils of war and (2) the self. If you miss this point, the sacrifices of a revolution, then you will not understand the greatness of Rogue One. CHARLES MUDEDE
Various locations