It's been a hard day's...week, and if you need a brain-cleanser, there's nothing like an evening at the cinema. Explore Taiwanese and Taiwanese American cinema, kick back with the Beatles, and trek through Poland with an elegant Holocaust survivor. Follow the links to see complete showtimes, tickets, and trailers for all of our critics' picks, and, if you're looking for even more options, check out our complete movie times listings or our film events calendar.
Movies play from Thursday to Sunday unless otherwise noted.
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American Animals
Based on a true story about a plot to relieve the library at Kentucky’s Transylvania University of its most valuable tomes (including a drool-worthy Havell edition of Audubon’s Birds of America), director Bart Layton’s first foray into scripted filmmaking is an odd mash-up of his usual documentary style and narrative storytelling. Most of the time, the mixture works. The scripted, acted parts of the movie—which make up its bulk—are fully engrossing, and although Layton’s stylistic decisions are colored by familiar Scorsese and Kubrick influences, more often than not, the result is zippy and fun. Layton is also well aware of the countless heist movies that have preceded this one, and the film’s riffs on the genre add levels of unexpected complexity and sadness. These four young thieves were raised on Hollywood-glorified visions of crime, and American Animals exposes the aimlessness and emptiness at the heart of their caper. NED LANNAMANN
AMC Pacific Place & AMC Seattle 10
Breath
An uncommonly strong coming-of-age story about two young best friends in early 1970s Australia who, under the tutelage of an older adept, become immersed in the itinerant, vaguely mystical, entirely hardcore culture of surfing (before it was a lifestyle available to weekend warriors). The film is based on a best-selling Australian book, and you can easily see why the story and characters would generate such broad appeal. It’s not quite as brainy as William Finnegan’s Barbarian Days, but not quite as cartoony as Point Break. And the surfing bits are killer. SEAN NELSON
SIFF Film Center
Thursday only
Cold Water
If you've seen the exciting and cynical series Carlos, the mysterious and sharply critical Irma Vep, the César-winning The Clouds of Sils Maria, or the Cannes-recognized Personal Shopper (the latter two starring Kristen Stewart), you know the sensually detailed yet ungraspable power of Olivier Assayas's direction. The Grand Illusion is digging deeper into the filmmaker's past to bring you Cold Water, about two teenage lovers whose tragic passion roils those around them. The press materials tease "a rock soundtrack that vividly evokes the period, and provides the backdrop for one of the most memorable party sequences ever committed to film."
Grand Illusion
Friday–Sunday
Deadpool 2
Everything you could possibly want from a sequel to Deadpool is in place: the relentless breaking-down of the fourth wall; Deadpool’s twisted, self-flagellating humor and his snipes at pop culture, the X-Men franchise, characters in the franchise, the death of characters in the franchise. There are perfectly choreographed, partially slow-motion, and hilariously absurd CGI-augmented (and in some cases fully initiated) fight sequences; gratuitous and non-too-serious violence and carnage...Basically, Deadpool spends a lot of time wallowing in his own self-pity, the boundaries of his mutant-ness are tested, and once he figures out what he’s supposed to be doing—keeping a soldier from the future, Cable (Josh Brolin), from killing 14-year-old Russell Collins—the action re-starts in earnest. LEILANI POLK
Various locations
First Reformed
Don’t make the mistake I made at the Telluride Film Festival when I skipped this unexpected magnum opus from the writer of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. Paul Schrader’s latest film is a return to form. Infused with elements from his Calvinist upbringing and 1950s art-house cinema (check out his newly reissued book Transcendental Style in Film on Bresson, Ozu, and Dreyer), First Reformed revolves around the Reverend Ernst Toller (portrayed with devastating restraint by Ethan Hawke). He is a former military chaplain ministering to a tiny congregation in upstate New York, and he can’t get past the deep grief and spiritual isolation caused by the ill-fated death of his enlisted son. When congregant Mary (Amanda Seyfried) asks him to counsel her troubled (and radical environmentalist) husband, Toller discovers his church’s distinguished financial savior is an amoral corporate polluter, and he becomes obsessed with saving a world he believes is destroying itself. The film also stars Cedric the Entertainer as a mega-church pastor and Toller’s overseer. CARL SPENCE
AMC Seattle 10
The Gospel According to André
For the last four decades, André Leon Talley has sat in the front row at the world's most important fashion shows. He may seem an unlikely candidate to become a style icon and tastemaker in a world that's overwhelmingly white and cosmopolitan: Talley is a six-foot-six gay black man from the segregated American South. While no feature-length film could fully capture his big, fascinating life, The Gospel According to André gives us some good glimpses. I'd mentally linked Talley with the excess of the 1990s supermodel scene and the cold snobbery of Vogue editor Anna Wintour. (Talley has worked at Interview magazine, Women's Wear Daily, W, the New York Times, and Vogue, and been a judge on America's Next Top Model, among other fashion endeavors.) While Talley fits in with that crowd—he calls everyone "darling"—he's also caring and generous. This documentary is bedazzled with fashion stars who have nothing but glowing things to say about him, and also friends of Talley's from high school and college who also have glowing things to say. ELINOR JONES
Northwest Film Forum
A Hard Day's Night
The consummate rock ’n’ roll movie about the consummate rock ’n’ roll band. Richard Lester invented a language for combining what was then still a new musical form with a visual medium that was already undergoing a massive reinvention. The result is shockingly fresh more than 50 years later: four beautiful young men running around London, being simultaneously cool and silly, saying hilarious lines, and playing some of their best songs—which are, need it be said, some of the best songs. If you haven’t seen it, you should. If you have, you should see it again. SEAN NELSON
Ark Lodge Cinemas
Friday–Sunday
Hereditary
If you’re not comfortable with the very real possibility that you’ll be drenched in sweat and cowering in the fetal position by the end of Hereditary, perhaps this is one cinematic experience you should skip. But you’d be missing out—writer/director Ari Aster’s feature debut might be one of the most beautiful and nauseating horror movies ever made. Hereditary centers on miniaturist artist Annie Graham (an Oscar-worthy Toni Collette), whose family is rattled by mysterious events following the death of her reclusive mother. Her daughter, tween outcast Charlie (Milly Shapiro), is apparently grieving the hardest of them all—she spends her free time making dolls out of dead pigeons and always looks like she’s got a category five hurricane brewing inside her head. Hereditary is brilliant—the whole thing hums with cold electricity that’s guaranteed to unsettle your soul. Aster gracefully illustrates humanity’s ancient fear of predestined fate in a setting, and with a family unit, that feels deeply rooted in reality. It’s also a powerful reminder of the horror genre’s underutilized potential as a source for empathy—proof that it’s possible to uncover great truths about the human condition, so long as we’re willing to kneel down in the dirt and pick apart the rotting carcasses of our worst fears. Like Hereditary, it’s gross, but it’s worth it. CIARA DOLAN
AMC Pacific Place & AMC Seattle 10
Incredibles 2
Incredibles 2 simply isn’t as tightly tied together as the first. Its villain, the Screenslaver, isn’t as key to defining Elastigirl’s character as Syndrome was to Mr. Incredible’s in the first film—so when everything climactically comes together in the third act, Incredibles 2 ultimately packs a weaker thematic punch. This isn’t really a knock, though. What Incredibles 2 (slightly) sacrifices in cohesion and heart it makes up for with action and comedy. He opens Incredibles 2 with back-to-back set pieces that quickly put the previous film’s finale in the rearview; he closes the film with a team-based triumph that any three X-Men flicks combined couldn’t compete with; and when he goes for the gag (which is often), it feels like Chuck Jones-era Looney Tunes via classic-era Simpsons (which Bird himself helped make classic). Incredibles 2 isn’t as good or affecting as the first, but it is prettier, louder, faster, and funnier—and if you have to make a trade, that’s not a bad one. BOBBY ROBERTS
Various locations
Izzy Gets the Fuck Across Town
In terms of tone and texture, this film would have been right at home in the low-budget American independent film explosion of the early 1990s. The plot is simple: Mackenzie Davis plays a young, broke musician with a huge chip on her shoulder who has to make it across LA without money or a car to try to ruin a party celebrating the engagement of her ex-boyfriend to her ex-best friend. Along the way, she has tragicomic encounters with friends who are sick of her shitty, self-involved attitude, and other odd denizens of what used to be called slacker culture. It all may sound familiar, but the performances (especially Davis, but also Lakeith Stanfield, Alia Shawkat, Annie Potts!!!, and others) are startling. Best of all: A scene in which the tormented estrangement of Davis and her sister (the magnificent Carrie Coon) plays out entirely in their eye contact as they play and sing Heavens to Betsy’s “Axemen” as an acoustic duet. Scenes like that are what movies are for. SEAN NELSON
Grand Illusion
Thursday only
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
I totally understand why people object to these films and their CGI manipulations, but I am helpless before the allure of plausible dinosaurs wreaking havoc on humans. I thought the original Spielberg ones were killer. I thought the Joe Johnston third sequel was killer. I thought the reboot Jurassic World was killer. And I think this new one, again starring Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, both of whom I can usually live without, looks, guess what: killer. I love films with dinosaurs chasing and killing people. It’s what movies are for. SEAN NELSON
Various locations
Koko: A Talking Gorilla
Mourn the loss of the intelligent, communicative, cat-loving gorilla Koko at this screening of Barbet Schroeder's beautiful documentary, featuring Koko and animal psychologist Penny Patterson.
Northwest Film Forum
Thursday only
The Last Suit
An extremely handsome and well-dressed Holocaust survivor from Argentina embarks on what feels like a final adventure to Poland to fulfill a promise he made during the Shoah. Though he’s charming and sympathetic, our hero is also a stubborn old man who has deeply disappointed all he’s sired. The quality and variety of the silk cravats in this film is enough to recommend it. But powerfully good acting and the heart-melting story of a survivor reckoning with an incomprehensibly painful past makes the film a must-see. RICH SMITH
SIFF Cinema Egyptian
Friday–Sunday
Leave No Trace
If you lived in the Pacific Northwest in 2004, you remember it: The discovery that, for years, a father and daughter had been living in Portland's Forest Park in an undetected campsite. They were eventually found and housed by the authorities, but soon disappeared again. The story inspired a novel, My Abandonment, written by Reed College creative writing professor Peter Rock, and that book has been adapted into a compassionate, graceful movie by Winter’s Bone director Debra Granik. The father and daughter in Leave No Trace—played by Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie—aren’t meant to be stand-ins for the actual people, and the movie’s plot doesn’t precisely follow real-life events. But everything else about Leave No Trace feels entirely authentic, from its patient rendering of life in the pair’s urban-adjacent campsite to the way it shows how a parent and child are able to communicate without words. Foster is excellent as Will, a veteran coping with PTSD by getting as far as he can from the disturbing elements of civilization while also doing his best to provide for his daughter. But the movie belongs to McKenzie, whose extraordinary performance as daughter Tom is heartbreaking, inspiring, and unforgettable. NED LANNAMANN
Meridian 16
Let the Sunshine In
Claire Denis has crafted an undeniably French pseudo-romantic comedy on middle-age love and desire from the female perspective. Be forewarned, a Claire Denis romantic comedy will not resemble anything close to Sleepless in Seattle. And this is a good thing! The radiant and beguiling Juliette Binoche tackles the role of a divorced artist who is also a perpetually sexually unsatisfied woman. She is having a hard time falling in love and finding Mr. Right. Maybe it is because she keeps allowing herself to be seduced by men who aren’t that good at helping her achieve an orgasm? As she moves elliptically from one emotional and romantic attachment to another, there is quite a bit of foreplay, sex, and illuminating banter in search of what is most elusive: love. CARL SPENCE
SIFF Film Center
Friday–Sunday
Mountain
If you crave spectacular natural footage and beautiful music combined, this documentary about mountains and those who climb them, scored by Australian Chamber Orchestra and narrated by Willem Dafoe, should give you exactly what you want.
SIFF Cinema Egyptian
Thursday only
Nancy
Andrea Riseborough and Steve Buscemi (The Death of Stalin), joined by Ann Dowd, J. Smith-Cameron, and John Leguizamo, star in Christina Choe’s thriller about a woman who becomes convinced she was a child kidnap victim and creates a string of online hoaxes. Choe herself was surprised by the timeliness of her film, given the era of "fake news": “It’s become a timely topic because of our lovely president, the liar-in-chief,” she says in an interview in Variety. “It’s a strange time as a society when the nature of truth is under attack.”
SIFF Cinema Uptown
Thursday only
Ocean's 8
If there were ever a time for an all-female cast of big name Hollywood women to pick up where a cast of big name Hollywood men left off, it’s now. The premise is pretty straightforward: Sandra Bullock stars as Debbie Ocean, the estranged sister of Danny Ocean (the character played by George Clooney). She’s in the robbing industry, too, though her fresh parole implies she might not be as savvy as her bro. Nonetheless, she leaves prison with a plan to pull a heist at the Met Gala in NYC, and she must put together a crack group of professionals to execute it. Steven Soderbergh isn’t at the helm, but he did co-produce, and apparently he, Clooney and Jerry Weintraub were all involved in Ocean 8’s conception, so you can expect it to have a similar pace and the slick quality of the other films of the franchise. Plus, the women cast is stellar and diverse—Cate Blanchett, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson, Rihanna, Helena Bonham Carter, Awkwafina and Anne Hathaway included. LEILANI POLK
Various locations
RBG
All hail Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Better known as “RBG” to her fans (and “Bubby” to her grandkids), at 85 years old, the US Supreme Court justice still has a fierce intellect, a duty to the law, and an immense inner and physical strength. Over the long course of her career, RBG repeatedly defended the rights of everyone to live free from bias, but, as Supreme Court correspondent Nina Totenberg says, Ginsburg “quite literally changed life for women.” And she’s still doing it. With intimate interviews with family and friends, as well as RBG herself, the film captures the life of a woman with a heart none of us wants to stop ticking. KATIE HERZOG
Ark Lodge Cinemas & AMC Seattle 10
Seattle Taiwanese American Film Festival
The brand-new festival will screen seven features and a number of shorts highlighting Taiwanese American filmic talent. This weekend, watch Taiwanese American shorts, the family drama Father, the drama Pakeriran, set among a coastal fishing tribe, the provocatively titled The Bold, the Corrupt, and the Beautiful, the animation Formosa 3D, and more.
SIFF Cinema Uptown
Friday–Sunday
SHRIEK! The Birds
Watch and analyze Alfred Hitchcock's classic horror film The Birds, of which the director said: "It could be the most terrifying motion picture I have ever made!" Based on the series' focus on women's studies, this dissection will surely prioritize Tippi Hedren's harrowing experience as the lead over Hitchcock's craft.
Naked City Brewery & Taphouse
Sunday only
Solo: A Star Wars Story
Much like its plot, Solo shouldn’t work. It doesn’t work. It wins anyway. Boy and Girl try to con their way out of their shitty lives. Boy gets away, and vows to return for Girl. Instead, he gets caught up in a freewheeling life of crime with a giant dog, a cranky thief, a well-dressed gambler, and a robot-rights activist droid. That last bit sounds sorta heavy for Star Wars, right? It is. Solo has the tonal consistency of a detuned piano, and it’s constantly throwing around interesting-but-unexamined ideas and characters, which pop up every few minutes and then are never seen again. But for those seeking weightless escapism with enough gags, winks, and in-jokes to fill the Millenium Falcon’s cargo hold, not to mention laboriously Marvel-esque, overly connected worldbuilding? You’re gonna have fun. BOBBY ROBERTS
Various locations
Tank Girl
Tank Girl hit theaters when I was 15, and I fell in instant love. It had everything an angsty ’90s-era teen could want in a film: a postapocalyptic future setting; a kickass antiheroine with a righteous ’do (Lori Petty, bleached blonde and shaved), a mutant kangaroo boyfriend (Ice-T in solid special-effects makeup), a jet-flying BFF (Naomi Watts), and crew of genetically modified super soldiers; and a plot that pits them all against an oppressive corporation with a nefarious leader (Malcolm McDowell). And the soundtrack, goddamn was it ever good, with cuts by Björk, L7, Hole, Portishead, Belly, and Veruca Salt, among others. Add an Iggy Pop cameo, an unconventional storytelling style, and a unique stylized look, and you’ve got a comic-book movie unlike any that came out back then, nor the many that have followed in the more than two decades since its release. LEILANI POLK
Central Cinema
Friday–Sunday
They Were Five
When five destitute men in 1930s France join forces to buy a wrecked house and turn it into a cafe, it seems like they've risen out of their own ruin. But outside forces threaten to tear apart their union. Filmed by the classic director Julien Duvivier and starring the legend Jean Gabin, this relic of Popular Front-era France—a time of progressive unity—has two endings: one bleak, and one wildly optimistic.
Scarecrow Video
Saturday only
Top Gun
If you were a boy in the 1980s, the way you found out if you were gay was by watching Top Gun. Even if you could never admit it, you watched that movie and you knew. You knew from the way Tom Cruise’s jaw muscles moved. You knew from watching the locker-room scenes or the beach volleyball parts. You knew because your crush kept changing: first Maverick, then Iceman, then Slider, then Goose. The fact that no one in the movie talks about gayness? That’s the biggest tell of all. Plus, did you know that Cruise’s love interest, Kelly McGillis, turned out to be a lesbian? CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE
Central Cinema
Friday–Sunday
Won't You Be My Neighbor?
The question isn't how much you will cry. The question, which only emerges days into the aftermath of seeing this extraordinary new documentary about the life and work of Fred Rogers, is this: What exactly are you crying about? Possibility number one: good old-fashioned nostalgia. A huge chunk of the film consists of clips from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, the public TV show for children Rogers created, wrote, and performed multiple roles in for 33 years. Seeing the way he spoke directly to his viewers, making sure we knew we were valued, cared for, seen, and known is a powerful reminder of the early validation the show provided. And learning that this style of address arose from radical education theory, developed by Rogers himself (in conjunction with learned colleagues like Spock, Braselton, and Erikson), about the benefits of being candid with children, only deepens the admiration. But this footage also stirs up the memory of inarticulate childhood sorrow his attention helped to alleviate, taking you back to the time before you were capable of constructing the armor required for this nightmare of a world. Possibility number two: the impossibility of such a human existing again, either on television or, indeed, on earth. He represented a strain of religious conviction that seems inconceivable now. Through his show, he demonstrated the precepts of his faith—kindness, empathy, dignity, peaceful coexistence, safety, love—without ever once mentioning, or even gesturing toward, a deity. SEAN NELSON
Various locations
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