As the weather chills and summer dwindles, our local movie theaters are still full of light. Watch Jesse Peretz's adaption of Nick Hornby's novel Juliet, Naked, get your English-inflected frights in The Little Stranger, or follow a tense, new-media narrative starring John Cho in Searching. Follow the links below 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 guide to the biggest and best movies this month or our film events calendar.

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1968: Expressions of a Flame: Divine Occupations
The Forum's series focusing on a pivotal year of the 20th century continues with a double feature: Lynne Sachs's Investigation of a Flame, a portrait of the nine dissident Catholics who broke into a draft office to burn 378 draft cards; and Third World Newsreel Film Collective's El Pueblo Se Levanta, about the Puerto Rican militants the Young Lords.
Northwest Film Forum
Saturday only

The Black Power Mixtape
The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 bears the pros and cons of its titular format: It never dwells overlong on any one subject, but it also sacrifices depth and cohesion. This mishmash of vintage footage of speeches, interviews, rallies, and rioting culled from various Swedish news organizations and recent interviews with black musicians like Erykah Badu, Talib Kweli, and Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson chronologically—and sympathetically—examines the movement’s triumphs, defeats, and tenets. Director/writer Göran Olsson admits his film isn’t comprehensive, but his outsider’s perspective lends BPM a piquant slant unavailable to American filmmakers. He devotes almost as much time to ordinary black citizens dealing with injustice, drugs, and poverty as he does to leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., Angela Davis, Stokely Carmichael, and Eldridge Cleaver. Olsson makes us realize that black people’s grievances resonate as urgently today for all downtrodden Americans as they did 40 years ago. DAVE SEGAL
Ark Lodge Cinemas
Thursday only

BlacKkKlansman
Based on retired police detective Ron Stallworth’s 2014 memoir Black Klansman, director Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman stars John David Washington (son of Denzel Washington) as the first Black cop on the Colorado Springs police department in the early 1970s. Answering a recruitment ad in the local newspaper—and a knack for talking on the phone using his best “white guy” voice—Stallworth gets in good with the local Klan in Colorado Springs. But his attempt to infiltrate the organization hits an obvious stumbling block when it comes time to meet in person. Enter fellow police officer Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver), a nonpracticing Jew who agrees to pretend to be Stallworth in person. It’s difficult to know what to make of Lee’s latest joint. As with many of his other films, BlacKkKlansman constantly feels like Lee’s not sure what tone he wants to hit, so he hits them all, often with the subtlety of a brick to the face. It’s a solid work, albeit one that’s flawed in the same ways that nearly all of Spike’s best films are flawed. DAVID F. WALKER
Various locations

Bread and Roses
Fierce British socialist Ken Loach's films deal with labor struggles, struggles against the British empire, anti-fascism, and the emotional lives of the working class. Bread and Roses takes place in LA and follows two Latina sisters (Pilar and Elpidia Padilla) working a lousy, exploitative janitorial job. One sister joins a union movement with the help of organizer Sam Shapiro (Adrien Brody).
Scarecrow Video
Friday only

Cielo
Those who, like me, were moved deeply by Patricio Guzmán’s 2010 documentary Nostalgia for the Light—which is about the galaxies, the stars, the sky, the telescopes in Chile’s Atacama Desert, and the women looking for the bones of their sons, brothers, and husbands in the desert (they were killed by dictator Augusto Pinochet)—should not miss Alison McAlpine’s Cielo. This documentary returns to the world-historical desert and, like the telescopes, looks up at the clear skies and considers the ALL. If you know the original meaning of the word “consider,” you are feeling me. CHARLES MUDEDE
Northwest Film Forum
Friday–Sunday

Cine Mexicano: El Castillo de la Pureza
Mexican director Arturo Ripstein's acclaimed 1982 drama follows a man who forbids his family from leaving home to protect them from "the evil nature of human beings." He also invents rat poison.
Northwest Film Forum
Sunday only

Crazy Rich Asians
Crazy Rich Asians is romantic-comedy gold that should be celebrated not only for its cast but also for its perfect execution of light, breezy escapism. It centers on the relationship between NYU economics professor Rachel Chu (Constance Wu) and her boyfriend, Nick Young (Henry Golding). Only when Nick takes Rachel to a buddy’s wedding in Singapore does she discover his family is richer than God. From its stunningly attractive cast to its setting of gold-plated opulence, Crazy Rich Asians is pure eye candy. And with its modern take on boy-meets-girl that shows us a film can still be funny without anyone pooping their pants, Crazy Rich Asians is heart candy, too. This will become a touchstone romantic comedy, and it better not be another 25 years before there’s another movie like it. ELINOR JONES
Various locations

The Dark Crystal / Legend
Two 1980s-era PG-rated films that explored dark adult themes in the context of high fantasy are getting the back-to-back screening treatment. Jim Henson and Frank Oz collab The Dark Crystal (1982) was marketed as a family film, but its disturbing turns, and themes of imprisonment and genocide, were definitely more for adults. It still looks good, maybe because so few people continued the tradition of puppetry and animatronics following Henson’s passing, and none (in my opinion) with quite so much creative flair and attention to detail. The darker Legend (1985) stars a youthfully beautiful, long-haired Tom Cruise playing the romantic lead opposite Mia Sara, with Tim Curry taking on the role of a delightfully terrible villain/devil (the Lord of Darkness). There are unicorns! There are ogres and swamp hags and fairies and dwarves! And a frightening castle, where things are tortured and killed! It’s supposed to reflect the originally sinister nature of fairy tales, before they were all fluffed up. LEILANI POLK
Central Cinema
Friday–Sunday

Eighth Grade
Ugh, the agony of being a middle-schooler. Kayla is a quiet kid being raised by a single dad. She has no close friends and drifts through her school days not being noticed by anyone. She reaches out to the world through her inspirational YouTube videos (“The topic of today’s video is being yourself”), but nobody is watching. She desperately wants to connect, to be appreciated by someone who isn’t just her dad (“If people would talk to me at school, they would find out that I am really funny and cool and talkative”). This is the first feature film by writer/director Bo Burnham (a stand-up comedian and former teen YouTube sensation!), who refreshingly puts the adolescent girl perspective front and center, unfiltered by Instagram. All the problems of young teenhood are on display here: awkward social skills, skin problems, trying too hard, and feeling too much. Elsie Fisher as Kayla is both extraordinary and completely unremarkable. The film is funny and sad and excruciating and hopeful. Eighth grade is the worst; Eighth Grade the movie is wonderful. Winner of best film and best actress for Fisher at this year’s SIFF. GILLIAN ANDERSON
Various locations

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
Meridian 16 & Varsity Theatre

Juliet, Naked
After Annie (Rose Byrne) and Duncan (Chris O’Dowd) split after many boring years together—in part due to Duncan’s obsession with a vanished ’90s indie rock god, Tucker Crowe (Ethan Hawke)—Annie happens into a romance with Tucker. Then everyone has to stop, go “Whoa!” and reflect on their lives. Juliet, Naked isn’t nearly as navel-gazey as I just made it sound. It’s charming, funny, and very smart. And this might sound crazy, but I’ve never liked Ethan Hawke more than in this film, where he pokes fun at his own status as an aging ’90s icon. Juliet, Naked is based on a novel by Nick Hornby, who’s established a solid career from writing about middle-aged hipster assholes who slowly come to realize that no one likes middle-aged hipster assholes. But it differs from Hornby’s past works like High Fidelity and About a Boy in that it centers on a sympathetic woman dealing with idiot men rather than the idiot men themselves. ELINOR JONES
Meridian 16 & AMC Seattle 10

The Little Stranger
This film has got great ingredients for a ghost story. There is an old family secret, a manor that has seen better days, whispering servants, a man of reason who refuses to believe in anything that is not of this world, an evil spirit lurking in the window, and, of course, the upper-class mouth of British actress Ruth Wilson. This mouth was made famous by the TV show Luther. It cast a spell on the show’s star, Idris Elba. In The Little Stranger, Wilson plays Caroline, the sister of a man whose face was burned horribly during the war. When words like “there’s something in this house that hates us” come out of Wilson’s mouth, they sound very posh indeed. CHARLES MUDEDE
AMC Pacific Place & AMC Seattle 10

The Long Kiss Goodnight
A seemingly ordinary single mother discovers she has weird memories and badass physical skills. A detective helps her delve into her past, and she discovers that she's a superassassin with the government wanting her back in their fold.
Grand Illusion
Friday & Sunday

Love, Cecil
There are so many images in your head that you love, and that you often recall fondly, but you have no idea where they came from. You may even have no idea that this or that beloved image is not unrelated, but instead produced by a particular individual or artist who has a whole history of his or her own. You may not realize that you are already a fan of this particular person’s work. Such a one for many of us is 20th-century fashion photographer, film art director, and stage designer Cecil Beaton. Even if you don’t know him, you do know his work. It’s everywhere. This documentary will connect the dots for you. CHARLES MUDEDE
Northwest Film Forum

The Miseducation of Cameron Post
Even though this movie deservedly won the top prize at Sundance, I wasn’t initially sure we needed another story about a teenage lesbian forced to go to pray-away-the-gay conversion camp. However, a hell of a lot has changed since 1999 when But I’m a Cheerleader came out. Cameron Post (Chloë Grace Moretz) is sent to the camp after being caught with her pants down with another girl on her prom night. The irony is that sending gay kids to the same place provides them with a sense of community and the ability to discover they are not alone in the world. While not all of the kids make it out unscathed, Cameron is able to form a secret support group to survive. Infused with humor without being campy, this is a sophisticated and refreshingly honest adaptation of the Emily M. Danforth novel of the same name. CARL SPENCE
SIFF Cinema Uptown

Mission: Impossible – Fallout
What Mission: Impossible - Fallout brings to the table is the best action choreography I’ve seen since Mad Max: Fury Road and a serviceably twisty espionage plot. Functioning as a pretty direct sequel to 2015’s Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, Fallout assigns Cruise’s Ethan Hunt and crew (Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, and Rebecca Ferguson) a pretty standard “terrorists have nuclear bombs and that’s bad” scenario that gives them excuses to heist and fight and banter around Western Europe and Central Asia while dealing with an increasingly complex series of intelligence agency betrayals. But writer/director Christopher McQuarrie spoils a good thing by connecting a few too many vital plot threads to previous films in this decades-old, often-muddled series; even having recently rewatched Rogue Nation, I was still frequently baffled when characters started discussing the events of that film without context. In terms of pure action cinema, Fallout absolutely sings. Every punch cracks teeth, every bullet thuds against brick or body armor with a real sense of weight, and every stunt has a very real feel of risk to it. (Probably because there was.) BEN COLEMAN
Various locations

Puzzle
I occasionally try to finish puzzles on the ferry to Orcas Island, but I never knew there was a world of competitive puzzling. Marc Turtletaub (producer of Little Miss Sunshine, Safety Not Guaranteed, and Loving) wonderfully directs this sweet journey of a woman who discovers her uncanny knack for puzzles and has an awakening to pursue a more extraordinary life beyond the confines of her ordinary family. Kelly Macdonald (Boardwalk Empire, Trainspotting) is pitch-perfect as Agnes, and Bollywood star Irrfan Khan makes a great puzzle partner and protagonist to open Agnes’s mind and heart to explore her dreams and desires. Midlife crisis stories have so rarely focused on a woman character, and Macdonald refreshingly illuminates Agnes’s spirit as she discovers how to live, love, and make her own path for the future. CARL SPENCE
SIFF Cinema Uptown

Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood
Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood, Matt Tyrnauer's new documentary, retells the Hollywood gossip Scotty Bowers revealed in his popular memoir from 2012, Full Service. In case you missed it: The Golden Age of Hollywood was really fucking gay. After surviving some of the toughest battles of WWII, Bowers landed in Los Angeles. While he was pumping gas (not a euphemism), Scotty claims the actor Walter Pidgeon offered him $20 to pump his gas (a euphemism). A smart businessman, Scotty turned the gas station into a spot that served and serviced a large swath of gay Hollywood elites. Scotty's gas station became a stomping ground for gay actors and actresses who had to bury their queerness because of Hollywood's Motion Picture Production Code. The code, which led to morals clauses in actors' contracts, required actors to be seen, at least publicly, as the epitome of American wholesomeness. So when many Hollywood stars wanted to get in on some same-sex action, they hit up Scotty and his "hustlers." It's clear that Scotty facilitated a world of acceptance and dignity during a time of secrecy and criminalization, and decades before the modern gay-rights movement. CHASE BURNS
SIFF Film Center & AMC Seattle 10
Thursday only

Searching
The problem with high-concept movies is that it can be difficult to lose yourself in them. Both filmmakers and audiences have generally agreed on a visual shorthand in film—a common language of cuts, camera angles and exposition that, when applied correctly, can become invisible, letting the movie take over. It’s like how your brain filters out the sound of the ocean after your third day at the beach. The downside of all these conventions, though, is that unconventionally structured films—regardless of how well they’re executed—can seem too self-aware for their own good. Searching, a mystery that takes place predominantly on a series of computer desktops, should fall into this trap, but it doesn’t. It’s one of the most engrossing films I’ve seen this year. One important element of Searching’s success is that it’s not confined to a single desktop. The story circles around a family of three: David, his wife Pamela, and their daughter Margot. Searching’s viewpoint shifts between these characters’ various devices and user accounts, each of which offer clues to aspects of their personalities. Add to that a very effective use of zoom and framing, and the POV never feels static or constraining unless it needs to. BEN COLEMAN
Various locations

Skate Kitchen
This film is drowning in teenage ennui. At times, it is insufferable. At one point, a cool skater chick talks to another cool skater chick about how hard it was to be 13. It’s cringe-worthy. BUT! If you have nothing better to do, or if you’re a teenager feeling like you are drowning in ennui yourself, or if you really want to see sadboi cutie Jaden Smith feel a lot of feelings while expressing absolutely nothing, there are some redeemable moments in this film. The Skate Kitchen crew is particularly lovable, even if the film is unreasonably introspective. CHASE BURNS
SIFF Cinema Uptown
Friday–Sunday

Sorry To Bother You
When hiphop collective the Coup released their sixth album, Sorry to Bother You, front man Boots Riley, a former telemarketer and Occupy Oakland activist, described it as "a dark comedy with magical realism." That description applies equally well to his razor-sharp directorial debut. The title phrase, of course, is how telemarketers, like Cassius Green (Atlanta's and Get Out's Lakeith Stanfied), launch cold calls to potential customers. He's just a young dude trying to earn enough to graduate from his uncle's garage where he lives with his girlfriend, Detroit (Tessa Thompson), a performance artist in Julianne Moore-in-The-Big Lebowski mode. Riley grounds things in a loose semblance of reality before shit starts to gets weird. Every time Cash makes a call, marks (people on the other end of the line) hang up on him, so he tries on a Putney Swope-like white voice (voiced by David Cross in spectacularly geeky form). Marks love their unctuous new pal and buy crap they don't need, and Cash finally gets to ride the Mishima-inspired gold elevator to RegalView's top floor where the Power Sellers, a shallow gaggle of strivers, congregate. The more money he makes, the more of a jerk he becomes. If he's making more than he deserves, his first-floor colleagues, like Danny Glover's old-timer Langston, are making less, at which point a union organizer (Steven Yuen), the film's true hero, steps up to the plate. Riley's satire enters the nightmare realm of Lindsay Anderson's O Lucky Man!. Riley's ability to transfer his leftist politics intact from turntable to screen is truly miraculous. His film has a distinct look that ranges from pop-art bright to demonically dark, and Stanfield's lightly absurdist performance holds it all together. KATHY FENNESSY
Various locations

Sound and Vision Film Fest
For the first time, the megatheatre will focus on the harmony of sight and sound, with excellently soundtracked movies. It finishes up tonight with the classic, restored Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049.
Cinerama
Thursday only

Summer Rewind Film Festival
If you missed some of the best and most blockbusting movies of the year—from the creepily psychedelic Annihilation to the very-like-Deadpool-1 Deadpool 2 to the boggle-brained Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (this weekend's features)—catch them on an overwhelmingly big screen. Even if you have seen all these films, consider going again.
Cinerama

Support the Girls
Before there was mumble rap, there was mumblecore, and many believe that Andrew Bujalski’s debut film, Funny Ha Ha, is the first film in this genre, which produced many boring films but also launched the careers of a few movie stars, like Mark Duplass and Greta Gerwig. Bujalski s new film, Support the Girls, is instantly interesting because, unlike other films by this white director, it has black people in it. More than that, it stars a black woman. Even more than that, the star is none other than a veteran of black cinema, Regina Hall. She plays Lisa, a woman who manages Double Whammy, a restaurant that is somewhere between Hooters and Fado Irish Pub. CHARLES MUDEDE
Grand Illusion

Terminator 2
“Come with me if you want to live.” Those are the famous words uttered by the time-traveling hero played by Arnold Schwarzenegger as he rescues a woman and her son from the most cinematically brilliant villain of all time: the liquid, shape-shifting cypher played by Robert Patrick. The movie also begins with nuclear holocaust, so, you know, it feels relevant again. CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE
Grand Illusion
Saturday–Sunday

The Third Murder
Celebrated director Hirokazu Kore-eda (After the Storm) has made the excellent decision of casting Kojî Yakusho (Cure, Shall We Dance) as a man who's confessed to killing his own boss. His lawyer, played by Masaharu Fukuyama (Creepy), sets out to save his client from the almost-certain death penalty and discovers that the apparently straightforward crime is much less clear than it seems.
SIFF Cinema Uptown
Thursday only

Three Dollar Bill Outdoor Cinema: 'To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Love Julie Newmar'
Stretch out on the lawn and watch lighthearted movies. As far as we know, this is the only drag road movie starring Wesley Snipes, Patrick Swayze, and John Leguizamo. Glamorous queens Vida Boheme and Noxeema Jones mentor newbie Chi-Chi Rodriguez, the "Latina Marilyn Monroe," but when they set out across the country, the trio find themselves stuck in a boring southern town full of sexist dudes.
Cal Anderson Park
Friday only

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
Majestic Bay

Also Playing:
Our critics don't recommend these movies, but you might like to know about them anyway.

The Bookshop

The Happy Time Murders

Kin

Operation Finale

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