Whether you're in the mood for a gross-out stoner comedy like Never Goin' Back, a masterwork like Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev, or a simmering new drama like The Wife, we've got you covered. 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 film events calendar and complete movie times.

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70mm Film Festival
Put down your phone and surrender to the splendor of actually-epic-scale cinema in the cathedral that is the Cinerama. Not much unites the films in this 13-day festival other than a commitment to MAGNITUDE, but several are essential viewing. I know you’ve heard it before, but I’ll say it again: Seeing a film in a darkened theater with strangers is a secular sacrament. The fact that you can't pause, talk, text, or tweet until it's over is a feature. Please enjoy it while it's still available. SEAN NELSON
This weekend's movies are Tron: Legacy, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Back to the Future Part II, Vertigo, The Sound of Music, and Lawrence of Arabia.
Cinerama
Friday–Sunday

1968: Expressions of a Flame: In the Intense Now
It can be argued that the beginning of the end of the Golden Age of Capitalism in Europe and the United States happened in 1968. There was the rise of the black power movement, the feminist movement, and the anti-war movement. There were the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. There were the student protests in Paris. This was a globally synched revolution that, ultimately, instigated a class war that took the form of neoliberalism. By 1971, social democratic institutions were under attack. This NWFF series examines the moment when the world could have taken a completely different direction, when the New Deal could have gone international. Fifty years later, our president is giving the rich $100 billion, and the richest man on earth has more money than there are stars in our galaxy. CHARLES MUDEDE
The film this weekend is In the Intense Now, João Moreira Salles’s documentary-essay about the aftermath of 1968 in France, China, Brazil, and the Czech Republic.
Northwest Film Forum
Friday–Sunday

Andrei Rublev
The greatest director who ever lived, Andrei Tarkovsky (1932–1986), made only seven films. Andrei Rublev, his second (1966), is not, admittedly, his best. It is indeed my least favorite of his small body of work. But this has less to do with the film itself, and more to do with my weak interest in its subject matter (the life of a 15th-century Russian icon painter). Nevertheless, it’s still worth watching—and more than once. Why? Because its director is second to none in the art of filmmaking. CHARLES MUDEDE
SIFF Film Center
Friday–Sunday

Ant-Man and the Wasp
While Ant-Man and the Wasp is fun, funny, and exciting, it also runs the risk of being incomprehensible to those uninitiated in the ways of Marvel. The first Ant-Man, while it showed promise in casting Rudd as the gentle, dad-bod superhero we’ve been waiting for, fell flat in a number of places and wasn’t nearly as funny as it could’ve and should’ve been. (The underuse of Rudd’s awkward, sweet natural charm bordered on egregious.) But Ant-Man’s visual playfulness saved the day: A movie about a tiny Paul Rudd had a unique opportunity to show audiences micro and macro perspectives, opening a whole new world of creativity and comedy. Happily, Ant-Man and the Wasp follows through on that stuff and goes even further with scale-shifting action sequences. More importantly, this film uses Rudd exponentially better, giving him plenty of opportunities to be goofy and charming and Paul Rudd-y. SUZETTE SMITH
AMC Pacific Place

Betty: They Say I'm Different
Betty Davis is probably better known for being Miles Davis’s wife and for her wild garb on the cover of her album They Say I’m Different than for her libidinous funk opuses and sublimely raunchy singing. Phil Cox’s low-budget documentary, Betty: They Say I’m Different, strives over its too-brief 53 minutes to build a case for its subject's canonization, although the dearth of live footage of Davis and her stellar bands hinders things. That said, Betty is crucial to any fan who desires a deeper understanding of this pioneering female funk auteur who, among other things, played a large role in changing Miles Davis’s sartorial and musical directions—even as she endured his abusive behavior. DAVE SEGAL
Northwest Film Forum

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

Blindspotting
In rapidly gentrifying Oakland, Collin (Daveed Diggs) is trying to survive his last three days of probation when the slightest infraction will send him back to jail. However, his best friend Miles (Rafael Casal) is white, wild, and reckless. Collin should avoid Miles, but he doesn’t. While trying to get home before curfew late one night, he witnesses a rogue cop pursue and shoot a fleeing black man. CARL SPENCE
Ark Lodge Cinemas
Friday–Sunday

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

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

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
Thursday only

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
Varsity Theare
Friday–Sunday

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

Mrs. Warhol
Andy Warhol gave his mother, Julia Warhola, a role for this film, but she mostly just appears as herself, according to the synopsis from the Museum of Modern Art.
Northwest Film Forum
Saturday only

Never Goin' Back
The once proudly disreputable stoner comedy genre has become strangely genteel in the Judd Apatow era, featuring protagonists who eventually find their way off the couch and back into acceptable society. Those movies that still fully commit to the bit, however, can seem almost heroic. The smartly dumb Never Goin’ Back is a blissfully low-rent comedy that occasionally approaches the rarified, hazy air of the sainted first half of Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie. Absolutely no lessons are learned, thankfully. The story follows a pair of 17-year-old ne’er-do-wells (Maia Mitchell and Camila Morrone) living a perpetually blitzed existence in a Texas suburb. After impulsively blowing their rent money on an upcoming birthday trip to Galveston, they make a plan to work marathon shifts at the pancake house, and … oh, they’ve already screwed it up. Making her feature-length debut as a writer/director, Augustine Frizzell finds a shambling, loose-limbed vibe immediately, generously giving the supporting characters small moments to shine, while also keeping the barely-there plot in motion. It all culminates in a fantastically gross sequence of bodily functions run amuck that might prompt even John Waters hold his lighter in the air. ANDREW WRIGHT
Grand Illusion
Sunday only

Perfect Blue
Satoshi Kon's dark-mirror masterpiece, which may have significantly inspired Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan, is a fragmented narrative about a pop star who's trying to reinvent herself, yet succumbs to increasing paranoia as she's stalked by a mysterious doppelganger. If you think all anime is like Miyazaki's Ponyo or Kiki's Delivery Service, be warned: This one is not for kids.
AMC Pacific Place & Meridian 16
Thursday only

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 & Varsity Theatre

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

SECS Fest 2018
The not-so-coyly named SECS FEST presents cinematic tales to titillate, including two new features, four shorts programs, and two classics, all in the weirdest cinema in town. See sex in every genre, and hear special talks by special guests. Some screenings are preceded or followed by special talks by guest academics, BDSM practitioners, film professionals, and others. The cherry on top is usually the wrap party on Sunday. No one under 18 will be admitted to any of the films or events.
Grand Illusion
Friday–Sunday

Silent Movie Remix
Nicholas Nicfit Gilmore will live-mix a score to Fritz Lang's silent dystopian classic, the still-impressive Metropolis. Nicfit promises a score of "1930's swing, to modern day hip hop, and electronic music."
Naked City Brewery
Saturday only

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
Thursday only

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
Thursday-Saturday

Spaghetti Western Night
Practice your Clint Eastwood sneer for a night of Spaghetti Western trivia, classic movies (like Fist Full of Dollars, My Name Is Nobody and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly), and actual spaghetti for eating. Don't forget a cowboy hat.
Hattie's Hat
Thursday only

Summer Rewind Film Festival
You've got one last chance to catch this huge-screen retrospective, and it's the overwhelmingly scary Hereditary, a beautifully accomplished onslaught of emotional terror about a supernaturally troubled family whom you really would not want to spend the holidays with.
Cinerama
Thursday only

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
Thursday only

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

We the Animals
Three brothers in a working-class upstate New York family grapple with masculinity and maturity in this sensitive adaptation of Justin Torres's autobiographical novel. The two older brothers are rough-and-tumble imitators of their macho father; Jonah, the youngest, is a sweet kid discovering his own queerness. Starring Raùl Castillo (Looking) and Sheila Vand (A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Women Who Kill).
SIFF Cinema Uptown
Friday–Sunday

The Wife
Based on a novel of the same name by Meg Wolitzer, the wife, in this case, is Joan Castleman—played by a brilliant Glenn Close, in perhaps the most captivating role in her career. Joan is married to Joe Castleman, a much lauded novelist who has just found out he's won the Nobel Prize. When Joe receives the good news, Joan celebrates and quietly simmers at once. The undercurrent of Joan's anger plays throughout the film, and the viewer doesn't know why, exactly, she can't fully indulge in her husband's big win. He's been selected to replace Bill Clinton on the cover of TIME (this, along with ample smoking indoors, is one of the few reminders that the film is set in the early '90s). Why can't she just be happy for her man? The Wife sticks with you. Watch it with a friend—or, even better, your spouse—so you'll have someone with whom to discuss this Oscar-worthy work of art. KATIE HERZOG
SIFF Cinema Egyptian
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
Majestic Bay
Thursday only

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

The Happy Time Murders

Kin

The Nun

Operation Finale

Peppermint

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