The 9 best movie screenings you can only catch in L.A. this month 95%
By Mark Olsen0% Joshua Rothkopf0%
5/5/2026, 4:22:28 PM
Topics: Film Screenings, Cinema Events
BS Summary: This article contains 18 faulty reasoning types, including Attempt to Sell a Product or Service, Biased Writer Voice, and Optimism Bias, with Halo Effect as the most egregious example at 42.5% saturation with 538 hits. Analysis detected 1,906 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,265 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 92% and a BS Rank of 95% (921 of 16,813 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 94.50% of the article peer group.
Modern classics from David Fincher and Tony Scott, the big-screen breakthrough of future “Girls” showrunner Lena Dunham and a rapturous presentation of the diamond-drenched musical that best captured Hollywood’s most iconic star.
May is a good month to live in Los Angeles and go to the movies.
The repertory scene continues to offer up an embarrassment of riches, with local programmers outdoing themselves.
These screenings feature special guests, archival prints and other surprises.
Consider our guide a handy catch-all of the best special screenings of the month, reserved for older films playing in unique circumstances.
Whatever your plans may be, change them for the following nine events.
‘Seven’ (Academy Museum, May 6)
David Fincher’s influential serial-killer thriller is the one we most often like to hear him reminisce about (he did exactly that with the paper a couple of years ago).
Why?
Because at root, the story of “Seven” has a happy ending: How do you pick yourself up after a disastrous debut (“Alien 3”), convince the studio to give you another shot and insist that they stick to their word after test screenings spook the executives?
Fincher, through sheer force of persuasion and confidence, did that.
And by doing so, he relaunched one of the most stylish and sneakily profound careers of recent Hollywood.
This 4K screening in the deluxe David Geffen Theater will feature a chat with the movie’s production designer Arthur Max and set decorator Clay Griffith.
“Seven” is playing May 6 at the Academy Museum.
Tickets here.
‘Popeye’ (Vidiots, May 9)
We didn’t deserve Robert Altman, whose sprawling, dialogue-rich run during the 1970s — including but not limited to “MASH,” “The Long Goodbye,” “Nashville” and “3 Women” — has no parallel among American directors.
It’s common wisdom to say that Altman’s reputation took a tumble with 1980’s jumbled “Popeye,” but join the growing wave of obsessives charmed by its songs (composed by Harry Nilsson) and central performances from Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall.
If Hollywood insists on making comic book movies, can’t they always be this odd and personally inflected?
This screening will include a conversation with special guests Paul Dooley and Donovan Scott, actors who remember a chaotic set.
“Popeye” is playing May 9 at Vidiots.
Tickets here.
‘Mamma Mia!’
(Vidiots, May.
10)
Sometimes lost on Meryl Streep’s more serious-minded fans is how fully she can own a song — the kind of total emotional commitment that wins over the room.
You see it at the euphoric end of “Postcards from the Edge,” throughout “Ricki and the Flash” and “Into the Woods” and, most of all, in this Greek-island-set ABBA jukebox musical that Vidiots will be screening in 35mm to a full (and no doubt vocal) house.
Streep devastates on “The Winner Takes It All” but it’s her goofy turn through the title song, climbing up ladders and bumping into horny goats, that combines her technical perfection and humor with a sincerity you can’t fake.
“Mamma Mia!”
is playing May 10 at Vidiots.
Tickets here.
Three Colors Trilogy (Egyptian, May 17)
One of the peaks of international art-house sophistication in the 1990s, the trilogy of films by Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieślowski — “Blue,” “White” and “Red,” named for the colors of the French flag — are tremendous each on their own but take on an enormous cumulative power when watched together.
Grappling with the existential mysteries of life, the films provide a platform for the earthy glamour of never-better performances by their three respective stars: Juliette Binoche, Julie Delpy and Irène Jacob.
The American Cinematheque will show all three films, with Delpy present for a Q&A, as part of an ongoing Kieślowski retrospective.
The Three Colors Trilogy is playing May 17 at the Egyptian Theatre.
Tickets here.
‘Being There’ (Academy Museum, May 20)
Even people who have not seen the movie have likely seen the ending: Peter Sellers in a dapper suit striding along a small lake and then, unbothered, turning to walk on the water.
As the naif who becomes known as Chauncey Gardiner suddenly thrust into a society world he knows nothing about, Sellers gives a performance of serene restraint, taken in as a sage advisor by the D.C. elite for his simple, succinct ideas.
A delicate satire of power, the film closes out the astonishing run of films from director Hal Ashby through the 1970s.
It screens at the Academy Museum in 35mm with cinematographer Caleb Deschanel in person.
“Being There” is playing May 20 at the Academy Museum.
Tickets here.
‘Tiny Furniture’ (Eastwood, May 22, 23)
Lena Dunham has achieved a kind of cultural ubiquity; it’s difficult to remember a time before her, before the era-defining success of “Girls” and everything covered by her recent memoir “Famesick.”
Which is why these screenings of her first proper feature film, which initially launched her to broader audiences, feel like such a necessary event, a way to reconnect with what made her so fresh and vital in the first place.
Confessional to the point of TMI, Dunham brings an authenticity and vulnerability to her work, along with a wit and insight, that expose the inner workings of a young woman’s emotional life and first steps toward maturity.
“Tiny Furniture” is playing May 22 and 23 at the Eastwood Performing Arts Center.
Tickets here.
‘Ran’ (Academy Museum, May 23)
Go epic if you’re going Kurosawa and his gargantuan 1985 take on “King Lear” (transposed to feudal Japan) is one of the director’s most instantly impressive achievements, an explosion of coordinated colors and kinetic action.
His career is overloaded with triumphs — the Academy has been celebrating Kurosawa’s complete filmography for nearly two months — but to a certain generation that came of age in the 1980s, “Ran” was the entry point, a glorious one.
This screening, in the fittingly huge David Geffen Theater, will be accompanied by remarks from Academy Collection and Preservation Executive Vice President Matt Severson.
“Ran” is playing May 23 at the Academy Museum.
Tickets here.
‘Crimson Tide’ (New Beverly, May.
29, 30, 31)
The news of Gene Hackman’s death last year sent us reeling: back to his classic turns in “Unforgiven,” “The French Connection” and “The Royal Tenenbaums.”
Forgive me if I admit that it was this overheated submarine drama that demanded my immediate attention.
It captures something sublime about Hackman — the cocky strut, the bullish confidence, the command of verbal pyrotechnics.
His multiple showdowns with Denzel Washington are the peak of chain-of-command arguing, even better than the ones in “A Few Good Men.”
The New Bev plays “Crimson Tide” in a double feature with “Déjà Vu,” both by late director Tony Scott, blessed with a swaggering showmanship that deserved more appreciation.
“Crimson Tide” is playing May 29, 30 and 31 at the New Beverly Cinema.
Tickets here.
‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’ (Academy Museum, May 31)
Marilyn Monroe is still one of the most famous and instantly recognizable people in the world and yet she remains somehow underrated as something more than just an image.
One of her best performances is in this 1953 musical comedy directed by Howard Hawks, in which Monroe brings a champagne charge and vivacious energy to her role as a smarter-than-she-seems showgirl mixed up in other people’s schemes.
This screening marks the centenary of Monroe’s birth on June 1, 1926, as well as the opening of a new exhibition on her, featuring the famous pink dress from the “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” number.
“Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” is playing May 31 at the Academy Museum.
Tickets here.
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