HEIGHTS 2024 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA

THE THIRD MAN

June 3, 2024, 7:30 p.m.

Written by Graham Greene, and starring Joseph Cotten, Aida Valli, and of course Orson Welles as Harry Lime, The Third Man is a classic espionage film that also undermines the trope of the American sleuth solving the crime and winning the love of the femme fatale. A gorgeous, thrilling and melancholy film, The Third Man has influenced countless other films through the decades.

DCP - Rialto Pictures

ARSENIC AND OLD LACE on 35MM

Sept. 30, 2024, 7:30 p.m.

One of the most beloved dark comedies returns to the Heights! When Mortimer Brewster (Cary Grant) returns to his Brooklyn home to show off his new wife to his spinster aunts and oddball uncle, he figures nothing can go wrong, right? But when Mortimer's psychopathic brother shows up with a doctor (who just happens to be Peter Lorre) the body count rises and the laughs never cease.

35mm print - Park Circus.

REAR WINDOW

May 27, 2024, 7:30 p.m.

Jeffries (James Stewart), a prize-winning photographer, has a broken leg, and sits sweating out his days spying on the neighbors from his cramped apartment. At first aghast at his pursuits, girlfriend Lisa (Grace Kelly) and nurse Stella (Thelma Ritter) eventually join him as he uncovers--or thinks he uncovers--a murder. This classic is at once sexy, thrilling, hilarious, and one of the most entertaining pictures the Master ever gave us.

DCP - Universal Pictures.

THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL

Sept. 16, 2024, 7:30 p.m.

A drab hotel owned by the charming Zero Moustafa is the basis for this story-within-a-story, as the older Zero recounts his life to a mysterious Author. The Grand Budapest Hotel, high in the mountains of Zubrowka, is the backdrop for the story of the great concierge Gustave H. Gustave ran a tight ship, and on this side seduced the old women of the hotel, one of whom may or may not have left him a priceless painting in her will. But her evil son doesn't like this, and so heists, romance, jailbreak, and other unbelievable plot twists, played by one of the most star-studded casts in modern cinema, make The Grand Budapest Hotel Anderson's most ambitious and successful film (by far). Nominated for nine and winner of four Academy Awards.

DCP - Walt Disney Co.

DOUBLE INDEMNITY on 35MM

April 8, 2024, 7:30 p.m.

In the long and storied history of film noir, Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity shines as perhaps its greatest incarnation. Based on the bleak novel by James M. Cain, and adapted by the master crime writer Raymond Chandler, Wilder's story is of an insurance agent (Fred MacMurray) caught in the web of the most fatale of the femme fatales (Barbara Stanwyck) who wants her husband dead, and the double indemnity clause invoked, which doubles the life insurance money. Enter Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson), a dogged insurance inspector, whose instincts and nose for trouble spell doom for the deadly pair.

35mm print - Universal Pictures.

THE UNINVITED on 35MM

Oct. 28, 2024, 7:30 p.m.

Brother and sister Rick and Patricia purchase Windward House, in Cornwall, England, as the perfect retreat where Rick can compose his music. But the house sold cheap, due to rumors that the woman who committed suicide within its boundaries still haunts it to this day. This moody and influential film--thought by some to be the first ghost film in which the ghosts are real creatures, not tricks--is at once despairing and frightening. Considered by Martin Scorsese and Guillermo del Toro to be one of the most frightening films of all time, The Uninvited is not to be missed.

35mm print - Universal Pictures.

DR. STRANGELOVE on 35MM

Nov. 7, 2024, 7:30 p.m.

A scathing satire on the Cold War, Dr. Strangelove is also Stanley Kubrick's love-letter to the manic comic stylings of Peter Sellers. But Sellers isn't alone (even though he plays three roles): George C. Scott, Slim Pickins, Keenan Wynn, and Sterling Hayden all play against type and are absolutely hilarious.

35mm print - Sony Pictures.

AMERICAN GRAFFITI

Aug. 12, 2024, 7:30 p.m.

Before Star Wars, George Lucas tapped into a beleaguered America's urge for a more innocent time with American Graffiti. This warm and hilarious coming of age comedy invokes the music and the memories of falling in love and cruising Main Street in 1962.

DCP - Universal Pictures.

SINGIN' IN THE RAIN

Nov. 4, 2024, 7:30 p.m.

Singin' In the Rain is one of our most popular events and sells out year after year! Considered by many to be one of the greatest screen musicals of all time, Singin' in the Rain is also a hilarious look at the chaos and turmoil that the switch from silents to talkies cast upon Hollywood in the late 1920's. Plus all that glorious TECHNICOLOR!

DCP - Warner Bros.

LAURA

April 22, 2024, 7:30 p.m.

Otto Preminger's bizarre and beautiful film noir not only asks "Who done it?" but "Who's actually dead?" This searing portrait of obsession sees detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) investigating the murder of the beautiful Laura (Gene Tierney), only to find himself becoming as haunted by her beauty as the murderer he's pursuing.

DCP - Walt Disney Company.

THE WIZARD OF OZ in 35MM TECHNICOLOR

June 17, 2024, 7:30 p.m.

35MM TECHNICOLOR DYE-TRANSFER PRINT!!

One of the greatest motion pictures of all-time is one of our most popular events and sells out year after year. As always, we're screening the rare 35mm Technicolor Dye Transfer print, whose astounding colors must be seen to be believed. Has there ever been a more essential piece of movie magic than the journey of Dorothy and Toto? Never. And the lush Technicolor makes the colors so rich it's like seeing a painting.

Want to know more about the Technicolor Dye-Transfer process Click here.

A HARD DAY'S NIGHT

July 1, 2024, 7:30 p.m.

Originally planned by United Artists to be a quickie B movie to cash in on The Beatles popularity. A Hard Days Night emerged as a boldly contemporary rock n' roll comedy unleashing the fledgling Beatles into a maelstrom of screaming fans, paranoid producers, rabid press and troublesome family members. Maybe one of the greatest rock and roll movies ever made?

DCP - Janus Films.

THE SHINING

Oct. 30, 2024, 7:30 p.m.

Arguably Kubrick's best, and perhaps most personal film, The Shining has influenced scores of horror films, and its technical achievements with the Steadicam changed cinema forever. The story of writer Jack Torrence, whose personal demons collide with the haunted Overlook Hotel, which he and his family have been hired to occupy over the winter, is at once a mind-bending trip and a terrifying, and moving, destruction of a man's world. So bizarre it has spawned countless conspiracy theories, including explaining the moon landing, The Shining can be watched, interpreted and reinterpreted numerous times.

DCP - Warner Bros.

THE MUPPET MOVIE

April 1, 2024, 7:30 p.m.

The Citizen Kane of all Muppet movies! The first and greatest of the Muppet franchise is a delightful road movie with thrills, chills, romance, music and a cavalcade of stars from the late 70s, including Richard Pryor, Steve Martin, Cloris Leachman, Mel Brooks, Kojak, Madeline Kahn and more. This wacky movie-within-a-movie origin story takes Kermit cross-country to become a star, joined along the way by the entire Muppet family. This screening needs to be seen to be believed.

DCP - Universal Pictures.

MIDNIGHT COWBOY

May 6, 2024, 7:30 p.m.

Joe Buck (Jon Voight) is a handsome Texas kid eager to make his way in the Big Apple - by selling his love to lonely older women. When that fails miserably and he finds himself homeless, his only friend is the equally despondent Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), a con man with no one to con. One of the grittiest and most emotional Best Picture Winners - and the only one to be originally given an X rating! - MIDNIGHT COWBOY stands as not only a searing portrait of loneliness, but a beautiful examination of male affection, not to mention a look at a New York City that is long gone. Winner of three Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay.

DCP - Park Circus.

MUNCHHAUSEN

Nov. 11, 2024, 7:30 p.m.

Germany's answer to THE WIZARD OF OZ and THE THIEF OF BAGDAD, the lush Agfacolor extravaganza, MUNCHHAUSEN stars Hans Albers as the incredible lying hero, a man who has seemingly lived for over two centuries, and whose tall tales stretch the imagination (and the special effects budget). Filmed in wartime Germany to celebrate the famous UFA studios 25th anniversary, and meant to compete with Hollywood and divert the public from the war, MUNCHHAUSEN is an impressive adult fairytale replete with nudity and ribald jokes, scripted by banned writer Erich Kaster (who worked under a pseudonym) and starring Albers, one of the biggest stars of wartime Germany. MUNCHHAUSEN has gone on to become a post-war classic, rarely seen in Minnesota.

DCP - Kino Lorber and the F. W. Murnau Foundation.

LAUREL & HARDY COMEDY FESTIVAL

June 2, 2024, 1 p.m.

NEW DIGITAL RESTORATIONS!

The enormously popular LAUREL AND HARDY FESTIVAL returns! This year we're screening the classic 1936 feature OUR RELATIONS, in which Stan and Ollie discover their identical twins, long thought dead, are actually sailors who have come to port in their hometown. What could go wrong? Thankfully, everything, in one of the duo's most hilarious movies. With the short film "TWICE TWO".

DCP - Jeff Joseph

THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION

May 20, 2024, 7:30 p.m.

Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) arrives at Shawshank State Prison in Maine after having been sentenced to spend the rest of his days there after being found guilty of murdering his wife and her lover. His best friend there is "Red" Redding (Morgan Freeman), also serving a life sentence. With little plot other than the day-to-day grind of life in the slammer, endured brutality, and eventually, a sliver of hope, THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION was the surprise hit of 1994 - while doing moderately well at the box office, the film became an enormous home video hit, and consistently ranks as the #1 film of all time in audience polling. Based on Stephen King's short story - it remains the writer's favorite adaptation - SHAWSHANK is widely regarded as a modern classic in the style of Golden Age cinema.

DCP - Warner Bros.

NAPOLEON DYNAMITE

July 15, 2024, 7:30 p.m.

Romance! Intrigue! Politics! Is this the epic NAPOLEON? NO! It's the epically weird NAPOLEON DYNAMITE, unleashed on American audiences 20 years ago! Napoleon is a bumbling 16-year-old trying to endure high school in rural Idaho with his best friends Deb and Pedro. Learning to dance, falling in love, helping his friend win a school election, and even impressive horsemanship make Napoleon Dynamite one of the great heroes of the 21st Century.

DCP - Walt Disney Company

GODZILLA

July 29, 2024, 7:30 p.m.

We will be screening the original 1954 Japanese version, not the edited 1956 American release.

When a Japanese freighter is mysteriously destroyed off Odo Island, and the fishing there is suddenly reduced to nothing, the islanders demand an explanation. When it comes, it's a doozy...Godzilla, an ancient sea creature, awoken by underwater hydrogen bomb testing. He's mad, he's got all the power of a nuclear bomb, and he's ready to kick butt. Ishiro Honda's GODZILLA became an instant international masterpiece, spawning an enormous franchise that exists to this day. Don't miss the stunning original, unlike any of its newer incarnations.

In Japanese with English subtitles

DCP - Janus films.

IMITATION OF LIFE (1959)

Aug. 26, 2024, 7:30 p.m.

Douglas Sirk's Hollywood swan song is also rightfully regarded as his masterpiece, and a cutting indictment of racial and sexual mores that was years ahead of its time. The story of two women, Lora (Lana Turner), who seeks Broadway success, and her housekeeper Annie (Juanita Moore), who wants nothing more than love and security, IMITATION OF LIFE peels away the shiny veneer of the American Dream to reveal a heartless landscape of loneliness and discrimination.

DCP - Universal Pictures.

THE WICKER MAN

Oct. 14, 2024, 7:30 p.m.

A young girl has disappeared on the island of Summerisle, and Sergeant Neil Howie (Edward Woodward) is sent to investigate. There, no one admits the girl ever existed, and worse, to the very conservative Sgt. Howie, the islanders engage in ritual paganism. But as his investigation widens, Sgt. Howie uncovers shocking truths about the islanders and their very charismatic leader, Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee). Derided upon its original release and then vanished, THE WICKER MAN almost immediately became a cult hit, and is one of the most disturbing and original horror films ever made.

DCP - Rialto Pictures.

DIE PUPPE - THE DOLL

Sept. 29, 2024, 7:30 p.m.

With live accompaniment by Jackie Beckey.

When Lancelot, the nephew of the Baron of Chanterelle, is told by his uncle that he must marry, he balks. He is not in the least bit interested in having little Lancelots running underfoot, and so when the Baron puts out a reward to local maidens to wed his nephew, the poor fellow flees! But then he gets an idea...in the forest lives a man whose mechanical dolls are so true to life they fool everyone. He'll marry one of them. But when the dollmaker's daughter falls for the timid Lancelot, she switches places with his doll of choice, with hilarious, and sexy, results. Ernst Lubitsch's THE DOLL (DIE PUPPE) is one of the funniest sex comedies ever made, a riotous look at love and marriage, and one of the director's most sophisticated films.

Presented in Partnership with Archives on Screen Twin Cities and Syncopated Silents

PANDORA'S BOX

June 30, 2024, 7:30 p.m.

NEW DIGITAL RESTORATION!

Lulu is a reckless young woman, the mistress of the respectable publisher, Ludwig, but very willing to have more men on the side - including Ludwig's attractive son, Alwa. Later, after she drives Ludwig's fiance away, he kills himself - and then Lulu pounces on his son. And now she beings her stunning descent, dragging Alwa with her in this devastating portrait of a young woman caught up in the ribald insanity of Weimar Germany. Louis Brooks is astonishing as Lulu, giving what many consider the greatest of all silent film performances.

DCP - Janus Films.