Laemmle Theatres

Culture Vulture: All the World’s a Stage, and These Are Its Players

May 13, 2026 by Lamb Laemmle Leave a Comment

Culture Vulture is Laemmle Theatres’ ongoing invitation to experience world-class art, performance, and cultural storytelling on the big screen and with an audience at your side. Curated from across the ballet, opera, theatre, fine art, and documentary landscapes, this series brings exceptional works to the Laemmle Glendale, Monica, and Town Center locations on Saturday and Sunday mornings at 10:00 a.m. and Monday evenings at 7:00 p.m.

Below are four upcoming National Theatre Live presentations, each exploring the intersections of power, identity, ambition, and performance in strikingly different ways:

The Audience (05/16–18)

Returning to cinemas for the first time in over a decade, The Audience offers a rare showcase for Helen Mirren’s celebrated performance as Queen Elizabeth II, reprising the role that earned her both Olivier and Tony Awards. Written by Peter Morgan and directed by Stephen Daldry, the play imagines the monarch’s private weekly meetings with each of her twelve prime ministers, tracing the shifting political and cultural landscape of modern Britain through conversations held behind closed doors. Elegant, witty, and sharply observed, The Audience stands as a fascinating companion piece to The Crown, which later expanded upon many of the same themes for television.

The Playboy of the Western World (05/30 – 06/01)
Few plays capture the volatility of storytelling quite like John Millington Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World. Directed by Caitríona McLaughlin, this new production stars Nicola Coughlan, Éanna Hardwicke, and Siobhán McSweeney in a story that begins when a mysterious young man arrives in a rural pub claiming to have killed his father. Instead of recoiling, the local community becomes enthralled by him, transforming violence into legend almost overnight. By turns riotously funny and quietly unsettling, the play explores how charisma, fantasy, and social hunger can reshape reality itself.

All My Sons (06/13–15)
Arthur Miller’s All My Sons remains one of the great American dramas precisely because its moral questions never lose their urgency. In visionary director Ivo van Hove’s new staging, the play’s portrait of postwar prosperity becomes newly immediate, exposing the fragile foundations beneath the promise of the American dream. Bryan Cranston leads the production as Joe Keller, a businessman whose financial success masks devastating ethical compromises, alongside Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Paapa Essiedu, and Tom Glynn-Carney. Filmed live from the West End, this production emphasizes the claustrophobic tension simmering beneath family rituals and domestic normalcy, revealing how denial and self-justification can echo across generations.

Les Liaisons Dangereuses (06/27–29)
Seduction becomes strategy in Christopher Hampton’s celebrated adaptation of Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Directed by Marianne Elliott, this new staging stars Lesley Manville and Aidan Turner as the calculating Marquise de Merteuil and Vicomte de Valmont, aristocrats who transform romance into a ruthless game of power and humiliation. Set amid the glittering salons of pre-revolutionary France, the play examines the performance of status itself, where every gesture, confession, and flirtation functions as part of a larger social battlefield. Elegant, dangerous, and psychologically incisive, the production highlights why Hampton’s adaptation remains one of the defining theatrical works of the modern era.

Culture Vulture continues to celebrate the unique power of live performance experienced collectively. Whether revisiting history through royal conversations, unraveling moral catastrophe within an American family, or plunging into worlds shaped by seduction and mythmaking, these National Theatre Live presentations bring internationally acclaimed productions directly to Los Angeles audiences, combining the thrill of theatre with the immersive scale and intimacy of cinema. Buy your tickets today and prepare to be wowed!

The Secret Life of Trees: Ildikó Enyedi’s ‘Silent Friend’

May 13, 2026 by Lamb Laemmle Leave a Comment

What if the world around us were constantly speaking, and we simply lacked the patience to hear it? That question drifts through Silent Friend, the latest feature from Hungarian filmmaker Ildikó Enyedi, though “drifts” may be too passive a word for a film so alive with wonder, sensation, and absurd, unexpected connections. Moving across three timelines linked by a towering ginkgo tree in the botanical gardens of Marburg, Germany, Enyedi’s film unfolds less like a conventional drama than an act of gradual attunement: to nature, to loneliness, and to the hidden rhythms that shape human lives whether we notice them or not.

Catch Silent Friend in theaters beginning May 15th at the Laemmle Royal.

If Enyedi’s Oscar-nominated On Body and Soul explored intimacy through dreams, Silent Friend projects that fascination outward onto the natural world. The film’s modern-day thread follows neuroscientist Tony Wong, played by Tony Leung Chiu-wai in a beautifully understated performance. Stranded on an empty university campus during the first COVID lockdown, Tony turns his attention away from human cognition and toward the silent life of plants, becoming increasingly fascinated by theories suggesting that trees may communicate in ways that science is only beginning to understand. As he enters into remote correspondence with a French botanist played by Léa Seydoux, the film opens itself to increasingly provocative possibilities about the porous boundary between human and nonhuman life.

Before long, Enyedi masterfully weaves Tony’s story with two earlier narratives set decades apart: one following a pioneering female botany student in the early twentieth century, the other centering on a shy student swept into the idealism and experimentation of the 1970s. The connections between these strands are less narrative-based than emotional and thematic, united by a shared sense of curiosity and by the imposing ginkgo tree quietly observing generations pass beneath its branches.

That openness gives Silent Friend much of its distinctive texture. Enyedi approaches science not as something cold or rational, but as a form of wonder and of looking more closely at the world. At times, the movie feels almost mischievous in its insistence that humans might not be as separate from the natural world as we tend to imagine.

Visually, the film is equally rich. Cinematographer Gergely Pálos shifts fluidly between varying textures and formats, moving from striking black-and-white photography to saturated color and crisp digital imagery depending on the era and emotional register. Combined with the film’s immersive sound design and score, the result is markedly sense-based, a movie less interested in driving its plot forward than in creating an atmosphere that its viewers can sink into.

Like the ancient tree at its center, Silent Friend asks for patience. But in return, it offers something increasingly rare in contemporary cinema: the feeling of slowing down long enough to see the world in a new light

“[A] beguiling, wildly original ode to better living through botany.” – Guy Lodge, Variety

“A movie that thinks outside the box, proffering a world view that’s open to new, unusual connections at a time when many people seem to be shutting themselves down.” – Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter

The Architecture of Influence: Assayas’ ‘The Wizard of the Kremlin’

May 5, 2026 by Lamb Laemmle Leave a Comment

Power rarely announces itself outright; more often, it is constructed—carefully, incrementally, and just out of view. In The Wizard of the Kremlin, director Olivier Assayas turns to the machinery behind modern political mythmaking, tracing how influence is shaped not only through force, but through narrative. Adapted from Giuliano da Empoli’s widely discussed novel, the film approaches recent Russian history less as a fixed record than as something actively being authored, revised, and performed. The result is a work that peers behind the curtain to examine the uneasy relationship between image and authority.

Tune into Inside the Arthouse to hear Assayas dissect his latest film with co-hosts Greg Laemmle and Raphael Sbarge, or catch it in theaters beginning May 15th at the Monica, Town Center, and NoHo 7.

At the center of the film’s world is Vadim Baranov (Paul Dano), a former artist whose creative instincts find an unexpected outlet in the realm of political strategy. Through his eyes, the film moves from the cultural upheavals of the late Soviet period into the consolidating power structures of the Putin era. Baranov is less an ideologue than an architect, someone who understands that, in a media-saturated age, perception can be even more decisive than policy.

If Baranov provides the film’s perspective, it is Jude Law’s Vladimir Putin who supplies its gravitational pull. Eschewing caricature, Law delivers a performance that captures the controlled, often inscrutable presence of a leader who communicates as much through restraint as through declaration. Small gestures—a pause, a glance, the measured calibration of distance—become telling indicators of authority. Rather than attempting to decode the man entirely, the film uses these moments to suggest how power can be projected through absence as much as through expression.

Assayas, whose previous films—from Clouds of Sils Maria to Personal Shopper—have explored identity and performance in more intimate contexts, here scales those concerns up to the level of geopolitics. His collaboration with writer Emmanuel Carrère foregrounds dialogue and ideas, particularly in the film’s extended exchanges between Baranov and the many oligarchs, financiers, and political operatives who orbit him. These conversations, often laced with dark humor, become the film’s engine, illustrating how competing ambitions gradually coalesce into a singular, rigid system.

In this sense, The Wizard of the Kremlin positions itself less as a definitive account than as an inquiry into how such accounts are formed. It suggests that the real story lies not only in what happened, but in how those events were framed, disseminated, and ultimately absorbed. For viewers drawn to political dramas that prioritize ideas alongside performance, the film offers a dense, thought-provoking exploration of power that resonates beyond its immediate setting.

“A sharply-written, and often surprisingly funny, look at power in one of the most unique nation-states in the world.” – Chris Harrison, Shifter Magazine

“Essential viewing for understanding the highly sophisticated workings of a totalitarian propaganda state.” – Travis Jeppesen, BFI

‘The Man Who Fell to Earth’ Returns to Big Screens Uncut

May 5, 2026 by Lamb Laemmle Leave a Comment

Laemmle Theaters and the Anniversary Classics Series present two screenings of the provocative and lyrical sci-fi classic, Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth, which marked pop superstar David Bowie’s debut in a lead role on the big screen.

For the film’s 50th anniversary, it will screen Wednesday, May 20, at Laemmle’s NoHo at 7 p.m.; and Wednesday, May 27, at Laemmle’s Royal at 7 p.m. Oscar-nominated actress Candy Clark will appear at both screenings to share memories of her co-star, the director, and her long film career.

The film was adapted by Paul Mayersberg from the novel by Walter Tevis, who also wrote the novel that inspired Paul Newman’s classic, The Hustler. Rip Torn, Buck Henry, and Bernie Casey co-star in the film. Bowie plays a visitor from a distant planet who travels to Earth to find water for his dying planet. He quickly amasses great wealth as an industrialist, but his plans are scotched by a couple of devious antagonists as well as by his love affair with a good-hearted woman played by Clark.

Roeg did the celebrated 2nd unit photography on the Oscar-winning masterpiece from 1962, Lawrence of Arabia. He went on to be the chief cinematographer on such films as Roger Corman’s The Masque of the Red Death, John Schlesinger’s Far From the Madding Crowd, and Richard Lester’s Petulia, among other films. He made his directorial debut (sharing credit with Donald Cammell) on the 1970 cult favorite, Performance, which introduced another pop music icon, Mick Jagger, to dramatic filmmaking. Roeg made his solo directing debut on the exquisite Australian adventure, Walkabout, and followed with the classic thriller, Don’t Look Now, starring Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland.

Cinematographer Anthony Richmond, who worked with Roeg on Don’t Look Now, joined him again on The Man Who Fell to Earth. Shot mainly in New Mexico, the film was again notable for its striking visual style. The music for the film was coordinated by John Phillips of The Mamas and the Papas, with original score by Japanese composer Stomu Yamash-ta.

Most of Roeg’s films divided the critics, and this one was no exception, though it boasted a series of extraordinary reviews. At the time of its release, Richard Eder of The New York Times declared, “There are quite a few science-fiction movies scheduled to come out in the next year or so. We shall be lucky if even one or two are as absorbing and as beautiful as The Man Who Fell to Earth.” The New Yorker’s Pauline Kael wrote a mixed review of the film in 1976 but described Bowie as “the most romantic figure in recent pictures, the modern version of the James Dean lost-boy myth.” Years later, Joshua Rothkopf of Time Out confirmed Eder’s evaluation and called The Man Who Fell to Earth “the most intellectually provocative genre film of the 1970s.”

Robert Hawkins of Variety added to the praise for the film: “Bowie’s choice as the ethereal visitor is inspired… Candy Clark, as his naïve but loving mate, confirms the winning ways that won her an Oscar nom in American Graffiti… Her intimate scenes with Bowie… are among the pic’s highlights.”

One of these sex scenes, in which the two played with guns, led the distributor to cut some 20 minutes from the film before the 1976 release. This scene and others were restored when Rialto took over the release, and Laemmle will be screening the uncut version at both anniversary screenings.

Candy Clark earned her Oscar nomination for her warm portrayal of a local girl in George Lucas’s nostalgic breakthrough film, American Graffiti, in 1973. Her other movies include John Huston’s Fat City, Jonathan Demme’s Citizens Band, Blue Thunder, At Close Range, The Informant, and a wide range of television appearances over the decades. At both screenings Ms. Clark will participate in Q&As following the screenings, and will sign and sell her recent book of star photos, Tight Heads.

Modern Love, Unfiltered: The Bold Charm of ‘Two Women’

April 28, 2026 by Lamb Laemmle Leave a Comment

There’s a mischievous spark at the heart of Two Women, a film that takes a familiar setup—restless relationships, suburban routines—and flips it into something unexpectedly playful, warm, and quietly subversive. Directed with a light but assured touch by Chloé Robichaud, this Montreal-set comedy finds humor and honesty in the messiness of modern love.

Catch Two Women in theaters beginning May 1st at the Laemmle Monica and Town Center, followed by a special screening and Q&A hosted by Not Your Daddy’s Films following the 7:10 p.m. show on May 2nd at the Monica.

The story centers on two neighbors, Violette and Florence, who form an unspoken bond over their shared dissatisfaction at home. Violette, adjusting to new motherhood, finds herself adrift in a marriage that has lost all sense of intimacy, while Florence, navigating her own partner’s lack of libido, feels similarly disconnected. Their apartments may only be a balcony apart, but emotionally, they’ve both been stranded for some time.

What follows isn’t subtle: both women begin having affairs, embarking on a string of clandestine hookups that quickly spiral into something both comedic and unexpectedly revealing. Yet what might sound like a setup for moralizing instead plays out with a surprising lightness, for rather than framing this infidelity as purely destructive, Two Women treats it as a catalyst—messy, impulsive, and often funny—for the characters to confront what’s missing in their lives and to begin to discover what they actually want.

At the center of it all are two standout performances. Karine Gonthier-Hyndman brings a subtle emotional evolution to Florence, charting her journey from quiet detachment to a more awakened, self-assured presence. Opposite her, Laurence Leboeuf gives Violette a lively, layered warmth, balancing the character’s natural humor with an undercurrent of vulnerability. Together, they create a dynamic that feels genuinely lived-in, less like a traditional movie friendship and more like something instinctive and real.

Robichaud’s direction keeps the tone buoyant even as the film brushes up against larger questions about relationships, expectations, and autonomy. There’s a sense that Two Women is less interested in offering definitive answers than in simply letting its characters explore the questions themselves. That openness extends to the film’s humor, which leans into awkwardness and absurdity without ever losing sight of its characters’ humanity.

Ultimately, Two Women is a film about connection: between friends, between partners, and (perhaps most importantly) with oneself. It’s playful without being trivial, thoughtful without being heavy, and anchored by performances that make every twist feel earned. In a landscape where stories about relationships often follow well-worn paths, this one finds its own rhythm—and invites audiences to enjoy the ride.

“[The film’s] reflections on modern relationships are engagingly comical, cynical and ultimately tender. ” – Allan Hunter, Screen Daily

“[Two Women is] unafraid of sex and female pleasure in a way that feels so rare in modern films.” – Jesse Saunders, Movie Jawn

‘Our Land’ and the Weight of History

April 28, 2026 by Lamb Laemmle Leave a Comment

What does it mean to look at a landscape not as scenery, but as evidence? In Our Land (also known as Landmarks), acclaimed filmmaker Lucrecia Martel turns her attention to terrain that carries the weight of centuries, where questions of ownership, memory, and identity remain unsettled. Best known for her formally adventurous fiction work, Martel takes au uncharacteristically direct approach here, but this shift in style reveals a different kind of precision, one rooted not in ambiguity but in accumulation. What begins as a seemingly isolated account of violence gradually expands into a meditation on how history persists, often invisibly, through the ground beneath our feet.

Catch Our Land in theaters beginning May 8th at the Laemmle Monica.

Set in Argentina’s Tucumán Province, the film centers on the 2009 killing of Indigenous community leader Javier Chocobar and the long-delayed trial that followed. Yet Our Land resists the conventions of a straightforward procedural, as rather than guiding the viewer step-by-step through an endless slog of legal arguments, Martel immerses us in a dense, sometimes disorienting flow of testimony, observation, and lived experience. The effect is less about clarifying every detail than about placing us inside a complex system in which power, prejudice, and historical erasure shape not only outcomes, but the very terms of understanding.

What emerges most vividly is the presence of the Chuschagasta community itself. Through a blend of interviews, archival photographs, and extended moments of reflection, the film builds a layered portrait of a people whose connection to the land predates the structures now used to dispossess them. Chocobar’s widow, Antonia, becomes a central voice, articulating both her own personal loss as well as the broader history that too often gets excluded from official narratives. Her testimony, clear-eyed and unsentimental, anchors the film’s emotional core while opening outward onto questions that extend far beyond this particular case.

Visually, Martel finds unexpected ways to animate this history. The film’s recurring drone imagery, at once fluid, searching, and occasionally unstable, transforms the landscape into something both expansive and contested. These sweeping aerial views do more than situate the story geographically; they suggest a perspective that hovers between observation and implication, as if the land itself were bearing witness to its own methodical desecration. Even moments of disruption—a sudden collision, an abrupt descent—feel integrated into a larger design, reinforcing the tension between control and unpredictability that runs throughout the film.

If Our Land departs from the formal experimentation of Martel’s earlier work, it does so in service of clarity rather than compromise. The film’s restraint and refusal to simplify nuanced issues becomes a quiet strength, allowing the voices at its center to carry the full weight of the story. In doing so, it transforms what might initially appear as a specific legal case into an enduring record of resistance, a reclamation of narrative, and a reminder that the past is rarely as distant as it seems.

“A slow-burning, increasingly incensed unraveling of a horrific murder case underpinned by colonialist privilege and prejudice.” – Guy Lodge, Variety

“Above all, [Martel] lets the people tell their own story.” – Jonathan Romney, Screen Daily

“A searing and detailed chronicle of murder, bigotry and robbery on a massive scale.” – Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter

All the Right Notes: ‘Two Pianos’ and the Music of Complicated Love

April 21, 2026 by Lamb Laemmle Leave a Comment

There’s a certain kind of cinematic romance that doesn’t just tug at the heartstrings: It yanks them, bends them, and occasionally snaps them altogether. Two Pianos, a lush and emotionally charged drama from Arnaud Desplechin, belongs squarely in that tradition, treating love, memory, and music with the same heightened intensity as a symphony reaching its crescendo.

Catch Two Pianos in theaters beginning May 1st at the Laemmle Royal.

At the film’s center is Mathias, a gifted pianist whose return to his hometown of Lyon sets multiple strands of his life into motion at once. Played with sensitivity and restraint by François Civil, Mathias is a man caught between multiple versions of himself: the rising talent he once was, the underachieving teacher he has become, and the artist he might still be. His reunion with his formidable former mentor Elena—brought to life with imperious precision by Charlotte Rampling—pulls him back toward the stage, even as his personal life threatens to spiral in less controlled directions.

That personal life arrives with a jolt in the form of Claude, an old flame whose sudden reappearance sends the film into a kind of emotional overdrive. Nadia Tereszkiewicz plays her as mercurial and magnetic, someone who can shift from vulnerability to volatility in a heartbeat. What follows between her and Mathias is less a rekindling than a collision, two people circling unresolved feelings with a mixture of longing, regret, and lovestruck impulsivity.

Desplechin leans fully into this heightened register, crafting a story that moves with the unpredictability of memory itself. Chance encounters carry the weight of destiny; small gestures erupt into grand declarations. There are even fleeting touches of the uncanny, as Mathias becomes fixated on a young boy who seems to mirror his own past, adding another layer to the film’s fascination with doubling.

Yet for all its dramatic flourishes, Two Pianos remains grounded by its deep connection to music. The performances, both literal and emotional, are inseparable from the rhythms of the score, which pulses through the film with a restless energy. Classical pieces intertwine with an evocative original composition, creating a soundscape that cleverly mirrors the turbulence of the characters’ inner lives.

Visually, the film is just as expressive. Cinematographer Paul Guilhaume captures Lyon in rich, shifting tones, moving from shadowy interiors to crisp autumnal light, as if the city itself were responding to the characters’ emotional journeys. The effect is immersive without being overstated, allowing the story’s intensity to breathe and stretch its versatile narrative limbs.

If Two Pianos feels like it’s playing multiple melodies at once, that’s part of its design. It’s a film about divided selves and second chances, about the pull of the past and the risk of moving forward. And like any memorable piece of music, it lingers—not because it resolves every note, but because it dares to play them at full volume.

“Desplechin draws something liminal from a specific sense of place.” – Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter

“[An] earnestly inflamed tale of art, grief, betrayal and all-consuming amour.” – Guy Lodge, Variety

A Life Unfiltered: ‘I Swear’ and the Story of John Davidson

April 21, 2026 by Lamb Laemmle Leave a Comment

There’s a familiar shape to many “inspiring true story” films, but I Swear finds a way to delicately reshape that mold into something more personal, more unpredictable, and ultimately more humane. Based on the life of Tourette syndrome advocate John Davidson, this BAFTA award-winning film traces one man’s journey from confusion and isolation to self-acceptance and public advocacy without ever reducing him to a symbol.

Catch I Swear in theaters beginning April 24th at the Laemmle Royal, Newhall, and Town Center locations.

What distinguishes I Swear is its commitment to portraying not only what John experiences, but how he experiences it. His Tourette syndrome isn’t treated as a narrative device or a source of easy sentiment, but as a constant, complicated presence. The film allows for laughter, but never at the expense of John’s dignity. Instead, it invites audiences to sit with the uneasy tension between humor and hardship, asking when we laugh, why we laugh, and who gets to decide.

At the film’s center is Robert Aramayo, delivering a performance of remarkable sensitivity and control. He captures both the physical unpredictability of John’s condition and the emotional steadiness that defines him, creating a character who feels fully lived-in rather than performed. It’s a balancing act that could easily tip into caricature, but Aramayo keeps it grounded, ensuring that John’s inner life remains front and center.

Director Kirk Jones approaches the material with a clear respect for both his subject and the audience. The storytelling is straightforward, but never simplistic. Moments of pain—whether social rejection, misunderstanding, or outright cruelty—are counterbalanced by instances of connection and support. The film is especially attuned to the role that community plays in shaping John’s life, highlighting the people who choose empathy over judgment and, in so doing, help redefine what’s possible.

In the end, I Swear is less about overcoming than it is about being seen. It’s about carving out space in a world that isn’t always ready to make room, and about finding strength not in silence, but in expression, however unpredictable that expression may be.

“The film wrestles enthusiastically and mostly successfully with the potential pitfalls of making a funny yet respectful project about a condition that sometimes lends itself to laughter, even as it wreaks havoc with Davidson’s life in serious ways.” – Catherine Bray, Variety

“Its mix of compassion and clarity allows it to avoid the easy sentimentality of similar tales.” – Ross McIndoe, Slant Magazine

“Aramayo’s sensitive portrayal of the man and Jones’ unflinching dedication to showing some of Davidson’s most painful moments… add up to an insightful biopic that chronicles a very worthy subject.” – Kate Erbland, IndieWire