Films this week 1/16/2026 to 1/22/2026
by Gary Palmucci | 16th January 2026 | Gary's Corner
New Plaza Cinema will be open for a five day stand this week, from Thursday through MLK Day on Monday, January 19. Our holdovers include Ralph Fiennes and Simon Russell Beale in The Choral, the Oscar contenders –nominations to be announced next week– Sentimental Value and All That’s Left of You (director Cherien Dabis joining us on Sunday afternoon) and, still selling out every show in its fourth month, SHTTL with the usual Q&A featuring lead actor Moshe Lobel. As we like to say, plan accordingly.
Last year we celebrated MLK by screening the epic 1970 documentary King: A Filmed Record….Montgomery to Memphis; this year we’ll revisit the 2014 feature film Selma, chronicling his immortal 1965 march to secure equal voting rights. Director Ava Du Vernay helms a prodigious cast including David Oyelowo, Carmen Ejogo, Oprah Winfrey, Tom Wilkinson, Colman Domingo, Tessa Thompson and Wendell Pierce.
In one of her previous gigs, NY Times film critic Alissa Wilkinson wrote, “It is a very, very good movie, beautifully shot by cinematographer Bradford Young and almost astonishingly well directed by relative newcomer Du Vernay….”
Following the screening Congressman Jerrold Nadler will join us for a discussion of the enduring legacy of the bloody walk across Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge, with Q&A to follow.
From independent distributor Menemsha Films, whose diverse lineup New Plaza has showcased – including Bad Shabbos, SHTTL, and Farewell Mr. Haffmann – we’re offering this weekend the NYC theatrical premiere of Midas Man, a biopic of Beatles manager Brian Epstein, whose career arc encompassed both show biz immortality and heart-rending personal tragedy.
The gifted cast includes Jacob Fortune-Lloyd (from The Queen’s Gambit), Emily Watson, Eddie Marsan and Jay Leno (as Ed Sullivan!) Co-screenwriter Brigit Grant will be here for Q&As at both of this weekend’s screenings, moderated by my colleague, New Plaza publicist and Beatle-ologist Abbe Harris.
Our documentary perennial Make Me Famous, on the downtown 80s NYC art scene, will be back for a Sunday afternoon screening with filmmakers Brian Vincent and Heather Spore. Many viewers here may know that they’ve been working on a follow up, a 21st century portrait of James Dean, and have shown work-in-progress clips at our screenings this year of East of Eden, Giant and Rebel Without a Cause. For many of us, seeing that indelible trio on a theatre screen for the first time in decades (or ever) has been a real revelation; we’re pleased to announce an encore showing of Rebel on Saturday January 31, with a visit from Becca Ray, daughter of its turbulent director Nicholas Ray, in what should be a fascinating discussion and Q&A.
Tickets will be on sale for that show next week, as will those for another encore screening of (please don’t get these two confused!) Rebel With a Clause, hosted by the inimitable Brandt Johnson and Ellen Jovin, a week earlier on January 25.
And our next round of classic film screenings, hosted by film historians Max Alvarez and Dan Cahill, will kick off on Sunday, February 1 with that prescient American classic The Manchurian Candidate (1962). Tickets are already on sale for that one.