Films this week 10/16/2026 to 10/22/2026
by Gary Palmucci | 16th October 2026 | Gary's Corner
Last weekend, New Plaza Cinema patrons both ‘regular’ and new packed our screenings of the remarkable documentary NAZA from Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor. Our box office was in the upper echelon of the over eighty US cinemas that played the movie; we’re grateful to its distributor for including us in the expanded release – as they did with the directors’ Oscar-winning No Other Land – and to our hard working projection and ticketing staff who managed the numerous full houses.
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NAZA will return for seven more shows
this weekend; as always, we strongly recommend advance, online ticket purchases.
Back on the schedule this weekend will be crowd-pleasers The Marching Band and You Had to Be There, as well as a newcomer – the sleeper art house hit The History of Concrete from the HBO documentarian whose How To with John Wilson ran from 2020-23.
Wilson’s serpentine narratives, as his many fans will recall, usually began with an investigation of some indignity of NYC life. As NY Times critic Alissa Wilkinson noted in her review, this big-screen edition covers familiar ground:
“It’s not just about concrete, as any “How To” fan might have guessed. The History of Concrete plays like a feature-length episode of the show, with all of its hallmarks. There’s a meandering, associative through line and a lot of documentary footage, which is often comically juxtaposed with Wilson’s narration. Which is to say: This is a weird, fun movie that goes in some very unexpected directions.”
On Sunday we’re featuring a 12:15 pm screening of Mike Nichols’ 1967 widescreen classic The Graduate, starring Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hoffman,hosted by my colleagues Dan Cahill and Abbe Harris.
This is likely its last theatrical screening for a while, prior to a planned 60th anniversary reissue next year….
And looking ahead to later this month:
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October 23-
Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing – a special screening where we’ll be joined by a group of Parisian, intensive-English-studying high schoolers.
NYC Short Film Showcase – the latest installment curated by Michael Jacobsohn . Tickets now on sale.
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October 25-
My Religion is Kindness – a new feature-length portrait of the 14th Dalai Lama. Tickets now on sale.
Yaniv – in this new, Bronx-set indie, a high school drama teacher whose funding has been cut, resolves to earn it back by cheating at an underground card game run by the Hasidic community. Filmmakers will join us for Q&A.
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Weekend of October 30-
The epic documentary My Undesirable Friends – Part 2: Exile – part one of this saga of young Russian journalists forced to flee their country played here last winter to a sold out crowd. Part two, executive-produced by Oscar-winners Meryl Streep and Laura Poitras, continues their story; director Julia Loktev will join us.
More details next week on schedules and ticketing.