Gary's Corner
Films this week 1/16/2026 to 1/22/2026
Gary’s Corner
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.
Films this week 11/25 – 11/27/2022
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Last weekend was our best, attendance-wise, since New Plaza Cinema planted its flag at Macaulay Honors College two months ago. The energy and enthusiasm of six Q&As and multiple sold-out shows was palpable, and we really appreciate your support. Two of last weekend's most popular speakers will both return on Saturday, December 10: author Alan Light with Hallelujah- Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song and Dr. Gabriel Sara with Peaceful (De Son Vivant). Please consult our website that week for precise showtimes. While continuing this weekend with our engagements of Hallelujah, the hypnotically mysterious Memoria and the definitive WW2 Jewish Partisans documentary Four Winters from filmmaker...
Films this week 11/18 – 11/20/2022
Another weekend, another jam-packed collection of films and personal appearances from New Plaza Cinema at Macaulay Honors College. Screenings on Saturday will feature return visitors Dr. Gabriel Sara with Peaceful (De Son Vivant), Oscar-campaigning filmmakers Julia Mintz (Four Winters) and Lisa Hurwitz (The Automat), as well as author and Rolling Stone music critic Alan Light to discuss Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song. Alan's book The Holy or the Broken - Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley and the Unholy Ascent of Hallelujah was a key inspiration for this documentary, one of the few to gross over $1 million in cinemas this year. It reveals the tortured, years-long genesis of Cohen's indelible anthem and how it has...
Films this week 11/11 – 11/13/2022
Thanks to our loyal patrons (and many new ones) who delivered New Plaza Cinema's first SOLD OUT show last weekend in our new venue at Macaulay Honors College. Michael Imperioli joined filmmaker Julia Mintz following a screening of her riveting documentary Four Winters to discuss its genesis and ever-relevant issues. We've invited Michael to return in the coming weeks to screen a film of his choosing -- stay tuned. This weekend we'll be offering another rich assortment of films with some very special guests, including the NY premiere of a new documentary Black Notebooks: Ronit from actor/director Shlomi Elkabetz. If you caught the remarkable Israeli mini-series Our Boys (still streaming on HBO Max) you may remember the...
Films this week 11/04 – 11/05/2022
Due to our (very) close proximity to the NYC Marathon's finish line, New Plaza Cinema at Macaulay Honors College will be closed on Sunday, November 6. But our reprise screenings this weekend of the inspiring documentary Four Winters will feature a pair of special guests -- On Friday November 4th filmmaker Julia Mintz will be joined for an after-film discussion with Eva Haller, a Hungarian-American philanthropist, Holocaust survivor and activist. And on Saturday November 5th, Julia will welcome actor/screenwriter Michael Imperioli (The Sopranos, GoodFellas, Summer of Sam) for another discussion of her documentary and its indelible subjects. The Good House with Sigourney Weaver and Kevin Kline will also screen again on Saturday...
Films this week 10/29 – 10/30/2022
Last weekend's surging attendance at New Plaza Cinema's Macaulay Honors College screening room was very encouraging — a trio of enthusiastic Q&As after screenings of The Automat and Four Winters, with both documentaries' directors continuing post-show conversations in the hallway and on our ground floor, has us very excited for the upcoming holiday moviegoing and awards season. This weekend we'll be closed on Friday due to some previously scheduled student Halloween events, but on a full Saturday-Sunday schedule with reprise screenings of The Automat, Four Winters, and The Good House, with its award-worthy Sigourney Weaver performance. Please consult newplazacinema.org for possible late-breaking Q&As at each of...
Films this week 10/21 – 10/23/2022
In addition to our "last chance" screenings of Plan A, Dead for a Dollar, and Last Flight Home, and a "holdover" of Argentina 1985, New Plaza Cinema has four filmmaker personal appearances on tap this weekend in our comfortable screening room at Macaulay Honors College. One of those filmmakers many of you know well — Lisa Hurwitz joined us several times last spring for Q&As following her warm-hearted, incisive documentary The Automat. On Sunday she's taking a quick break from early award-season campaigning to join us again, accompanied this time by composer Hummie Mann, a Mel Brooks collaborator (and Simpsons orchestrator) who scored the film. Get your tickets early! Julia Mintz's Four Winters is, like Lisa's, a...
Films this week 10/14 – 10/16/2022
In addition to our holdovers of Plan A and 1982, we're adding four new titles this weekend to New Plaza Cinema's lineup at Macaulay Honors College, one of which I previewed last week — Dead for a Dollar, rhapsodized by the NY Times' Tony Scott as "Director Walter Hill's lean, mean western (with an aces cast: Christoph Waltz, Willem Dafoe and Rachel Brosnahan) and a master class in the craft of the B movie...also a reminder that Hill — who at 80 has had a career including cult classics (The Warriors, The Long Riders) and smash hits (48 HRS) — is a master in his own right, whose artistry has often been overlooked and undervalued." Those of us who still remember — and cherish — such masters of the western as Howard...
Films this week 10/07 – 10/10/2022
Thanks to everyone who turned up -- often in inclement weather -- to support our opening weekend at New Plaza Cinema's new venue, Macaulay Honors College on 35 W 67 St. On this Indigenous Peoples' Day holiday weekend we'll be continuing with screenings of last weekend's movies, as well as presenting the exclusive US premiere of a new Israeli drama Plan A, from brother-directors Doron and Yoav Paz. Based on actual events, this film dramatizes an astounding piece of Holocaust history: a post-war plot by a small group of Jewish survivors (including August Diehl of Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds) to poison Nuremberg's water supply or, as another character puts it: "An eye for an eye. Six million for six million." We're...
Films 9/30 – 10/02/2022
We are thrilled to announce a partnership with Macaulay Honors College of the City University of New York (35 West 67th Street), exhibiting independent, foreign and classic films on weekends in their 72 seat screening room. The association aligns with New Plaza’s educational component and supplements its already robust virtual and in-person lectures and talkbacks. New Plaza Cinema at Macaulay Honors College will open on Friday, September 30th. Films will include the acclaimed documentaries Fire of love (both an Oscar contender and the top grossing doc of 2022) and Three Minutes – A Lengthening, as well as other outstanding new foreign titles including The Good Boss (Spain), Taming the Garden (Georgia), Hold Me Tight from French...
Have a question or comment for Gary?
You can reach him at films@newplazacinema.org