Starring: Robert De Niro, Jean Reno, Natascha McElhone, Stellan Skarsgård, Sean Bean

Deirdre (Natascha McElhone) puts together a team of experts that she tasks with stealing a valuable briefcase, the contents of which are a mystery. The international team includes Sam (Robert De Niro), an ex-intelligence officer, along with Vincent (Jean Reno), Gregor (Stellan Skarsgard) and others. As their operation gets underway, several team members are found to be untrustworthy, and everyone must complete the mission with a watchful eye on everyone else.

Starring: Keira Knightley, Mickey Rourke, Edgar Ramírez, Delroy Lindo, Lucy Liu, Christopher Walken

In this film loosely based on a true story, Domino Harvey (Keira Knightley), a former model, is now a bounty hunter who has been arrested for robbing an armored car. During interrogation, she claims innocence and tells her story. Harvey became a pupil of Ed Moseby (Mickey Rourke), who ran a course for aspiring bounty hunters. Along with Choco (Edgar Ramírez), the three of them became a successful team. But, when a bail bondsman (Delroy Lindo) offered a job, they faced a complicated frame-up.

Starring: Eric Stoltz, Daphne Zuniga, Lee Richardson, John Getz

Wasting no time with the adrenalin rush, The Fly II opens with a very dramatic birth. That’s Veronica Quaife (decidedly not Geena Davis) on a metal slab, painfully bringing her and Seth Brundle’s offspring into the world. It’s enough to kill her, but after some tissue removal there appears to be a healthy baby boy. Adopted by lab CEO Anton Bartok and named Martin, he is raised in a clinical environment under close study as he ages rapidly beyond his years, a genius mind picking up where his father left off with creating a teleportation device. Things go about as you’d expect when the father figure is more interested in Martin’s output than Martin the human being.

A sequel placed in the hands of the special effects master of the first (Chris Walas, who also created the Gremlins), The Fly II delivers in the practical effects department, with gooey mutants and oozing flesh galore, which nearly landed it an X rating. We are also awarding it the prize for Best Password Reveal.

Starring: Colin Burgess, Clare O’Kane, Anthony Oberbeck, Brian Fiddyment

NoBudge is happy to launch a new screening series of feature films by young and emerging filmmakers, and we couldn’t think of a better inaugural selection than Dad & Step-Dad, made by a team of NoBudge favorites

Dad & Step-Dad is a slow-burn, character-driven family comedy that follows Jim (Dad), Dave (Step-Dad) and Suzie (Mom), three lost souls who spend the weekend together at a cabin upstate in an effort to bond for the sake of their 13-year-old son, Branson. Tensions mount however as differing parenting techniques come to the fore. A symphony of passive aggressive quibbles delivered in hushed tones, furtive glances, and tense silence, the film plays like Frederick Wiseman directing an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Listed in Esquire as one of the “41 Most Anticipated Films of 2023,” Dad & Step-Dad was shot in 4 days during the summer of 2021 with a production budget of only $18,000 and is entirely improvised, based off of a robust outline and several rehearsals.

Starring: Winona Ryder, Jeff Daniels, Laila Robins, Thomas Wilson Brown, Ava Fabian

Having secured her status as morbid weirdo, first as goth Lydia Deetz in Beetlejuice (1988), then as Veronica Sawyer in Heathers (1989), Winona Ryder was relatable to a generation of girls who felt ready to embrace their innate strangeness, to break free of conformity to a feminine standard.

In Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael, she is at her most scrappy, spending most of the film’s run time in an oversized dyed-black sweater with tangled hair, terrorizing people with her intensity. As Dinky Bosetti, she is a slouching outsider, adopted by parents who disapprove of her, spending most of her time dreaming of escape.

Though it never achieved the cult status of the other films mentioned above, to some, Roxy Carmichael was formative in that it was rare for a character like Dinky – shy, angsty, earnest – to be front and center.

Starring: Chiara Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, Danielle Darrieux, Simon Abkarian

Based on Satrapi’s graphic novel about her life in pre and post-revolutionary Iran and then in Europe. The film traces Satrapi’s growth from child to rebellious, punk-loving teenager in Iran. In the background are the growing tensions of the political climate in Iran in the 70s and 80s, with members of her liberal-leaning family detained and then executed, and the background of the disastrous Iran/Iraq war.

Starring: Brendan Gleeson, Evan McGuire, Christen Mooney, Liam Hourican, Mick Lally, Michael McGrath

In the remote Irish woods, Cellach (Brendan Gleeson) prepares a fortress for an impending attack by a Viking war party. Unbeknown to Cellach, his young nephew Brendan (Evan McGuire) — who has no taste for battle — works secretly as an apprentice in the scriptorium of the local monastery, learning the ancient art of calligraphy. As the Vikings approach, revered illuminator Aidan (Mick Lally) arrives at the monastery and recruits Brendan to complete a series of dangerous, magical tasks.

Starring: Miyu Irino, Megumi Han, Yui Ishikawa, Kensho Ono

After being bullied mercilessly, a grade school student transfers to another school. Years later, one of her former tormentors sets out to make amends.

Starring: Gabriela Muskala, Lukasz Simlat, Malgorzata Buczkowska

The Future of Film is Female presents a special screening of Agnieszka Smoczynska’s just released sophomore feature from 2018, FUGUE, along with the director in conversation. To make an additional $10 donation to The Future of Film is Female, select the “Event + Donation” ticket on the checkout screen.

Alicja suffers from memory loss and has rebuilt her own free spirited way of life. Two years later, she returns to her former family to assume against her will her role as wife, mother and daughter. Her estranged husband and son do not recognize this woman who looks familiar and yet behaves like a stranger. Feelings of alienation, love and revelations rekindle her interior flame.

Agnieszka Smoczynska’s second feature (made between The Lure and The Silent Twins), Fugue evokes the social taboos around motherhood and the pressure on women to accept maternity without hesitation or reflection, as though the biological capacity of giving birth means that every woman should be willing to be a mother.