In 1972, Bobby Fischer faced the Soviet Union in the greatest chess match ever played. On the board he fought the Cold War. In his mind he fought his madness.

In a gripping true story set during the height of the Cold War, American chess prodigy Bobby Fischer (Tobey Maguire) finds himself caught between two superpowers when he challenges the Soviet Empire. Also starring Liev Schreiber and Peter Sarsgaard, PAWN SACRIFICE chronicles Fischer’s terrifying struggles with genius and madness, and the rise and fall of a kid from Brooklyn who captured the imagination of the world.

Nitehawk’s third annual all-night Halloween screening A NITE TO DISMEMBER time travels through DECADES OF HORROR!

Get schooled on horror history with A NITE TO DISMEMBER: DECADES OF HORROR as we screen five classic movies from the past fifty years. Starting at midnight on Halloween, Nitehawk celebrates films that punctuated each decade like a knife to the heart: Poltergeist (1980s), House on Haunted Hill (1960s), Bay of Blood (1970s), and Scream (1990s) with a surprise spanking new horror release right in the middle so secret that it will only be revealed moments before we show it!

As we do each year at A NITE TO DISMEMBER, there will be a costume contest (with prizes!), trivia (more prizes!), horror short films (pint sized fear!), and complimentary Nitehawk breakfast (eggs and tots!). This year there will also be a complimentary cereal bar courtesy of POST Cereal and guests will receive a special “survival” gift bag that, amongst other treats, includes a discounted fare from Uber. And we’ve got you covered on the drink front with complimentary coffee from Fazenda Coffee and a specialty cocktail with Owl’s Brew. Plus, sweets from our neighbor SweetHaus! Hosted by Shudder’s Sam Zimmerman and Nitehawk’s Kris King.

Forget trick-or-treating, spend the nite with us!

FILMS (in order of screening)…

POLTERGEIST (Tobe Hooper, 1982) – 35mm
Come into the light Carol Anne…
Poltergeist took the haunted house in film into a whole new era. Brought to you by the director of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Steven Spielberg, it shows the quick evolution from excitement to fear as the young Freeling family discovers their shiny new home in Cuesta Verde comes with a bad case of the evil spirits. Basically, the first in the Poltergeist series eviscerates middle class America in the 1980s by attacking them where it counts, their planned housing communities, with the technology of the time. Trust us, a television has never been so scary.

HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (William Castle, 1959) – Digital
They’re coming for me now…and then they’ll come for you…
Speaking of haunted houses, you’d be hard pressed to find one more outlandishly fun than this Vincent Price classic. Starring as an eccentric millionaire, Price invites five strangers to spend the night in a “haunted” house and whomever survives will get one million dollars. (Disclaimer: you don’t get money for surviving Nite). Directed by the ultimate film showman William Castle, House on Haunted Hill is full of plot holes but the film’s charm is part of the fun-loving gimmick experience of the time period that would make Castle a legend. Just beware the flying skeleton in the theater.

MYSTERY FILM (2000s)

A BAY OF BLOOD aka TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE (Mario Bava, 1971) – 35mm
Gee their good at playing dead, aren’t they?…
Violent, sexy and (yes) humorous, Mario Bava’s A Bay of Blood or Twitch of the Death Nerve or the near countless other titles, is the film that inspired a generation of American horror. In fact, you may notice that one scene’s “inspiration” is outright copied in Friday the 13th: Part II. One the one hand, the story has a homicidal inheritance race. On the other, there’s a group of unaware sexed up, boozed up teenagers camping out in an abandoned house in the family bay who get caught up in the murderous mix. Like all of Bava’s films, A Bay of Blood is pure magic; pure gratuitous, gory magic. Know the original.

SCREAM (Wes Craven, 1996) – DCP
What’s your favorite scary movie?…
Wes Craven’s Scream has been called the movie that marks the end the American horror film as it folds in all of the genre’s tropes of the previous twenty years into one meta experience. With one of the more shocking first scenes in horror history (akin to Hitchcock killing off his main character in Psycho), it establishes everything you need to know about the ride you’re about to go on. Most important, the film doesn’t take itself too serious. In fact, it’s incredibly fun to watch this group of mid-90s high school students ponder the “rules” of horror movies while a masked killer cleverly guts their peers. At the center of it all is our Final Girl Sidney, a virgin who seems to be the target of the killer’s affection. And yes, there will be test at the end of the Nite so study up!

A comedy about Allie and Harper and their needlessly difficult journey to the beach.

Fort Tilden: New York City’s secluded seaside nirvana where, like flies to honey, Brooklyn’s hip millennial set flocks on sweltering weekend afternoons for unbridled summertime indulgence. Amidst the vexing stagnation of quarter-life crises, Allie (Clare McNulty) struggles to prepare for the Peace Corps, while Harper (Bridey Elliott) awaits checks from her father to fund her artistic dreams. But the two friends quickly shun responsibilities for the day when a pair of good-looking guys invites them along for a carefree Fort Tilden afternoon. As the two young women board their fixed-gear bicycles and embark on a lengthy journey to the beach, they quickly realize that, akin to their confusing, transitioning lives, they neither know where they’re going nor how they plan to get there. 

The debut feature film of directors Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers – and showcasing the comedic versatility of Clare McNulty and Bridey Elliott as Allie and Harper – “Fort Tilden” is a hilariously insightful and recognizable look at the consequences of extended adolescence.

An in-depth look at the legacy of Apple’s Steve Jobs.

In his signature black turtleneck and blue jeans, shrouded in shadows below a milky apple, Steve Jobs’ image was ubiquitous. But who was the man on the stage? What accounted for the grief of so many across the world when he died? From Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney, Steve Jobs: The Man In The Machine is a critical examination of Jobs who was at once revered as an iconoclastic genius and a barbed-tongued tyrant. A candid look at Jobs’ legacy featuring interviews with a handful of those close to him at different stages in his life, the film is evocative and nuanced in capturing the essence of the Apple legend and his values which shape the culture of Silicon Valley to this day.

LISTEN TO ME MARLON utilizes hundreds of hours of audio that Marlon Brandon recorded over the course of his life to tell the screen legend’s story.

With exclusive access to his extraordinary unseen and unheard personal archive including hundreds of hours of audio recorded over the course of his life, this is the definitive Marlon Brando cinema documentary. Charting his exceptional career as an actor and his extraordinary life away from the stage and screen with Brando himself as your guide, the film will fully explore the complexities of the man by telling the story uniquely from Marlon’s perspective, entirely in his own voice. No talking heads, no interviewees, just Brando on Brando and life.

The sins of the past will become your present.

Can you really go through life having never wronged anyone? Simon (Jason Bateman) and Robyn (Rebecca Hall) are a young married couple whose life is going just as planned until a chance encounter with an acquaintance from Simon’s high school sends their world into a harrowing tailspin. Simon doesn’t recognize Gordo (Joel Edgerton) at first, but after a seemingly coincidental series of encounters and mysterious gifts prove troubling, a horrifying secret from their past is uncovered after nearly 20 years. As Robyn learns the unsettling truth about what happened between Simon and Gordo, she starts to question: how well do we really know the people closest to us, and are past bygones ever really bygones?

Nitehawk Cinema presents two midnite screenings of APPLESAUCE featuring surprise prizes and an introduction by director Onur Tukel!

What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?

Every Tuesday night, radio talk show host Stevie Bricks invites his listeners to call in and share their stories.  And tonight, Ron Welz (writer/director Onur Tukel) is ready to share his.  But soon after he confesses on the air, Ron finds a severed foot in his laundry… then a cut off finger in his mail… then worse.  His life begins to unravel and his marriage begins to fall apart.  Someone is tormenting him.  Is it his insolent high school student?  Is it his best friend?  His wife?  In a city like New York, there are eight million suspects and each one could have a bone to pick with someone like Ron. 

Take dark comedy, mix it with noir, add a dash of horror and stir in some melodrama, and you have the recipe for one of the most original and unusual movies of the year.

Nitehawk is proud to bring back APPLESAUCE after our debut screening in our LOCAL COLOR monthly series with the Tribeca Film Festival that features independent New York filmmakers.

Starring: Matt Dillon, Michael Kramer, Pamela Ludwig, Harry Northrup

Print courtesy of the Tim Hunter Collection at the Academy Film Archive

With only a recreation center to distract them, most of the teenagers in the drab planned community of New Granada have turned to drugs and delinquency. Carl (Michael Kramer), the son of a town councilman, is an exception, but he can’t seem to help falling in with a charismatic and troubled classmate, Richie (Matt Dillon). Soon after, a trigger-happy sheriff (Harry Northrup) shoots Richie, and sole witness Carl has to go on the run, eventually inciting a dramatic teenage riot.

If you thought you’d loved Lily Tomlin before, behold GRANDMA!

Elle Reid has just gotten through breaking up with her girlfriend when her granddaughter Sage unexpectedly shows up needing 600 dollars before sundown. Temporarily broke, Grandma Elle and Sage spend the day trying to get their hands on the cash as their unannounced visits to old friends and flames end up rattling skeletons and digging up secrets.