HEIGHTS THEATER

A strange black rectangle, the monolith, appears in pre-human times and helps apes discover tools… and violence; when it reappears on the moon in the future, the monolith communicates the same messages to HAL, the artificial intelligence running the spacecraft, and human history is changed forever. Thrilling, mind-warping, and at times nearly incomprehensible, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY was the number one box office hit of the year, and in the 2022 BFI international poll of directors, was voted the Greatest Film of All-Time.

In 1910s Paris, Chico (Charles Farrell) works in the sewers and dreams of a better life. Diane (Janet Gaynor) falls head over heels for Chico after he saves her from being murdered by her tyrannical older sister. When the police arrive to arrest Diane for prostitution, Chico claims that she's his wife to keep her out of jail. The pair finds happiness in their own "7th heaven," until the outbreak of World War I tests the limits of their transcendent love. 7th HEAVEN paired Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell in the first of a dozen films they made together from 1927 to 1943, three with director Frank Borzage. Borzage, Farrell, and Gaynor (who edged out Mary Pickford and Joan Crawford for the role) were all nominated for Academy Awards. 7th HEAVEN was an exuberant commercial success upon its initial release and is still widely regarded as one of the most beautiful silent films of all time. With live accompaniment by THE POOR NOBODYS! This screening is co-presented by Archives on Screen, Twin Cities.

The Nostromo. The chest-buster. Mother. The android Ash. The acid blood and that toothy mouth-within-a-mouth. Ripley and even Jonesy the cat—the details of Ridley Scott’s original ALIEN are now a part of our culture, as firmly implanted in the darkness of our collective subconsciousness as any fairy tale. The original ALIEN remains the standard of sci-fi horror against which all others are measured.

After Ripley has destroyed the Nostromo (and with it, the alien who killed her crew), she’s rescued by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation decades later. Now they want her to accompany a crew of Marines to a distant moon where colonists live—the same moon where the alien eggs were discovered by Ripley’s original crew. Director James Cameron’s first big-budget film pulled out all the stops, ratcheting up the number of aliens and victims in this powerful sci-fi action film. Sigourney Weaver was nominated for an Oscar for her portrayal of Ripley.

DOWNTON ABBEY: THE GRAND FINALE, the cinematic return of the global phenomenon, follows the Crawley family and their staff as they enter the 1930s. As the beloved cast of characters navigates how to lead Downton Abbey into the future, they must embrace change and welcome a new chapter.

In May of 2020, a standoff between a small-town sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) and mayor (Pedro Pascal) sparks a powder keg as neighbor is pitted against neighbor in Eddington, New Mexico.

When stick-up artist “Heliotrope” Harry comes home after escaping the cops, he finds his devious wife, Lilly, in the arms of another. Enraged, Harry shoots his rival, and before he’s caught, leaves his baby girl on the doorstep of a rich, childless couple. While in the big house, he’s kept abreast of daughter Alice’s progress by his former associate, Froggy. But when Lilly finds the girl and seeks revenge, Harry is able to get free and tries to set a trap to keep his daughter safe. One of the earliest productions from David O. Selznick, Forgotten Faces is a newly restored masterpiece of silent melodrama, not available for streaming anywhere!

Live comedy with VHS tapes! BRAND NEW SHOW FOR 2025! Joe Pickett (The Onion) and Nick Prueher (Late Show With David Letterman) have over 14,000 VHS tapes in their cluttered office in Brooklyn and will take viewers on a guided tour of their latest/greatest finds in this brand new Volume 11 show for 2025. Highlights include a psychotic dollar store salesman, a video catalog of frightening porcelain dolls, two wonderfully homemade Bigfoot videos and a new age “miracle” treatment from the 80s called “Psychic Surgery.” (90 mins - contains nudity, language, clowns) “I think I speak for fans everywhere when I express gratitude for their continued hunt for hilariously bad videos. I hope the search never ends.” -Steven Hyden, Uproxx

In conjunction with the publication of local writer John Gaspard's book, HELD OVER: HAROLD AND MAUDE AT THE WESTGATE THEATER, the Heights presents a special screening of the beloved cult film, always a sell-out in our theater. Did you know that HAROLD AND MAUDE screened for TWO STRAIGHT YEARS at Edina's Westgate theater, where Heights volunteer Randy Greene managed? Gaspard will be on hand to sell copies of his book and discuss the HAROLD AND MAUDE phenomenon, and maybe Randy will even answer questions about the experience. Hal Ashby's poignant black comedy about anti-social Harold (Bud Cort) and his geriatric girlfriend Maude (Ruth Gordon) has to be one of the classic misfit love stories of all time.

We’ve been asked to screen Hocus Pocus for years, and it’s finally here! When Salem, Massachusetts teenager Max accidentally resurrects three witches from the seventeenth century, and those witches happen to be comedians Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy, the results is one of the most hilarious (and beloved) pictures from the 1990s!

Lieutenant Aldo Raine is a battle-tested solider in the U.S. Army during World War II. His goal: recruit a commando group of Jewish-American soldiers to do “one thing, and one thing only: kill Nazis!” This is Quentin Tarantino’s World War II, full of blood, brilliant dialogue, great actors, all the while referencing spaghetti Westerns and Italian action films. Inglourious Basterds was a tremendous hit and introduced the world to the amazing Christoph Waltz, who won an Oscar for his slimy performance.

The movie that changed world cinema as we know it today, whose success was the very definition of blockbuster, Jaws is also one of the most thrilling and entertaining films of all-time. Jaws is the terrifying story of a killer great white shark that terrorizes Amity Island during its peak summer months, and then becomes a thrilling character study of three-men as they chase the beast over open water. Nominated for four Oscars including Best Picture, Jaws is a rightly considered to be one of the greatest films of all-time. Join us for its 50th Anniversary screening!

Hans Wieland is a brilliant actor, a leading figure in German cinema. When the Nazis pressure him to divorce his Jewish wife, Elisabeth, he refuses. Finally, political pressure becomes too much, and, realizing that he will be arrested, his wife to be sent to a concentration camp, he faces the ultimate test of his love. Based on the real-life story of actor Joachim Gottschalk, Kurt Maetzig’s Marriage in the Shadows was the first movie (produced under Soviet auspices) to confront Germans about their treatment of Jews. A brilliant and heartbreaking film, shot like a noir but filled with the rarefied emotions of a melodrama, this rare screening should not be missed.

In the sixteenth century, bandits have been invading a small mountain village, depleting it of its rice harvest and leaving its inhabitants in a state of perpetual near-hunger. A group of three brave villagers goes to the nearest town, hoping to entice down-on-their-heels samurai to help defend the village with the promise of rice. What ensues is one of the most thrilling, and emotionally moving, action epics ever made. The Seven Samurai has always been high on list of the greatest films ever made, and is an absolutely entertaining film that leaves its viewers enthralled and devastated. The Heights presents the gorgeous new digital 4K restoration from Janus.

Do we really need to explain this one? Perhaps no movie musical is as beloved as Singin' in the Rain, which has sold out the Heights Theater three times in the last four years! What a wonderful feeling!

Extraterrestrials have landed in remote Russia, and in their wake are areas known as “Zones”, potentially deadly wastelands where the laws of physics don’t always apply, and, in the center, is a mysterious room that supposedly grants wishes. Enter the Stalker, a man who risks life and limb to take paying customers into the Zone. Andrei Tarkovsky’s STALKER is an intense and melancholic science-fiction classic that has been described as a philosophical Soviet sci-fi WIZARD OF OZ.

Boris Karloff met his match with Elsa Lanchester, who plays the Bride of Frankenstein and sports perhaps the greatest hairdo in Hollywood's long history of great hairdos. Her performance was years ahead of its time, the kind of thing that wins Oscars today and was the perfect foil to Karloff. James Whale attempted to camp up his entry, but the result is a film that many consider superior to the first, more emotional and less stagy than the first, and perhaps the greatest entry of Universal's celebrated horror films.

This brave and biting comedy by Charlie Chaplin was his first sound film, and most successful picture. Released at a time when the U.S. was still in a tenuous truce with Germany, The Great Dictator not only satirized the Fuhrer, but accurately portrayed Hitler's hunger for world domination, and his dangerous policies against the Jews, perhaps the first major American film to do so. The Great Dictator is not only one of the greatest movies of all-time, but perhaps the most important comedy ever made.

From the hearts and minds of Stephen King and Mike Flanagan comes THE LIFE OF CHUCK, the extraordinary story of an ordinary man. This unforgettable, genre-bending tale celebrates the life of Charles 'Chuck' Krantz as he experiences the wonder of love, the heartbreak of loss, and the multitudes contained in all of us.

Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) is a tough-as-nails, cool-as-a-cucumber detective in San Francisco. When he’s hired by the gorgeous Brigid O'Shaughnessy (Mary Astor) to find her lost sister, everything seems to be great. Until his partner is killed, and Spade finds himself hot on the trail of the Maltese Falcon, a legendary statue made of gold and jewels, “the stuff that dreams are made of.” Enter Kaspar Gutman (Sydney Greenstreet) and Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre), two of the slimiest (and most entertaining) crooks you’ll ever meet, and the result is one of the great classics of film noir. So popular was their rapport that Greenstreet and Lorre went on to make numerous pictures together.

Jack Torrence, a recovering alcoholic, retreats to the Overlook Hotel with his wife, Wendy, and son, Danny, in tow, in the hopes of breaking his writer's block. But the hotel is host to a variety of dark secrets, none more disturbing than those in Room 237. The Shining is one of Kubrick's more startling masterpieces, and Jack Nicholson's performance is the stuff of legend.

The original cinematic adaptation of the H. G. Wells novel is still the best and most exciting! When strange cylinders fall from the skies, foolish Earthlings approach bearing offerings of peace, only to be wiped out by dastardly Martians! Byron Haskin’s thrilling sci-fi classic still has the coolest-ever spaceships and death rays.

A Heights Theater tradition, one of our most popular events - an event that sells out year after year! You will not want to miss the perennial TECHNICOLOR favorite, WHITE CHRISTMAS, on the big screen! Plus.....ON OUR STAGE! The big show starts with a special 20 minute concert by the wonderful MAUD HIXSON, singing a stocking full of your favorite holiday classics! Accompanied by Rick Carlson on the piano as well as A BOUNCING BALL SING ALONG at the end!! Also... A fantastic preshow concert by LOU HURVITZ and ED COPELAND on the Heights Mighty Wurlitzer!

To Glensheen devotees and local cinema buffs, this Gothic old dark house suspense film is an absolute must-see! Shot completely on location in Duluth in the winter of 1971, You'll Like My Mother stars Patty Duke, a very sinister Richard Thomas (John Boy from The Waltons), and an utterly chilling Rosemary Murphy as the mother you'll love to cringe from. However, the real star of this film is the glorious Glensheen Mansion, which you'll explore (with a terrified Patty) from the cellar to the attic!