HEIGHTS THEATER

"They're young... they're in love... and they kill people." When Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) tries to steal Bonnie Parker's (Faye Dunaway) car, she's instantly smitten. What's a bored waitress to do but join her newfound love and his motley gang on a violent crime spree through Texas? At first a failure until it was embraced by countercultural critics like Pauline Kael, BONNIE AND CLYDE became a box office smash which launched the New Hollywood. Setting aside its startling violence (even by today's standards), the film is a brilliant look at how the Depression turned good people into common criminals and common criminals into heroes. Beatty and Dunaway have never been better, aided by a superb supporting cast that includes a very young Gene Hackman and Estelle Parsons, who won Best Supporting Actress.

Arguably the greatest neo-noir, Polanski's CHINATOWN is a masterpiece of complex plotting, boasting what might be the greatest screenplay ever. Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is hired to find the daughter of Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway), herself trying desperately to escape the clutches of her venomous father, Noah Cross (John Huston). "Chinatown's" stirring critique of power was so profound that Los Angeles has never looked the same since.

Dawn Davenport (Divine) wants it all: fame, fortune, adoration and, of course, cha-cha heels. After destroying her parents' home on Christmas morning, Dawn gets pregnant while hitchhiking, and then raises her kid while going on a lengthy crime spree in order to prove that "crime and beauty are the same." Some Xmas message, huh, kids? FEMALE TROUBLE needs to be seen to be believed, boasts a star-making turn by Divine, and is John Waters' flat-out masterpiece.

Billy's father gives his son a strange gift this holiday: a mogwai called Gizmo, a cute, cuddly little furball whose antics amuse everyone. But dad forgot to give his son the proper instructions: never get the thing wet, never feed it after midnight, and don't expose it to the sun. Soon, a terrifying army of creepy mogwai have descended on Kingston Falls, and the results are both bloody and hilarious. Director Joe Dante's hit film is a brilliant mix of "It's a Wonderful Life" meets 50s horror film, with loads of slapstick and satire to boot.

HOLIDAY INN has become a Heights New Year's Day tradition, and like WHITE CHRISTMAS sells out every year! IRVING BERLIN wrote the evergreen score, which includes Easter Parade, Lets Start the New Year Right, Lazy and of course, White Christmas.

Jean-Paul (Alain Delon) and Marianne (Romy Schneider) have borrowed a friend's villa on the French Riviera. There, under a blistering sun, they abandon themselves to their twin passions of love and hate. When the friend returns with his fetching teenage daughter in tow, jealousy and obsession rip their shallow world apart. A modest hit in its day, Jacques Deray's LA PISCINE is the very model of cool neo-noir, and was an arthouse blockbuster in the summer of 2020.

Ernst Lubitsch’s unfaithful adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s 1892 stage play fuses maternal melodrama with lighthearted irony. Mrs. Erlynne, notorious for her romantic scandals, returns to England to confide in Lord Windermere that she is the true mother of his young wife, Lady Windermere, who then mistakes Mrs. Erlynne for her own husband’s mistress. Lubitsch parlays the wit of Wilde’s words into visual textures: fleeting glances, searching binoculars, swift curtains, untrustworthy perceptions, and boxwood fences, all accurately fitted to conceal or reveal.

Before they became the legendary, Oscar-winning directors, the Coens were quirky independents who adored noir. A loose adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's novels "The Glass Key" and "Red Harvest", MILLER'S CROSSING is the story of mobster Tom Regan (Gabriel Byrne), who plays both sides of rival gangs in a desperate attempt at redemption. Visually stunning, at once unbelievably violent and then hilariously funny, "Miller's Crossing" is a thoroughly entertaining movie.

A single mom, a depressed child, a drunken Santa and a city full of cynical souls—this should be the stuff of one bleak motion picture. But Miracle on 34th Street is as sweet a holiday confection as Hollywood ever produced, as a group of harried but good-hearted New Yorkers run headlong into a very real Santa Claus, who offers them hope and affection. Touching on themes of divorce, faith and even capitalism, Miracle is both candy and coal in abundance. Winner of 3 Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actor for Edmund Gwenn’s Kris Kringle.

One of the bleakest and most fascinating neo-noirs is... a musical? And a wonderfully strange one at that, with actors lip-synching and dancing along to tunes from the depths of the Great Depression. Steve Martin is Arthur, a sheet music salesman who wants the world to be like the songs he sells; Bernadette Peters is Lulu, a schoolteacher seduced by Arthur. Murder and sex are contrasted with some of the most astonishing dance numbers ever committed to film (especially Christopher Walken's!) Based on Dennis Potter's intense BBC drama, PENNIES FROM HEAVEN was a box office bomb, and one of the most overlooked masterpieces in cinema history. Don't miss this extremely rare 35mm screening.

When desperate musicians Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) witness the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago, they've got to get out of town, and fast. But without any money, what can they do except, well, dress like women and join an all-girls band bound for sunny Florida? The cross-dressing duo find themselves in the same resort as the gangster who order the murders, but that's not the least of their troubles: Joe/Josephine is in love with Marilyn Monroe's "Sugar" and Jerry/Daphne's got a suitor in Osgood Fielding III, a man who won't take no for an answer. This groundbreaking comedy feels ahead of its time even in the 21st Century.

C.C. "Bud" Baxter (Jack Lemmon) is a good-hearted schmuck, a lonely insurance man who hopes to climb the corporate ladder. To hasten this, he lends his apartment to his adulterous superiors, so they have a place to bring their mistresses. But Bud's plans begin to unravel when his immediate boss brings Fran (Shirley MacLaine), an elevator girl Bud's in love with, up to the apartment for his own shady means. Billy Wilder's acidic Xmas card is one of the most heartbreaking comedies ever made, and a classic in any season.

One of our most popular events returns! Joe Pickett (The Onion) and Nick Prueher (Late Show) have over 11,000 VHS tapes in their collection and will take viewers on a guided tour through their latest and greatest finds, including rare footage from a short-lived video dating service featuring 1987’s most eligible bachelorettes, a questionably sexy striptease video called "Males In Motion," and a mysterious New Age seminar called "Elimination: The First Step."

From acclaimed director Alexander Payne, THE HOLDOVERS follows a curmudgeonly instructor (Paul Giamatti) at a New England prep school who is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to babysit the handful of students with nowhere to go. Eventually, he forms an unlikely bond with one of them -- a damaged, brainy troublemaker (newcomer Dominic Sessa) -- and with the school’s head cook, who has just lost a son in Vietnam (Da’Vine Joy Randolph).