The best screenings of 2023 according to L.A. film programmers

Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.

This newsletter is about watching movies, yes, but it’s also very much about going to the movies. Making the effort to be at a specific place at a specific time for what is often a one-of-a-kind, never-to-be-repeated experience is, to my mind, very much worth being celebrated.

This year, I had a few times when I went to a see a movie and got more than I expected, with surprise guests that only deepened my appreciation for the work onscreen. I went to see a rare 70mm print of Luis Valdez’s 1981 film, “Zoot Suit,” at the Aero Theatre, and the film’s star, Edward James Olmos, made an unannounced appearance, having just watched the film himself for the first time since its release.

My first time at Whammy Analog Media in Echo Park was to see Jean-Luc Godard’s 1987 film “King Lear.” I was expecting the film to be presented on VHS tape, though it ended up being played from a digital file. And the film’s star and co-writer, the acclaimed theater director Peter Sellars, made a surprise appearance, providing crucial context in remarks both before and after the screening.

And it was an unforgettable treat to be at a 50th anniversary screening of Robert Altman’s “The Long Goodbye,” one of my absolute favorites, at the New Beverly Cinema with the film’s star Elliott Gould in attendance for a Q&A. His graceful, sly wit hasn’t lost a beat.

With all that in mind, I reached out to a handful of local film programmers to ask them for their most memorable individual screening events from this year, whether they were ones they attended or ones they put on themselves.

K.J. Relth-Miller, director, film programs, Academy Museum of Motion Pictures
It was a great year for movies in the theater! My husband and I go to the New Beverly at least once a month. Standout theatrical experiences include:

A matinee of “Taipei Story” (1985) at the Los Feliz 3 (care of the American Cinematheque).

A night of Al Jarnow at REDCAT presented by the Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation.

“Phantom of the Paradise” (1974) at Paris’ La Filmothèque du Quartier Latin.

Béla Tarr in person at the Aero with “Family Nest” (1978).

And a proud moment: hosting John Waters at the Academy Museum for a silent presentation of his third short, “Eat Your Makeup” (1968), with live commentary from the Pope of Trash himself.

Imani Davis, film programmer, the American Cinematheque
“A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night”
In January, the AC did a tribute to filmmaker Ana Lily Amirpour. Seeing her amazing debut feature, “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night,” with a sold-out crowd and moderating the Q&A after was one for the books!

“Dream Scenario”
At Beyond Fest 2023, the closing night’s film was Kristoffer Borgli’s sophomore feature, “Dream Scenario.” What made the screening with an amazing crowd even better was a surprise appearance from the film’s star Nicolas Cage.

“Aliens”
It has been years since I’d seen James Cameron’s ‘Aliens,” and for the reopening week of the Egyptian Theatre, the AC managed to get the 70mm print out of the archive to play. Seeing that film on the big screen with a late-night crowd was so fun!

A scene from Edward Yang’s “Taipei Story.”

(Janus Films)

Micah Gottlieb, artistic director, Mezzanine
“The Cure in Orange” at the Academy Museum
To see this ultra-rare concert movie I’d been wanting to see properly for so long, in a sold-out auditorium with reverent (and properly dressed) Cure fans, was a priceless experience. 2023 was the year that concert movies got more respect, and I’m grateful for that.

“The Adventures of Rosette” at Mezzanine at 2220 Arts + Archives
Eric Rohmer’s films are the pinnacle of breezy, low-key naturalism in cinema. It was a delight to have one of his collaborators, the actor Rosette, come to L.A. in person to present little-seen short films they made together, bringing the collaborative and infectious spirit of their work to the fore.

Cindy Fernanda Flores, film programmer, the American Cinematheque
“Canoa”
This was a really special screening for me. Aside from “Canoa” being one of my favorite films, it kicked off our Latin American Canon of Cruelty series. Guillermo del Toro gave a really lovely introduction, which put the film and series into context. I loved watching the movie in a packed house and hearing everyone gasp in unison at the film’s climax.

“Deep Crimson”
Also a very special screening for me this year. This was the first in-person retrospective I programmed, and it was so great to watch this world premiere of one of my favorites of [Arturo Ripstein’s] films. The added footage really drove the point home. Moderating this Q&A was a surreal moment, and I am so glad that I did. Seeing the audience give him a well-deserved standing ovation and seeing his face fill up with gratitude is something I will never forget.

“Khrustalyov, My Car!”
I watched this film on my laptop a few weeks before with some Blu-ray software trial watermark, and I loved the film, but watching it on the big screen just made the entire film even more intense. There is such a forward motion with this one that was so dizzying and you just can’t look away.

Paul Malcolm, senior public programmer, UCLA Film & Television Archive
My favorite screening of 2023 was only tangentially about the movie. My 9-year-old son was eagerly awaiting the release of “Five Nights at Freddy’s” because he had watched just about every fan theory take on the game and the movie on YouTube over the previous year (even though his mean parents wouldn’t let him play the game!). So I took him to opening night and spent more time watching him watch the movie than the movie itself. He knew all the characters, their back stories and all the YouTuber cameos. As other fans started shouting their inside references and their “Don’t go in theres!” at the screen, he joined in and had a blast engaging along with them. I try not to force my movie tastes on him — and “Five Nights at Freddy’s” is not my cup of tea — and here he was finding his own way to fandom and, hopefully, cementing a lifelong love of going to the movies. It was wonderful!

A scene from the movie “Pacifiction.”

(Grasshopper Films)

Chris LeMaire, senior film programmer, the American Cinematheque
“Pacifiction”
My favorite film of the year was also one of my favorite screenings of the year. In January, we hosted our first in-person retrospective of the year with Albert Serra and had the great honor of screening his towering new masterpiece, “Pacifiction.” This is a film that I think will live on in repertory houses for many years to come. We already have an encore screening coming up.

“Mother and Son” / “The Second Circle”
This was a screening I never thought would be possible. Through the years, we had never been able to find any 35mm prints (nor DCPs) of these two masterpieces by Aleksandr Sokurov, until AC Programming Administrator John Hagelston, the best print detective in the game, found these exceedingly rare 35mm prints in the hands of a private collector. When they screened during Bleak Week, it was as if I were seeing these two films, that I have a deep personal connection to, for the first time. We even had Sokurov for a recorded virtual Q&A. Truly a screening I will never forget.

“Playtime”
This year, we reopened the historic Egyptian Theatre in what I think is the most American Cinematheque way possible: with an ultra-rare 70mm screening of Jacques Tati’s “Playtime.” We owe Janus Films a great deal of thanks for letting it out of their vault, as the print is essentially flawless. This was an emotional night for everyone at the AC, as we look ahead to many more incredible screenings at this spectacular movie palace.

Maggie Mackay, executive director, Vidiots
I so wish I could go to other movie theaters (hopefully in 2024), but here is mine from Vidiots since we’ve opened: A24’s gloriously remastered “Stop Making Sense,” all five of our screenings, but especially the first, which brought Talking Heads and a dance party led by band members Lynn Mabry and Edna Holt to our new home at the Eagle Theatre. Each screening was nothing short of cathartic, and exemplified what cinema can do to bring human beings together in the most memorable of ways.

Other points of interest

The Christmas revival of “Eyes Wide Shut”

Sydney Pollack, left, and Tom Cruise in Stanley Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut.”

(Warner Bros. Pictures)

When “Eyes Wide Shut” came out in the summer of 1999, press and audiences were largely focused on the fact that filmmaker Stanley Kubrick had died before completing the film. There was also discussion over then-married stars Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman and the extent to which the movie lived up to the pre-release hype around its sex scenes. Which is all to say people weren’t really talking about it as a Christmas movie. How times have changed.

Now the movie is seen as something of a contemporary Christmas classic, albeit a cracked, kinky one in which the holiday lights that are seemingly everywhere add a spooky glow. The film’s emotional, witty and knowing exploration of identity, marriage and whether there is a vast conspiratorial cabal secretly running the world have also come to the fore over the years, earning the film a dedicated fan base. The film’s notorious dream-logic — Cruise wanders a New York City that’s not quite right, seeing as his scenes were filmed in England — led Kenneth Turan to write in his original review for The Times, “This is finally a film that is better at mood than substance, that has its strongest hold on you when it’s making the least amount of sense.”

Turan also captured, in part, why the movie has had such a long shelf life and grown in stature. “Though it’s very different in numerous ways, ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ strongly brings to mind Alfred Hitchcock’s classic ‘Vertigo,’ ” he wrote. “In both films, the feeling is inescapable that a forceful, idiosyncratic director is using the resources of a major studio and the top stars of the day to in essence work out intensely personal preoccupations and obsessions, to explore his own fears, fantasies and midnight terrors. For better or worse, there’s probably no other director working today who would want to — or could get away with — doing that on such a major scale.”

“Eyes Wide Shut” is screening at the New Beverly on Friday and Saturday. (Kubrick’s “The Shining” is also screening at midnight on Saturday.) It will also screen at Vidiots on Saturday and again on Sunday 31. And for the truly dedicated, the movie is playing at the Egyptian Theatre on Christmas Day.

Hepburn, Stanwyck and Lombard: Screwball Comedies

The screwball comedy is just such an object of joy, full of romantic complications and spiraling misunderstandings, and the kind of thing people are often thinking of when they rhapsodize about the golden age of classic Hollywood. The American Cinematheque is giving viewers a little treat as the year is on the way out the door with a series spotlighting three actors who were screwball masters: Katharine Hepburn, Carole Lombard and Barbara Stanwyck.

On Dec. 26, 27 and 28, the Aero Theatre will have a series of screwball double-bills, nearly all on 35mm, with Howard Hawks’ “Bringing Up Baby” and “Ball of Fire,” Gregory La Cava’s “My Man Godfrey” and George Cukor’s “The Philadelphia Story,” plus Preston Sturges’ “The Lady Eve” and Hawks’ “Twentieth Century.”