Film festivals are back, and the 2026 crop starts with a cool one: the 23rd Noir City celebration, which opens Friday and continues through Jan. 25 at the Grand Lake Theatre, in Oakland. Also this week: Jim Jarmusch’s latest, plus more new releases.
Presented by the Alameda-based Film Noir Foundation, Noir City is the largest film-noir-specific annual event in the United States. Historian Eddie Muller, the foundation’s creator, has assembled a lineup of 24 films. Most are from the mid–20th century and include noir staples: hardboiled detectives, femme fatales, gangsters, nightclubs, the darker aspects of human nature…. The role of music, especially jazz, is the theme of Noir City 23. Music giants as well as movie stars will appear prominently. Opening night begins with “Black Angel” (1946), director Roy William Neill’s thriller about a wife who, to save her innocent husband from the gas chamber, seeks help from an alcoholic pianist. June Vincent and Dan Duryea star. Also screening on Friday is “Blues in the Night” (1941), Anatole Litvak’s early jazz noir with Richard Whorf as the struggling leader of a touring big-band ensemble. Featured classics include “To Have and Have Not” (1944), Howard Hawks’ romantic war adventure with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall; Charles Vidor’s “Gilda” (1946) with Glenn Ford and Rita Hayworth; and Michael Curtiz’s “Young Man With a Horn” (1950) with Kirk Douglas. Additional highlights include Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Wrong Man” (1945) with Henry Fonda and a Bernard Herrmann score; Bertrand Tavernier’s “Round Midnight” (1986) starring saxophonist Dexter Gordon in his Oscar-nominated performance; and Laszlo Kardos’ lesser-known “The Strip” (1951) featuring Mickey Rooney and Louis Armstrong. Tickets are about $23 for a double feature and about $212 for an all-film pass at noircity.com.
L-R, Luka Sabbat and Indya Moore appear in “Father Mother Sister Brother,” screening in Bay Area theaters. (Vague Notion/ Carole Bethuel via Bay City News)
Idiosyncratic indie icon Jim Jarmusch (“Dead Man”; “Paterson”) brings his trademark offbeat quality and simplicity to “Father Mother Sister Brother,” a simultaneously sad and funny new movie about disconnected family relationships. It’s a tryptic, in the vein of his “Mystery Train.” This time, Jarmusch presents three separate stories about parents, adult children, siblings and estrangement. In part one, Jeff (Adam Driver) and Emily (Mayim Bialik) are driving on a snowy New Jersey road to visit their estranged father (Tom Waits), who may not be as destitute as he seems. At his rundown home, awkward pauses mark the conversation among the three. Next come mismatched sisters Lilith (Vicki Krieps) and Timothea (Cate Blanchett), who arrive at the Dublin home of their bestselling-author mother (Charlotte Rampling) for her annual tea party — the only time the three get together every year. Here, too, are family members who hardly know what to say to one another. A memorable line: “We’re accidentally color-coordinated — how embarrassing!” In the final, and warmest, segment, American twins Skye (Indya Moore) and Billy (Luka Sabbat) meet up in Paris to visit their recently deceased parents’ apartment one last time. They look at old photographs and reminisce, making discoveries about their parents and themselves. Mundane bits — skateboarders; a “Rolex”; the expression “Bob’s your uncle” — recur. Everyday moments supply the spark in the movie. Jarmusch’s avoidance of sentimentality and melodrama allows the essential emotion — a heap of unstated love — to feel genuine. There are quietly moving moments, as when Billy and Skye reconnect over coffee, and modestly enlightening character details, like the political books on Waits’ character’s shelf. The ensemble cast — both Jarmusch veterans (Blanchett, Driver, Waits) and newcomers — makes seemingly unexciting characters never dull. “Father Mother Sister Brother,” not profound, but relatable and touching, is currently in theaters.
Actor-director Albert Birney plays Conor in “Obex,” screening at the Roxie in San Francisco. (Oscilloscope via Bay City News)
A lo-fi sci-fi adventure imbued with analog-age nostalgia, Albert Birney’s 1987-set, black-and-white “Obex” follows a recluse named Conor (played by Birney), whose uneventful life turns fantastical when he begins playing a groundbreaking new computer game. When a monster emerges from his Apple machine and steals his beloved dog, Sandy, Conor quests through a bizarre landscape to find her. The engrossing and imaginative film, which also impresses as a consideration of tech-age loneliness, screens Tuesday at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco, and Birney appears in a live Q&A after the 6 p.m. screening. A regular run of the movie begins on Jan. 23.
Gael Garcia Bernal portrays the title character in “Magellan.” (Janus Films via Bay City News)
Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz shatters European hero myths in his epic-scale “Magellan,” which presents 16th-century Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan (played by Gael Garcia Bernal) through a post-colonial lens and addresses the effects of European conquests in the Pacific. Combining slow cinema with conventional biopic storytelling, Diaz follows Magellan — best known for leading the first Spanish expedition to circumnavigate the globe and reach the Moluccas — through trials that include hunger and mutiny. In the Philippines, he displays a brutal obsession with conquest and Christian conversion. While its 165-minute runtime may prove trying for some, “Magellan” is a singular piece of filmmaking worth taking a chance on. It opens Friday at the Roxie.
Ralph Fiennes stars as Dr. Henry Guthrie in “The Choral.” (Nicola Dove/Sony Pictures Classics via Bay City News)
“The Choral,” directed by Nicholas Hytner and written by Alan Bennett, is a period drama and an underdog story set in an English town during World War I. Ralph Fiennes plays Dr. Henry Guthrie, a conductor recruited to be the local music society’s new choirmaster, despite questions about his loyalty (he lived in Germany) and sexuality. His primary mission is to put together the society’s annual choral production — a challenge because the best local singers are away at war. As a very British tale of quirky townsfolk banding together during hard times, the movie isn’t without appeal. But it’s too narratively contrived and lacking in emotional resonance to deliver beyond the surface level. “The Choral” screens in theaters.