Thankfully, Meiner rescinded his motion to remove the theater's lease. Even so, cinema in Miami needs our support as it enters a crucial period. Independent theaters all over the city are screening great movies, and the Miami Film Festival is also set to begin soon. Below, in order of screening dates, find the best films to see in Miami in April 2025.
Centennial Week at Coral Gables Art Cinema
Coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the city's founding, Coral Gables Art Cinema is putting up an impressive repertory slate for the week of April 14, with each film marking a different centenary: Sergei Eisenstein's monumental, highly-influential Battleship Potemkin (1925), celebrating the film's 100th anniversary; Robert Altman's Nashville (1975), celebrating the director's 100th birthday; Billy Wilder's Hollywood comedy classic Some Like it Hot, celebrating the 100th birthdays of stars Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis; and The Hustler (1961), celebrating Paul Newman's 100th birthday.Our Take: The entire program is an incredibly well-curated lineup of classics, but we have to pick out two in particular. Battleship Potemkin is a must-watch for any cinephile and a standard of film schools around the world. The Soviet propaganda film basically invented modern film editing techniques, and it's so influential that its DNA is in basically every film made afterward, in particular the famed "Odesa Steps" sequence. For something completely different, Some Like it Hot is one of the all-time great Hollywood films, following a pair of desperate jazz musicians as they flee Chicago in drag to escape the mob. Lemmon and Curtis are at their absolute peak, director Wilder imbues the film with his typical virtuoso skill, and did we mention Marilyn Monroe gives perhaps her finest performance? Coral Gables Art Cinema, 260 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables; 786-472-2249; gablescinema.com. Tickets cost $10 to $11.75.
Gene Hackman Retrospective at Coral Gables Art Cinema
Earlier this month, the legendary actor Gene Hackman, 95, was tragically found dead in his home alongside his wife, Betsy Arakawa, 65. While the ongoing investigation itself feels ripped from a Hollywood mystery, it's anchored by the unbearable loss of one of the greatest-ever screen talents and an icon of the New Hollywood movement. To celebrate Hackman's life and career, Coral Gables Art Cinema will screen two '70s classics featuring indelible performances from the actor: Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974) on Thursday, April 17, at 9 p.m. and William Friedkin's The French Connection (1971) the following Thursday, April 24, at 9:15 p.m.Our Take: Hackman takes on two very different roles in this pair of groundbreaking films. Playing loose-cannon detective Popeye Doyle in The French Connection, he defined the image of the bad cop, an antihero whose means are perhaps unjustified by the ends. Plenty of actors took influence from Popeye, from Harvey Keitel in Bad Lieutenant to Denzel Washington in Training Day, and the film's frenetic car chase sequence through the Brooklyn backstreets set the pace for future action films. But it's The Conversation, Francis Ford Coppola's paranoia thriller, that feels the most prescient in our privacy-starved times. As professional surveillance expert Harry Caul, Hackman completely pivots away from Popeye to generate a man defined by loneliness and isolation, which only grows deeper as he finds himself swallowed by a conspiracy. In the end, the watcher becomes the watched, and suspicion tears Caul apart. The French Connection won five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Hackman, while The Conversation won the Palme d'Or at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival. Coral Gables Art Cinema, 260 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables; 786-472-2249; gablescinema.com. Tickets cost $10 to $11.75.
Heat at Coral Gables Art Cinema
Few have redefined the image and identity of Miami more than Michael Mann, thanks to his TV show Miami Vice. Now, Coral Gables Art Cinema is giving Mann fans an opportunity to see one of his greatest achievements, the action spectacular Heat (1995), in the theater. The screening is supported and hosted by Jose Bedia Jr., a former production assistant on Miami Vice.Our Take: DeNiro. Pacino. Those names alone would put Heat above most actioners, but it's the totality of the film's vision, from a cast at the height of its abilities to masterful direction, that makes this one of the greatest films ever made and the peak of Mann's filmography. What seems at first to be a simple cops and robbers story — Al Pacino plays LAPD Detective Vincent Hanna, while Robert DeNiro is a professional thief and robbery crew leader Neil McCauley — is a brilliant study of two very similar men on opposite sides of the law. Though the coffee-shop scene between Hanna and McCauley remains the film's most famous sequence, it's the conclusion that makes the film truly great: A final showdown where light and shadow, the essential elements of cinema itself, guide the story to a majestic culmination. 9:30 p.m. Friday, April 18, at Coral Gables Art Cinema, 260 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables; 786-472-2249; gablescinema.com. Tickets cost $10 to $11.75.
Chungking Express and L'Argent at Cosford Cinema
As part of its excellent "Sunday at the U With Movies" repertory series, Cosford Cinema is screening two very different yet equally exceptional masterworks. First up on Sunday, April 20, is Wong Kar Wai's Hong Kong classic Chungking Express. Then on Saturday, April 27, is legendary French director Robert Bresson's L'Argent.Our Take: Undeniably, the best-known of these two films is probably Chungking Express, a tale of urban alienation and romance that has populated Instagram mood boards for years thanks to its striking visuals. Director Wong and cinematographer Christopher Doyle pioneered a sumptuous, hazy style full of weird camera angles and slow-motion tricks to tell the film's bifurcated structure, following two Hong Kong police officers as they face love and loss in the big city. Don't sleep on L'Argent, however. A late-career triumph from Bresson, whose austere style has influenced everyone from François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard to Abbas Kiarostami and Andrei Tarkovsky, the film adapts a Dostoyevsky story about a man whose life takes a drastic turn when he's caught unwittingly paying with counterfeit money and scapegoated as a criminal. Unsparing in its depiction of the irony of fate and the cruelty of injustice, L'Argent is a meticulously made tragedy from one of cinema's greatest auteurs. Bill Cosford Cinema, 5030 Brunson Dr., Coral Gables; cosfordcinema.com. Admission is free, but registration is required via events.miami.edu.
Past April Screenings:
"Calling Miami Home" Presented by AV Club
As part of the Miami Film Festival, AV Club is hosting a special free program of short films made right here in Miami by director Mel Kiser. Made in the 1980s as part of Kiser's "Sense of Place" series, all three films — A Few Things I Know About Miami, Calling Miami Home, and Last Night at the S&S Diner — capture a fleeting snapshot of the city at a specific, much-mythologized time. The filmmaker himself will be present at the screening to donate his master copies of the three films to the library. "These are among my favorite films in the collection, the ones I've constantly talked about, consistently screened, and have spent hours researching," says AV Club host and Miami-Dade County librarian Kathryn Labuda about the films. You heard the lady folks, this is unmissable. Noon Sunday, April 13, at 2705 SW Third St., Miami. Admission is free with RSVP via miamifilmfestival.com."Roger Beebe: One To Eight Projectors" at the Deering Estate
Ohio State University film professor Roger Beebe has held a parallel career as a media artist for many years, touring his multi-projector performances and video essays from Times Square to Sundance and as far away as Antarctica. This month, in collaboration with fellow artist and film programmer Barron Sherer, Beebe will show a mixture of new works and old favorites at the Deering Estate to celebrate the 25th anniversary of his first tour. 8 p.m. Thursday, April 3, at the Deering Estate Visitor Center Theater, 16701 SW 72nd Ave., Miami; 305-235-1668; deeringestate.org. Admission is free with RSVP via eventbrite.com.Our Take: New Times reviewed both films. Read Juan Barquin's review of Queer and check out my take on Nosferatu. Cosford Cinema, 5030 Brunson Dr., Coral Gables; 305-284-4627; cosfordcinema.com. Admission is free.
