Find a complete list of film events in Seattle this summer on our Things To Do calendar, including outdoor movie screenings. Find movie times for theaters across Seattle here. Check out the rest of our critics' picks from Seattle Art and Performance here.
Get all this and more on the free Stranger Things To Do mobile appâavailable now on the App Store and Google Play.
Through June 11
Seattle International Film Festival 2017
The 43rd annual Seattle International Film Festival is the largest film festival in the US, with 400 films (spread over 25 days) watched by around 150,000 people. It's impressively grand, and is one of the most exciting and widely-attended arts events Seattle has to offer.
Various locations
June 7
Prince's Purple Birthday Party with Purple Rain
Shortly after Prince died last year, Stranger arts and music editor Sean Nelson wrote, "Prince is in a very small category of artists with a legitimate claim to having defined the aesthetic and cultural (and therefore commercial, and therefore political) framework of a generation." Celebrate Prince's legacy at this birthday screening of Purple Rain.
June 11
Some Like It Hot
This is one of the greatest comedies in human history. Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon play two Chicago jazz musicians who witness a gang shooting and end up on the run from the mob. Disguised as women, they join an all-girl band and head down to sunny Florida to perform at a seaside resort. A very voluptuous Marilyn Monroe, who plays a shy and alcoholic singer, manages to do what she has always done best: Look highly attractive without being unapproachable. CM
June 15
Dark Lodge: The Man Who Fell to Earth: Remixed!
An extremely Tilda Swinton-esque David Bowie stars in this erratic but extremely watchable sci-fi film from 1976. At this screening, presented as part of the Dark Lodge series, they'll replace the existing soundtrack with an all-Bowie compilation arranged and performed live by DJ NicFit.
June 16
All Eyez on Me
This is a biopic about the overrated rapper Tupac Shakur. Now, I'm going to say something that might hurt but is just truth: The decline of hiphop is marked by the rise of Biggie Smalls and Shakur in the mid-90s. They were the first to successfully sell the soul of hiphop. And once the sale was made, we entered the age of the rapper as multi-millionaireâand considering the trajectory of Jay-Z and Dr. Dre, the billionaire rapper is not long in coming. Shakur, like Smalls, had to sell out because they were second-rate. A first-rate rapper has no fear (check out Ish of Shabazz Palaces). He/she can only, to use the words of Erick Sermon, stay real. CM
Wide
Dean
Demetri Martin takes a more poignant turn in this comedy/drama about grief, love, and parents that he wrote, directed, and starred in. The movie won high praise as well as the Founder's Award for Best Narrative Feature at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Sundance Cinemas & SIFF Cinema Uptown
June 17-18
Enjoy a series of (mostly) free screenings presented as part of Seattle PrideFest. Theyâll showcase the best movies that local LGBTQ film organization Three Dollar Bill Cinema has shown in the past yearâplus, theyâll host a workshop with Cleve Jones (an activist and author who conceived the legendary NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt) and a screening of the 2008 biopic Milk. David Schmader credited Milkâs success to its âcomfortably unabashed sexualityâ and Sean Pennâs âquietly amazing, simultaneously lived-in and spontaneousâ performance.
Various locations
June 23-28
Jurassic Park
In Steven Spielberg's lovable adventure, dinosaurs get resurrected by scientists for the purpose of being put in a dinosaur zoo. The zoo seems cool at first, but soon all the dinosaurs escape and begin to terrorize the visitors and staff, killing many.
June 30
Men in Black
In the 1997 sci-fi movie Men in Black, Will Smith played an ordinary police officer who, subsequent to being secretly watched and examined, is admitted into a "highly funded, yet unofficial government agency," which monitors and polices extraterrestrial activity on earth. What is important about this story, and why I bring it up, is that it stands as the first big-budget or mainstream film to give expression to black paranoia. By black paranoia I mean that brand of fear that is convinced that the U.S. government (and it's always the government, never corporationsâcorporations have more currency in white paranoia) is constantly watching and listening to black activity. CM
July 5
If you care about Seattle comedy, don't miss this screening of short film Oh, I Get It, a documentary about queer comedy and social change in Seattle made by feminist film collective Union Street Films. The event will also feature a panel discussion with director Danny Tayara, the Establishment editor-at-large and Stranger contributor Ijeoma Oluo, and popular queer comedian El Sanchez.
July 7
Donnie Darko
Having studied Donnie Darko carefully a few times, I still can't tell if the plot's weird calculusâwhat actually happens, to whom, and where, and whenâactually adds up to anything more than a semi-random sequence of related but unconnected events. What I can say, however, is that the film resonates with a uniquely American kind of sadness. SEAN NELSON
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Want to understand Los Angeles? One of the most important and engaging films about this city is Robert Zemeckis's Who Framed Roger Rabbit, a live action/animated neo-noir about the exploitation at the heart of a LA's biggest industry, Hollywood. The late Bob Hoskins plays the private detective who enters the maze of streets, image factories, and business offices to search for the solution to a mystery. The film's rabbit happens to be married to a super-curvy femme fatale. CM
July 13
The Big Lebowski
If pressed to name my single favorite moment in my single favorite Coen brothers movie, The Big Lebowski, it would be a three-way tie between Jeff "the Dude" Lebowski's dumpster-bumping car crash, the sheriff's assault on the Dude with a coffee mug, and the Raymond Chandler-esque discovery of Jackie Treehorn's hard-on doodle. BRADLEY STEINBACHER
Dark Lodge: The Fifth Element
Luc Besson's futuristic semi-classic, starring Bruce Willis, the musician Tricky, and love.
July 13âAug 17
Cary Grant
Once again, SAM will spend the summer celebrating the devilish charms of Cary Grant. This year's lineup includes Mr. Lucky, The Bachelor and the Bobbysoxer, I Was a Male War Bride, People Will Talk, Monkey Business, and To Catch a Thief.
July 14
War for the Planet of the Apes
While watching this movie, pay attention to Caesar's eyes. They are not chimp eyes. They are human eyes. The eyes of chimps do not have a white sclera. They are dark and dumb eyes. But Caesar is supposed to be a super-smart chimp. He has big plans and thoughts in his mind. And to communicate the superiority of his mind, the makers of this film gave him the eyes of the smartest ape on earth, us. If it counts for anything, the first and second film in the current reboot of Planet of the Apes are very good. CM
Wide
July 15
NausicaÀ of the Valley of the Wind
This early Hayao Miyazaki film is about a princess who must deal with the introduction of an ancient weapon into her peaceable, post-apocalyptic kingdom.
July 20
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Amy Heckerling's 1982 flick (35 years ago? Holy shit!), written by Cameron Crowe, is beyond question the greatest film of its kind, more than making up for the sorry tailspins both Crowe and Heckerling entered after making it. Jennifer Jason Leigh, Sean Penn, Phoebe Cates, and Judge Reinhold star; and look closely for a young Forest Whitaker, Eric Stoltz, and Nicolas Cage. SEAN NELSON
July 21
Dunkirk
Is it coincidence that a film that pulls and plays Britain's patriotic strings (Britain will never forget the Dunkirk, never forget the soldiers who were crushed by the Germans in the early stages of the Second World War) is released at the very moment Britain is fleeing Europe, which is dominated by Berlin, and isolating itself (we call this Brexit)? The timing of this war movie, which is directed by the conservative Englishman Christopher Nolan, could not be more perfect. CM
Wide
Aug 3
Raiders of the Lost Ark
The unbearably sexy young Harrison Ford stars in the only good Indiana Jones movie, and one of the most fun films ever made.
Aug 6
Dark Lodge: They Live
The reason why John Carpenter's They Live is so important today (it was made in 1988 and concerns a working-class man who discovers sunglasses that when worn reveal the world is ruled by aliens that want humans to mindlessly consume and pollute their planetâyes, just like the rich people in the real world) is it presents us with the big question: Do people really want to know the truth? Does Donald Trump's America even care about the truth? Would wearing special sunglasses that expose Trump to be a liar and exploiter even change their minds? By the look of things, the answer has to be no. They Live is still a great film, though. CM
Aug 18
See new short films created by Japanese film collective NOddINâthis event, curated by NWFF Executive Director Courtney Sheehan and artist Etsuko Ichikawa, will be the US premiere of NOddIN's work. After the screening, meet some of the filmmakers in person.
Aug 25
Puget Soundtrack: Holy Mountain
Puget Soundtrack, presented by Northwest Film Forum, invites musicians to create a live score for a film of their own choosing. This time, experimental-rock unit Zen Mother (Stranger music critic Dave Segal wrote that they're "one of Seattle's most interesting groups") will create a live soundtrack for Alejandro Jodorowsky's 1973 fantasy film The Holy Mountain.
Aug 31
Jurassic Park
In Steven Spielberg's lovable adventure, dinosaurs get resurrected by scientists for the purpose of being put in a dinosaur zoo. The zoo seems cool at first, but soon all the dinosaurs escape and begin to terrorize the visitors and staff, killing many.
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