Upcoming Movie Nights
Film Fanatics Movie Nights transforms local venues in Champaign-Urbana into a screening room where film lovers gather to experience artistic, unusual, and visually striking cinema together on the big screen. Expect a stimulating evening of conversation, and community in a lounge atmopshere — the kind of shared experience that reminds us why we fell in love with movies in the first place.
Coming Soon
You told us what you want to see and we listened. Based on the results of our first survey, we’re excited to present the following films over the coming months.
As always, club members receive discounted admission to all screenings, along with reserved seating in our premium section. Join today and help shape what we show next.
Be Kind Rewind
USA 2008 • 102 min (2.39:1)
Directed by: Michel Gondry
Starring: Jack Black, Mos Def, Danny Glover
Presented by: Rachel Storm
Screening date: TBD
A handmade ode to movies, memory, and community, this heartfelt comedy finds Michel Gondry channeling his signature lo-fi imagination into something warmly nostalgic and deeply personal. When two friends accidentally erase an entire video store’s inventory, they set out to recreate the films themselves, sparking a wave of DIY creativity that transforms their neighborhood. Gondry’s playful visual style and affection for analog ingenuity turn cardboard sets and amateur effects into something genuinely magical, celebrating the joy of making and sharing movies together. Funny, inventive, and quietly moving, it stands as one of the most sincere love letters to cinema in the 21st century.
#CultCinema #MichelGondry #JackBlack #MosDef #DIYFilm #Sweded #CinemaLove #IndieFilm #FeelGoodCinema #HiddenGem
Santa Sangre
Mexico/Italy 1989 • 123 min (1.85:1)
Directed by: Alejandro Jodorowsky
Starring: Axel Jodorowsky, Blanca Guerra, Guy Stockwell
Presented by: Paul Young
Screening date: TBD
A hallucinatory descent into madness and memory, this masterwork stands as one of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s most ferocious and personal visions—equal parts surrealist nightmare, operatic melodrama, and cult initiation rite. Emerging after years of myth-making around the director’s unrealized projects, the film marked a triumphant return that reaffirmed Jodorowsky’s status as cinema’s high priest of the subconscious. Drenched in ritual, symbolism, and Grand Guignol intensity, it plays less like a conventional narrative than a waking dream engineered to unnerve and mesmerize a roomful of viewers at once. Decades later, its power remains undiminished: shocking, hypnotic, and unmistakably the work of a singular auteur whose influence continues to ripple through cult and midnight cinema.
#AlejandroJodorowsky #CultCinema #MidnightMovie #SurrealCinema #ArtHouseHorror #VisionaryDirector #CultClassic #BigScreenExperience
Once Upon a Time in the West
Italy/USA 1968 • 165 min (2.35:1)
Directed by: Sergio Leone
Starring: Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale
Music by: Ennio Morricone
Presented by: Sascha Hilgenfeldt
Screening date: TBD
A monumental reinvention of the American Western, this operatic epic captures Sergio Leone at the height of his formal power and mythmaking ambition that must be seen on the big screen. Shot in expansive widescreen, the film transforms silence, gesture, and landscape into pure cinematic ritual, with towering performances by Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale, and Jason Robards anchoring its mythic scale. Ennio Morricone’s iconic score operates as a driving emotional force, inseparable from Leone’s meticulous compositions and visual authority. Considered by many as an iconic classic, this grand, austere, and endlessly influential film stands as one of the definitive Westerns and a landmark in the evolution of modern cinema.
#SergioLeone #SpaghettiWestern #EnnioMorricone #WesternCinema #EpicCinema #CultCinema #VisuallyStunning #BigScreenExperience #ModernClassic
