Film recommendations by Ky
updated daily!

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While we are all staying at home, we thought we would highlight a movie each day from our history and let you know where you can watch it at home...

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STRICTLY BALLROOM 1993's feel good arthouse hit from down under is our next Rialto Recommends selection. A top ballroom dancer pairs with a plain, left-footed local girl when his maverick style earns him the disdain of his more conventionally-minded colleagues...

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Tonight is my 175th Rialto Recommends which means we've been closed and I've been doing this for 175 days. This Thursday, September 17th marks the beginning of our seventh straight month of closure due to COVID-19...

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Our next Rialto Recommends is from playwright turned filmmaker David Mamet. THE SPANISH PRISONER stars Steve Martin, Ben Gazzara, and Campbell Scott. An inventor of a secret process suddenly finds himself alone as both his friends and the corporation he works for turn against him...

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Frances McDormand is earning rave reviews for her latest film Nomadland which premiered at Venice and Toronto and today picked up the Venice International Film Festival's highest award The Golden Lion. So for our next Rialto Recommends we decided to go back to her film debut in the Coen Brothers debut feature 1984's BLOOD SIMPLE...

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Our next Rialto Recommends takes us to the Caribbean for 1989's THE MIGHY QUINN. On a small Caribbean island, police chief Xavier Quinn, played to perfection by Denzel Washington, investigates a murder where the prime suspect is Maubee, a charming local troublemaker and Quinn's childhood friend. As Quinn investigates further...

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Our next Rialto Recommends is Mimi Leder's 2018 biopic about Ruth Bader Ginsburg titled ON THE BASIS OF SEX starring Felicity Jones and Armie Hammer. The film tells an inspiring and spirited true story that follows young lawyer Ruth Bader Ginsburg as she teams with her husband Marty to bring...

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Wednesday's eerie reddish-orange skies inspired the selection of our next Rialto Recommends. Released in 2015 Ridley Scott's film THE MARTIAN is smart, thrilling, and surprisingly funny. THE MARTIAN offers a faithful adaptation of the bestselling book that brings out the best in leading man Matt Damon and director Ridley Scott...

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At the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival we saw a powerhouse film that knocked our socks off at a late night screening in the beautiful Elgin Theatre. The film written and directed by Dan Gilroy and starring Jake Gyllenhaal is NIGHTCRAWLER...

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Our next Rialto Recommends puts a musical spin on Shakespeare at an all boys prep school. Tom Gustafson's WERE THE WORLD MINE dazzled audiences at LGBT film festivals in 2008 ahead of a 2009 theatrical release. If you had a love-potion...

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Our Rialto Recommends for Labor Day is LABOR DAY, Jason Reitman's 2014 film based on Joyce Maynard's novel of the same name. Starring Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin, LABOR DAY centers on 13-year-old Henry Wheeler, who struggles to be the man of his house and care for his reclusive mother Adele while confronting all the pangs of adolescence. On a back-to-school shopping trip...

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Our next Rialto Recommends takes us back to Paris and the theatre. From acclaimed French director Jacques Rivette (La Belle Noiseuse), VA SAVOIR (Who Knows?) centers on three men and three women whose lives converge during the run of a play in Paris...

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Our next Rialto Recommends is 2000's THE CUP. While the soccer World Cup is being played in France, two young Tibetan refugees arrive at a monastery/boarding school in exile in India. Its atmosphere of serene contemplation is disrupted by soccer fever, the chief instigator...

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Christopher Nolan's latest film Tenet begins opening at theatres that are allowed to operate around the country this week. Meanwhile our locations continue to be closed by governmental orders. So making lemonade out of lemons, our next Rialto Recommends is a throwback to the spring of 1999...

Our next Rialto Recommends 2011's WE BOUGHT A ZOO is in a category of films that critics like to deride as heartwarming. But we like heartwarming. Don't we all need some joy and cinematic comfort food now and then? Cameron Crowe (Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous) directs an amazing and true story about a single dad who decides his family needs a fresh start...

At the 2005 Sundance Film Festival filmmaker Rian Johnson made an auspicious debut with his dynamite feature BRICK. A twisty mash-up of 40's noir and a Southern California high school set-up, BRICK is our next Rialto Recommends. The log line for the film seems simple: A teenage loner pushes his way into the underworld of a high school crime ring to investigate...

Today's Rialto Recommends is a wonderful film that we discovered at TIFF in 2017 which subsequently got lost when it was released theatrically. Starring Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy BREATHE brings to life the inspiring true love story between Robin and Diana Cavendish, an adventurous...

Peter Dinklage, Patricia Clarkson, and Bobby Cannavale star in our next Rialto Recommends 2003's THE STATION AGENT. A sweet and quirky film about a dwarf, a refreshment stand operator, and a reclusive artist connecting with one another...

Our next Rialto Recommends is writer-director Tim Kirkman's little seen 2005 indie LOGGERHEADS. A troubled woman seeks out the child she gave up for adoption; a gay motel owner takes in a handsome drifter...

We were saddened to learn of the passing of Chadwick Boseman who's work we have previously highlighted with our selections of 42 and Marshall. Today our Rialto Recommends is his 2014 portrayal of James Brown in GET ON UP. Based on the incredible life story of the Godfather of Soul, the film will give a fearless look inside the music...

Yesterday we recommended The Young Victoria which looked at the beginning of Queen Victoria's reign. Today our Rialto Recommends is 1997's MRS. BROWN starring Judi Dench as Queen Victoria following the death of Prince Albert...

Before he created Downton Abbey, Julian Fellows wrote a movie called THE YOUNG VICTORIA which starred Emily Blunt and Rupert Friend and was directed by Jean-Marc Vallee. THE YOUNG VICTORIA is our next Rialto Recommends. On the eve of her 18th birthday and succession to the English throne...

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In 2006 Emilio Estevez delivered his long anticipated passion project BOBBY which premiered at the Venice FIlm Festival. The story of the assassination of U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who was shot in the early morning hours of June 5, 1968 in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California, and twenty-two people in the hotel, whose lives were never the same...

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Our next Rialto Recommends 2011's THESE AMAZING SHADOWS tells the history and importance of The National Film Registry, a roll call of American cinema treasures that reflects the diversity of film, and indeed the American experience itself. The Washington Post raved "Shadows" is an 88-minute valentine to cinema...

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We discovered our next Rialto Recommends in the final days of the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival prior to its 2010 commercial release in theatres. From acclaimed writer/director Faith Akim (Head On, The Edge of Heaven) SOUL KITCHEN is a delicious, free spirited story of food, friends, and rock & roll...

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Bruce Springsteen added director to his list of credits with the film WESTERN STARS which premiered last fall at TIFF. Part concert film, part documentary WESTERN STARS is our next Rialto Recommends. Springsteen performs his critically acclaimed latest...

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Our next Rialto Recommends premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2013. An audacious act of filmmaking, ESCAPE FROM TOMORROW was shot surreptitiously in black and white without permission at Disneyland. In a world of fake castles and anthropomorphic rodents, an epic battle begins when an unemployed father's sanity is challenged...

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Our next Rialto Recommends takes us to Paris in 1936 in the aptly titled PARIS 36. A star is born in a time of both celebration and instability in this historical drama with music from director Christophe Barratier. In the spring of 1936, Paris is in a state of uncertainty; while the rise of the Third Reich in Germany worries many...

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In honor of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment our next Rialto Recommends is 2015's SUFFRAGETTE. Academy Award nominees Carey Mulligan and Helena Bonham Carter, and three-time Academy Award winner Meryl Streep, lead the cast of a powerful drama about the women who were willing to lose everything in their fight for equality...

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For our 150th Rialto Recommends we have chosen a film that is very close to our owner's heart. Released in 1982 Blake Edwards" VICTOR/VICTORIA was marketed as "the disguise surprise comedy of the year." Starring Julie Andrews, James Garner, Robert Preston and LesleyAnn Warren...

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In 1995 writer/director Richard Linklater's film Before Sunrise premiered. In 2016 first time writer/director Richard Tanne used a similar concept in SOUTHSIDE WITH YOU. SOUTHSIDE WITH YOU chronicles the 1989 summer afternoon when the future President...

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Following his beautiful films The Black Stallion (1979), Never Cry Wolf (1983), and Fly Away Home (1996) legendary director Carroll Ballard returned in 2005 with DUMA which is our next Rialto Recommends. With a deceptively simple log line DUMA is an adventure for everyone...

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Sometimes films don't need great reviews and perfect plots to be entertaining. Sometimes compelling performances from likable leads can help smooth over plot issues. Such is the case with our next Rialto Recommends NOW YOU SEE ME. Released in the summer of 2013...

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Back in June we recommended Dan Ireland's film The Whole Wide World. Today's Rialto Recommends is another film from this talented director and former exhibitor. MRS. PALFRY AT THE CLAREMONT stars Dame Joan Plowright, Rupert Friend...

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Sometimes we need cinematic comfort food. It doesn't have to be groundbreaking. It doesn't have to be big, loud and noisy. But it needs to be relatable. Our next Rialto Recommends fits the bill. THE BROKEN HEARTS CLUB is Greg Berlanti's feature film debut as a writer/director...

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Our next Rialto Recommends selection premiered at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival. When we saw it we quite enjoyed the film. However when it was released in NY/LA at Christmas and nationwide in early January the market was crowded and the film got lost...

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Sometimes a filmmaker will make a film that seems on its surface to be the antithesis of their prior filmography. In 1999 David Lynch pulled off such a feat with the Academy Award nominated THE STRAIGHT STORY. Our next Rialto Recommends...

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Our next Rialto Recommends is 2013's THE WAY WAY BACK. A summer picture in the best sense of the term. THE WAY, WAY BACK is the funny and poignant coming of age story of 14-year-old Duncan's (Liam James) summer vacation with his mother, Pam (Toni Collette), her overbearing boyfriend, Trent (Steve Carell), and his daughter...

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Our next Rialto Recommends is a film we liked a great deal when we saw it at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival prior to its 2014 spring theatrical release. BELLE is inspired by the true story of Dido Elizabeth Belle (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), the illegitimate mixed race daughter of Admiral Sir John Lindsay (Matthew Goode). Raised by her aristocratic great-uncle Lord Mansfield...

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Our next Rialto Recommends is THEIR FINEST. With London emptied of its men now fighting at the Front, Catrin Cole (Gemma Arterton) is hired by the British Ministry of Information as a "slop" scriptwriter charged with bringing "a woman's touch" to morale-boosting propaganda films. Her natural flair quickly gets her noticed by dashing movie producer Buckley (Sam Claflin) whose path would never have crossed hers in peacetime...

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Through the years we've seen many movies that trace their origins to plays. Our next Rialto Recommends won two Tony Awards in 1983 for Best New Play and Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play for its author and star Harvey Fierstein. Adapted into a feature length film in 1988 TORCH SONG TRILOGY was directed by Paul Bogart...

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Sometimes a movie doesn't need to be a great work of art to be enjoyable. A 90 minute or two hour diversion can be just the ticket to nuture one's soul. Our next Rialto Recommends is 2012's PEACE LOVE & MISUNDERSTANDING starring Jane Fonda and Catherine Keener. A comedy about an uptight New York City lawyer who takes her two spirited teenagers...

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Sometimes movies get released in periods of time when there are too many similar films chasing the same audience. This happens particularly in the Fall and Winter with the films aimed at adult audiences. Sometimes talent insists on an awards season release time frame. Sometimes the distributors think a film needs to be in theatres...

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Sean Penn proves himself both a vital director and a great screenwriter in his big screen adaptation of Jon Krakauer's book INTO THE WILD starring Emile Hirsch. 2007's INTO THE WILD is our next Rialto Recommends selection...

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From their first feature, Bound to their breathtaking Netflix series Sense8 and the much loved Matrix films, the Warchowski's are visionary filmmakers. Our next Rialto Recommends is their 2012 film CLOUD ATLAS which was co-written and co-directed with another visionary, Tom Tykwer (Run, Lola, Run). CLOUD ATLAS explores how the actions and consequences of individual lives impact one another...

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Our next Rialto Recommends is Preston Sturges' 1941 comedy SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS starring Veronica Lake. Successful movie director John L. Sullivan, convinced he won't be able to film his ambitious masterpiece until he has suffered, dons a hobo disguise...

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"Let the world change you and you can change the world" was the tag line for THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES which is our next Rialto Recommends film. In 1952, two young Argentines, Ernesto Guevara and Alberto Granado, set out on a road trip to discover the real Latin America. Ernesto is a 23-year-old medical student...

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As promised our next Rialto Recommends is CHICO & RITA which like A Cat In Paris was one of two foreign language animated films nominated at the 84th Academy Awards in 2011 for Best Animated Feature. CHICO & RITA is a Spanish adult animated music romantic film with Spanish and English languages directed by Tono Errando...

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The 84th Oscars in 2011 marked the 11th year the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave out an award for Best Animated Feature and the first time that two foreign language animated features were amongst the nominees...

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Some days you just need a good laugh. For those of you that need a laugh about now our next Rialto Recommends is the Coen Brothers 2008 romp BURN AFTER READING starring George Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton and Brad Pitt. The one sentence description of the plot from IMDB is in itself a Coen Brothers gem: A disk containing mysterious information from a CIA agent ends up in the hands of two unscrupulous and daft gym employees...

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Our next Rialto Recommends is Deepa Mehta's 2006 film WATER. The year is 1938, and Mahatma Gandhi's groundbreaking philosophies are sweeping across India, but 8-year-old Chuyia, newly widowed, must go to live with other outcast widows on an ashram. Her presence...

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We've mentioned before how we enjoy caper films. But sometimes the plot is secondary to the chance to watch great actors make the most of average material. WHERE THE MONEY IS is just such a film. Starring Paul Newman and Linda Fiorentino, WHERE THE MONEY IS is our next Rialto Recommends. Henry Manning (Paul Newman) has come up...

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Our next Rialto Recommends is THE LONG DAY CLOSES the 1992 film from Terence Davies. THE LONG DAY CLOSES is the most gloriously cinematic expression of the unique sensibility of Terence Davies, widely celebrated as Britain's greatest living filmmaker. Suffused with both enchantment and melancholy, this autobiographical film takes on the perspective of a quiet, lonely boy growing up in Liverpool in the 1950s...

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Our next Rialto Recommends is THE LOOKOUT starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Released in the Spring of 2007 THE LOOKOUT marks Academy Award nominated screenwriter Scott Frank's ("Out of Sight"), directorial debut. The intelligent crime drama is centered around Chris, a once promising high school athlete whose life is turned upside down following a tragic accident...

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Between 1968 and 1972, nine American spacecraft voyaged to the Moon, and 12 men walked upon its surface. They remain the only human beings to have stood on another world. Our next Rialto Recommends, IN THE SHAOW OF THE MOON brings together for the first, and possibly the last...

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Our next Rialto Recommends is 2014's THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING starring Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones. Based on the memoir Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen, by Jane Hawking, THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING is the extraordinary story of one of the world's greatest living minds, the renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking...

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Our next Rialto Recommends is a charming romantic comedy about two people who meet when their work brings them into each other's orbit. Starring Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt and directed by Lasse Hallstrom, SALMON FISHING IN THE YEMEN premiered at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival before going...

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It is always wonderful to see a film that transcends it genre to speak to a wider than originally thought audience. The was definitely the case for our next Rialto Recommends. Released in August of 2016 KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS appeared to be another well crafted Laika animated feature. It turned into a film that was embraced by critics...

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Our 120th Rialto Recommends choice was in theatres last November. Directed by Kasi Lemmon (Talk to Me) HARRIET stars Cynthi Erivo in an Oscar nominated performance as American Hero Harriet Tubman. HARRIET tells the extraordinary tale of Harriet Tubman's escape...

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Our next Rialto Recommends is the 2016 film LION starring Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman and Rooney Mara. At the beginning of LION five-year-old Saroo gets lost on a train which takes him thousands of Kilometers across India, away from home and family...

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Over the last twenty years we've shown quite a few below the radar documentaries. Many of them are great films. Today's Rialto Recommends is one of those films. We presented A MAN NAMED PEARL in the summer of 2008...

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Our next Rialto Recommends is another of our favorite Alfred Hitchcock films THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY. We think Variety described THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY best when they said "This is a blithe little comedy, produced and directed with affection by Alfred Hitchcock, about a bothersome corpse that just can't stay buried..."

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Sometimes movies resonate more with audiences than with the critics. That was definitely the case with our next Rialto Recommends. MONA LISA SMILE was released for Christmas in 2003 with a stellar cast that included Julia Roberts, Julia Stiles, Kristen Dunst, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gennifer Goodwin, Dominic West, Juliet Stevenson, Marcia Gay Harden, John Slattery, and Marian Seldes. In 1953, a time when women's roles...

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In honor of Bastille Day our next Rialto Recommends is 1983's LA NUIT DE VARENNES or THAT NIGHT IN VARENNES. It should come as no surprise to anyone watching LA NUIT DE VARENNES that its maker, Ettore Scola, studied law before turning to filmmaking, and became an expert at socially conscious satire and parody...

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The road movie is a classic movie plot that has been used through the decades of cinema. One of our favorite road movies is the original THE MUPPET MOVIE from 1979 which was the first big screen outing for Jim Henson's beloved characters. Of course in the parlance of today THE MUPPET MOVIE...

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Continuing our run of comic films to lift your spirits we bring you one of the funniest LGBT films we have ever seen. Our next Rialto Recommends is 2011's CLOUDBURST starring Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker as an elderly lesbian couple who break out of a nursing home...

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The late Carl Reiner was more known for his television work than for his theatrical features but his first theatrical feature was a major success in 1977. Our next Rialto Recommends is OH GOD! starring the unlikely pairing of George Burns as the Almighty and John Denver as the grocery...

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Sometimes we all need a good laugh. Unfortunately, Hollywood doesn't make screwball comedies like they used to. Our next Rialto Recommends is one of the best screwball comedies ever produced. Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant and a leopard named Baby are the key ingredients in Howard Hawk's BRINGING UP BABY. Originally released in 1938...

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Our next Rialto Recommends happens to the film debut of Reese Witherspoon. In 1991 she starred in a film titled THE MAN IN THE MOON. It is the story of two sisters who fall for the same new neighbor boy in rural Louisiana...

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Our next Rialto Recommends is Ang Lee's 2009 film TAKING WOODSTOCK. Lee's film tells the story of Elliot Tiber and his family, who inadvertently played a pivotal role in making the famed Woodstock Music and Arts Festival into the happening that it was. When Elliot...

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Our next Rialto Recommends feature is SMOKE SIGNALS with a screenplay by Sherman Alexie. SMOKE SIGNALS tells a familiar story from an underrepresented point of view, proving that a fresh perspective can help subvert long-established expectations...

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In honor of Ennio Morricone's passing our next Rialto Recommends is 1998's landmark film CINEMA PARADISO. A filmmaker recalls his childhood when falling in love with the pictures at the cinema of his home village...

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Our next Rialto Recommends is both a charming indie and a food movie. EAST SIDE SUSHI (2015) introduces us to Juana, a working-class Latina single mother. Forced to give up her fruit-vending cart in order to find a more secure job, Juana lands a position as a kitchen assistant at a local Japanese restaurant and discovers a whole new world of cuisine and culture...

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Our next Rialto Recommends is Jim Sheridan's 2003 film IN AMERICA, A rich and moving story about an immigrant family adjusting to life in New York. The Detroit Free Press called IN AMERICA "An achingly intimate and beautifully observed account...

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Sometimes independent movies come along that surprise you by being more than what a high-concept pitch line reveals. Such was the case with our next Rialto Recommends Jason Bateman's directorial debut BAD WORDS. Our owner didn't think the movie sounded like much...

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Our next Rialto Recommends takes you to Istanbul viewed through the eyes of its many street cats. KEDI is a cat fancier's dream, but this thoughtful, beautifully filmed look at Istanbul's street feline population offers absorbing viewing for filmgoers of any purr-suasion. The Boston Globe purred "Those who don't especially like cats...

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Our next Rialto Recommends is 2018's thriller WIDOWS. From Academy Award (R)-winning director Steve McQueen ("12 Years a Slave") and co-writer and bestselling author Gillian Flynn ("Gone Girl") comes a blistering, modern-day thriller set against the backdrop of crime...

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With her second feature film as a writer/director Niki Caro created an international profile as one the world's top female directors. Our next Rialto Recommends is that film, her 2003 feature WHALE RIDER. On the east coast of New Zealand, the Whangara people believe their presence there dates back a thousand years or more to a single ancestor...

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Are you ready to rock? Our next Rialto Recommends wants to rock your world. A downtown musical that took NY by storm when it appeared off Broadway, HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH has become a cultural phenomenon. Starring John Cameron Mitchell as the titular character and directed by Mitchell, HEDWIG was written...

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Our next Rialto Recommends is from Bay Area and LGBT film historian Jenni Olson. Her 2015 film THE ROYAL ROAD is a fascinating and unlikely reinvention story. THE ROYAL ROAD simultaneously explores cinematic spiritual channeling, the conquest and colonization of Mexico and the American Southwest, fading historical Californian urban landscapes...

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In 2011 we did a number of Rialto on the Road film festivals at the Sixth Street Playhouse. Our next Rialto Recommends is CIRCO which we presented in the spring. Tino Ponce operates Circo Mexico, which journeys across the Mexican countryside in search of paying customers...

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Our friends at the OUTWatch Film Festival first alerted us to our next Rialto Recommends title and recommend it for our monthly OUTWatch screening series which had to be put on hold due to the pandemic closures. DISCLOSURE: TRANS LIVES ON SCREEN takes an unprecedented look at the depiction of transgender people and experiences throughout the history of film and television...

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Our next Rialto Recommends takes us back to the Spring of 2010 when we presented the wonderful documentary WAKING SLEEPING BEAUTY and the former head of Disney Feature Animation Peter Schneider joined us one evening for a fascinating Q&A about the film and the golden renaissance of Disney feature animation...

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Our next Rialto Recommends is one of those films that came out and then disappeared from theaters all too quickly. Released in January, 1990 Mike Figgis' INTERNAL AFFAIRS stars Richard Gere, Andy Garcia, and Laurie Metcalf. Keen young Raymold Avila (Garcia) joins the Internal Affairs Department...

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It would be baseball season, so for our next Rialto Recommends we have chosen one of the best recent baseball movies 42 starring Chadwick Boseman as Jackie Robinson. "42" tells the story of two men-the great Jackie Robinson and legendary Brooklyn Dodgers GM Branch Rickey-whose brave stand against prejudice...

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We were saddened to learn of the passing of writer/director Joel Schumacher at the age of 80. A director of a number of iconic films as well as a handful of iconic flops Schumacher is also the director who fully leaned...

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Our next Rialto Recommends is a movie that is close to our owner's heart. BIG EDEN is a beautiful coming out story set in a fictional Montana town and film around Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park. Winner of multiple LGBT film festival awards the film went on to a regular theatrical...

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Our next Rialto Recommends celebrates the 45th anniversary of the release of a film that marked a seminal change in the Hollywood studio business model and ushered in the era of the modern studio blockbuster summer movie. Released on over 450 screens (exceptionally wide for the period)...

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We were saddened to learn of the passing of great English actor Ian Holm. Though he is not the lead in the film, our Rialto Recommends is 1994's THE MADNESS OF KING GEORGE from director Nicholas Hynter, whose name you are probably familiar with from his many productions that have been featured in National Theatre Live. Based on Alan Bennett's acclaimed play...

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Several weeks ago we wrote about 80's B movies and provided a couple of our favorite examples. Today our Rialto Recommends is an example of a modern B caper movie that we rather enjoyed when it premiered at TIFF. THE ART OF THE STEAL (not to be confused with the exceptional documentary about the Barnes Collection of the same name from 2009...

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Our next Rialto Recommends is a film our owner has been a supporter of since pre-production. Based on the acclaimed novel SOMETHING LIKE SUMMER the film traces the tumultuous relationship of Ben and Tim, secret high school sweethearts who grow over the years into both adulthood enemies...

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Jon Stewart's second film IRRESISTIBLE comes out later this month, so it seems like a good time to revisit his debut as a feature film writer/director ROSEWATER from the Fall of 2014 which premiered at TIFF ahead of a theatrical launch. In 2009, Iranian Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari was covering Iran's volatile elections...

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Our next Rialto Recommends is the arthouse classic GO FISH from 1995. The selling of GO FISH to distributor The Samuel Goldwyn Company was memorably profiled in film sales rep John Pierson's book "Spike Mike Slackers and Dykes" about taking both GO FISH and Clerks to the 1994 Sundance Film Festival. This hit arthouse ensemble piece traces the romantic and political...

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Dan Ireland (Mrs. Palfry at the Claremont) directs our next Rialto Recommends 1996's THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD. A touching and unusual love story, THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD was based on a memoir by Novalyne Price Ellis...

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Our next Rialto Recommends takes us back to the spring of 2000 when this beautiful Iranian film came out in theatres. THE COLOR OF PARADISE wowed audiences across the country. Director Majid Majidi, whose Bacheha-Ye Aseman/Children Of Heaven was the first Iranian film to be nominated for an American Academy Award...

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Our next Rialto Recommends premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival before going on to theatres later that year. In DOPE, Malcolm (Shameik Moore) is carefully surviving life in a tough neighborhood in Los Angeles while juggling college applications, academic interviews...

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Named after a Sufi word that translates roughly as "breath of life" or "blessing," BARAKA is Ron Fricke's impressive follow-up to Godfrey Reggio's non-verbal documentary film Koyaanisqatsi. Our next Rialto Recommends is a a tour-de-force in 70mm: a cinematic "guided meditation" (Fricke's own description) shot in 24 countries on six continents...

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Our next Rialto Recommends is Jeff Nichol's (Mud) acclaimed 2016 film LOVING. LOVING celebrates the real-life courage and commitment of an interracial couple, Richard and Mildred Loving (portrayed by Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga), who married and then spent the next nine years fighting...

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Somewhere we saw playwright August Wilson referred to as "America's Shakespeare." His ten play The Pittsburgh Cycle certainly has produced some masterpieces. One of those FENCES won both the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony Award for Best Play. In 2016 Denzel Washington directed an acclaimed film adaptation...

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Our next Rialto Recommends is a film that film critics had quibbles with but audiences enjoyed. Starring Chadwick Boseman, Josh Gad, Kate Hudson, Dan Stevens, Sterling K. Brown, and James Cromwell. Director Reginald Hudlin's MARSHALL, is based on an early trial in the career of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall...

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One of the movies we were showing when we had to close our location in Sebastopol was THE BANKER. Inspired by true events, THE BANKER centers on revolutionary businessmen Bernard Garrett (Anthony Mackie) and Joe Morris (Samuel L. Jackson), who devise an audacious and risky plan to take on the racist establishment of the 1960s...

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At the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival the stunning film WAVES premiered. Set against the vibrant landscape of South Florida, and featuring an astonishing ensemble of award-winning actors and breakouts alike, WAVES traces the epic emotional journey of a suburban African-American family--led by a well-intentioned but domineering father...

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In 1997 George Tillman, Jr. directed the movie Soul Food which we loved. In 2018 he directed Audrey Wells adaptation of the young adult novel THE HATE U GIVE and delivers a powerhouse film. In THE HATE U GIVE Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer...

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Our next Rialto Recommends premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last fall before opening in theatres in January of this year. A powerful and thought-provoking true story, "JUST MERCY" follows young lawyer Bryan Stevenson (Jordan) and his history-making battle for justice...

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Our next Rialto Recommends was originally made for the Showtime network but received a theatrical release prior to making its debut on the Showtime network. Directed by Maya Angelou in her feature film directing debut, 1998's DOWN IN THE DELTA stars Alfre Woodard...

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Our Rialto Recommends tonight is Ava DuVernay's stirring 2015 film SELMA. Fueled by a gripping performance from David Oyelowo, Selma draws inspiration and dramatic power from the life and death of Martin Luther King, Jr...

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In honor of Christo's passing our next Rialto Recommends is the 2018 documentary WALKING ON WATER about his Italian project Floating Piers. Bulgarian director Andrey Paounov's documentary chronicles famed environmental artist Christo's first major project...

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Cinema can be a powerful mirror for society. In 1989 Spike Lee delivered a masterpiece in DO THE RIGHT THING. A movie about racism where nobody is right, DO THE RIGHT THING is our next Rialto Recommends selection. Smart, vibrant, and urgent without being didactic, Do the Right Thing is one of Spike Lee's most fully realized efforts...

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Sometimes movies bring to our attention stories about people we didn't know of before or remind us of past events or cause us to look at our past in a different light. Our next Rialto Recommends is 2015's Oscar nominee TRUMBO...

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Our next Rialto Recommends came and went from theatres in 2007 with too little recognition from audiences. TALK TO ME stars Don Cheadle as Petey Green a former convict who becomes an influential DJ in Washington DC and Chiwetel Ejiofor...

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At the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival we discovered a film that we fell in love with and our later engagements of the film went on to become the 3rd and 8th best runs of the film in the country at Rialto Cinemas Elmwood in Berkeley and Rialto Cinemas in Sebastopol. The film is FACES PLACES which chronicles a journey legendary filmmaker...

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Our next Rialto Recommends takes you into a world that could be as close as your own backyard or the meadows and ponds in France where it was filmed. 1996's MICROCOSMOS is documentary of insect life in meadows and ponds, using incredible close-ups, slow motion, and time-lapse photography...

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Indie films come in all shapes and sizes. Yesterday our Rialto Recommends was an indie by superstar director with a big name cast. Today for Rialto Recommends we go 180 degrees in the opposite direction with a film that received some notable acclaim but had very limited theatrical distribution...

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Throughout his career Steven Soderbergh has gone from groundbreaking indie features like his debut film Sex, Lies, and Videotape to slick Hollywood features like his Oceans 11 remake to Oscar fare like Traffic and Erin Brockovich...

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Sometimes you just need to go to Lake Como in the Italian Alps. Our next Rialto Recommends takes you there. 1995's MONTH BY THE LAKE stars Vanessa Redgrave, Edward Fox and Uma Thurman. At a Lake Como resort, Miss Bentley, an attractive older guest, meets a handsome, well-to-do bachelor...

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Friday, May 22nd would have been Harvey Milk's 90th birthday. In 1977, Harvey Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, becoming the first openly gay man to be voted into public office in America. His victory was not just a victory for gay rights...

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As we've mentioned before classic films are a part of our DNA here at Rialto Cinemas so for our next Rialto Recommends we are choosing a classic from 1972 Peter Bogdanovich's WHAT'S UP DOC? starring Barbra Streisand and Ryan O'Neal that is actually an homage to Howard Hawk's 1939 film Bringing Up Baby...

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There are a number of great food movies, both narrative and documentary. Scrolling through the bountiful offerings on Nexflix JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI caught our eye. Jiro Dreams of Sushi is the story of 85 year-old Jiro Ono, considered by many to be the world's greatest sushi chef. He is the proprietor of Sukiyabashi Jiro...

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I resisted selecting our next Rialto Recommends film as it didn't feel right in March to suggest watching this fine French film about the early days of the AIDS pandemic in Paris during the start of a new pandemic. But with time and positive steps forward...

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Over the years we've shown serious Coen Brothers movies like No Country For Old Men and A Serious Man and some of their less serious films like Burn After Reading. Their 2016 film HAIL, CESAR! is our latest Rialto Recommends selection...

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Our next Rialto Recommends came to our attention via the Sonoma County Jewish Film Festival several years ago the they programmed THE WOMEN'S BALCONY. The women in an Orthodox Jewish community in Jerusalem are appalled when their synagogue gets a strict new rabbi who preaches rigid gender roles. The ladies soon decide to fight back against...

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Our next Rialto Recommends film could easily fall into the category of "Films You've Never Heard Of." A true indie from the 1999 film festival circuit, CHUTNEY POPCORN played regular theatrical engagements in the late summer and early fall of 2000...

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Aaron Sorkin is one of most gifted screenwriters. From movies like The Social Network, Molly's Game, and A Few Good Men (which was based on his play of the same name) to his crackling TV shows like Sports Night...

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Our friend Pamela Gray wrote A WALK ON THE MOON which is our next Rialto Recommends selection. Director Tony Goldwyn's A Walk on the Moon is a wonderfully realized, nostalgic (if you are as old as I am) melodrama set during the summer of 1969. It is a time of change across America--sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll--and a historic year in the space program...

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Before he swept the Oscars this year with his phenomenal film Parasite, Bong Joon Ho wowed us with 2007's The Host and 2014's SNOWPIERCER which is our next Rialto Recommends selection. In this sci-fi epic from director Bong Joon Ho (The Host, Mother), a failed global-warming experiment kills off most...

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Good love stories have both an element of truth and a bit of fantasy in their DNA. Our next Rialto Recommends feature was a big hit on the LGBT film festival circuit in 2007 before going on to theatrical runs and home video. Forced to give up his dreams of art school, Zach works dead-end jobs to support his sister and her son...

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2018 saw Moonlight director Barry Jenkins honored the source material of his second feature with a beautifully filmed adaptation while further strengthening his visual and narrative craft in IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK. Based on James Baldwin's book, IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK is our next Rialto Recommends feature...

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Our next Rialto Recommends film featured the provocative tag line "Let's talk about sex" on its poster art. But far from a titillating sex romp, KINSEY starring Liam Neeson, Peter Sarsgaard and Laura Linney is one of 2004's best films. The Observer raved "The great thing about Kinsey is the triumphant way it entertains...

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During the summer of 1979, a Santa Barbara single mom and boardinghouse landlord (Annette Bening) decides the best way she can parent her teenage son (Lucas Jade Zumann) is to enlist her young tenants - a quirky punk photographer (Greta Gerwig), a mellow handyman...

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Our next Rialto Recommends film is MY WEEK WITH MARILYN starring Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe with a supporting cast that includes Eddie Redmayne, Kenneth Branagh, Julia Ormond, Judi Dench, Emma Watson, Dominic Cooper, and Zoe Wanamaker...

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For our next Rialto Recommends selection we go back to the 80's and a b-picture that movie people used to refer to as programmers. Usually made by independent companies b-pictures and programmers gave a great many filmmakers their initial success...

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Our next Rialto Recommends selection is 2014's joyous film PRIDE starring Imelda Staunton, Bill Nighy, Dominic West, Andrew Scott, Paddy Considine, and many more. PRIDE is inspired by an extraordinary true story. It's the summer of 1984, Margaret Thatcher is in power and the National Union of Mineworkers is on strike...

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Patricia Clarkson takes center stage in CAIRO TIME from 2009. A romantic drama about a brief, unexpected love affair that catches two people completely off-guard. The Seattle Times raves "Clarkson lights up Ruba Nadda's stately drama Cairo Time like the moon on a summer night, making every moment luminous with quiet, resigned longing."

We've got a double feature for you for Earth Day. In THE ELEPHANT QUEEN Athena is a mother who will do everything in her power to protect her herd when they are forced to leave their waterhole. This epic journey, narrated by Chiwetel Ejiofor...

With Earth Day coming up on Wednesday we have a couple of shorter documentaries as our movie choices for Tuesday, April 21st. Our first choice is DANCING WITH THE BIRDS which is streaming on Netflix here. Stephen Fry guides viewers this charming and playful documentary that is suitable for all ages as we journey deep into the forest following...