Cornell Cinema

Many thanks to all the Cornell alums who joined us for "Movie Magic at Cornell Cinema" this weekend! ✨🎞️❤️

We loved sharing 35mm film trailers with you, hearing about your Cornell Cinema memories, and meeting alumni from the Class of 1961 to the Class of 2026.

Pictured are vintage trailers from films that screened this year at Cornell Cinema, including a colored-faded print of APOCALYPSE NOW, JURASSIC PARK, and PRIDE AND PREJUDICE!

Special thanks to our head projectionist Tim White and student projectionist Nicholas York for presenting such a dynamic program for our alumni community.

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE CORNELL CLASS OF 2026!

Sending big love to the graduating members of our incredible student team Lily, Izzy, Ava I., Andy, Ava H., Genesis, Julia, Lauren, and Bell and to senior Student Advisory Board members Simeone, Franklin, and Kai.

You are what makes Cornell Cinema so special and we miss you already! 🥹🫶🏼🎓🥂❤️

Did you know that we take our suggestions box in the lobby very seriously?? 📝🧐🤔

Here are a few audience suggested films that made their way into our program this spring!

What films would you most like to see at Cornell Cinema next year? Comment below or share your feedback in our year-end survey, linked in our bio!

Thank you for another wonderful year of movie magic at Cornell Cinema! 🍿❤️🎟️

We would like to learn more about your recent experience at Cornell Cinema and invite you to please complete our year-end survey, which is linked in our bio.

The survey should take less than 5 minutes to complete. At the end, you have the option to enter your email for a chance to win a Cornell Cinema prize pack. Your responses will help us make decisions about future Cornell Cinema programming.

We truly appreciate your insights and your feedback!

📸: THE CONVERSATION (1974, dir. Francis Ford Coppola)

Huge thanks to all who joined for our Mystery Screening last night! And our surprise movie was... THE FIREMEN'S BALL (1967), directed by Milos Forman. 🚒🎟️🔥🍺💃🏼

Released in 1967 — on the eve of the Prague Spring — THE FIREMEN’S BALL is a satirical comedy about a group of local firemen hosting a benefit gala, where just about everything goes wrong. The film is apparently inspired by Forman and his filmcrew’s encounter with an actual firemen’s ball and was shot in a small Czech town with a mostly nonprofessional cast.

At its core, THE FIREMEN'S BALL is a clear-eyed, deadpan exploration of human hubris: raffle prizes go missing, the guest of honor (a terminally ill 86-year-old fire captain) is repeatedly ignored, and a misogynistic beauty contest descends into chaos.

Milos Forman has always maintained that the film has no “hidden symbols or double meanings,” but it is hard not to read the film as a sly political allegory and critique of the bumbling leadership of the Communist Party. Its playful irony, wicked sense of humor, and dose of surrealism are characteristic of the Czech New Wave, a filmmaking movement that emerged in the late 1960's and used film to speak out about the hypocrisy and absurdity of the Communist state.

Despite their distinguished uniforms, their official rhetoric, and an overall sense of self-important authoritarianism, the leaders of THE FIREMAN’S BALL are presented as distractible, deceptive, self-interested, and, above all, incompetent. This sense of political allegory certainly would not have been lost on contemporary viewers in Czechoslovakia in 1967 — nor do we think it will be lost on our Cornell Cinema audience today.

The film was “banned forever” by the head of the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia and prompted Milos Forman’s relocation to the United States where he would go on to direct such films as AMADEUS, ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, and THE PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLINT.

Thank you for another wonderful semester at Cornell Cinema!

Cornell Cinema and the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program are delighted to present a special, free double feature of films by Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho
tonight (4/29) at 6:30pm and 8:30pm!

Brazil’s official selection for the 2024 Academy Awards®, PICTURES OF GHOSTS is a multidimensional journey through time, sound, architecture and filmmaking, set in the urban landscape of Recife, Brazilian coastal capital of Pernambuco. The film examines this historical and human territory through the great movie theatres that served as spaces of conviviality during the 20th century.

Having hosted dreams and progress, these places have also embodied a major transformation on social practices. Combining archive documentary, mystery, film clips and personal memories, PICTURES OF GHOSTS is a map of a city through the lens of cinema.

PICTURES OF GHOSTS will be presented at 6:30pm and followed by THE SECRET AGENT, the latest feature film from Kleber Mendonça Filho, which was nominated for the 2026 Academy Award® for Best Picture, at 8:30pm

THE SECRET AGENT stars Wagner Moura as a widower named Marcelo, who arrives in 1977 in Recife, Brazil, a city as vibrant as it is violent. Amid the raucous revelry of Carnival week, the technology researcher suddenly finds himself an unwitting target in the heart of the dictatorship's political maelstrom. In the midst of these mounting threats, Marcelo, with the help of a mysterious woman named Elza and her compatriots in the country's growing underground resistance movement, remains primarily focused on escaping Brazil with his young son.

FREE ADMISSION! Sponsored by the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program (LACS) at the Einaudi Center for International Studies.

The screening is presented in conjunction with the course "Cinematic Cities", co-taught by Professors Cecelia Lawless (Romance Studies) and Patricia Keller (Comparative Literature).

Our once-a-semester Mystery Screening is a risk—and a study break—worth taking! 🕵🏼‍♀️❔🔎🎟️📽️

Join Cornell Cinema to celebrate the end of the semester with a special surprise film screening on this Thursday, April 30 at 6pm.

What will our next mystery movie be? Don't miss your chance to discover a new favorite or be delighted by a classic film with our Cornell Cinema community. The secret will only be revealed when the screening begins!

Previous films have included Jonathan Lynn's My Cousin Vinny (1992), Fritz Lang's M (1931), Signe Baumane's My Love Affair with Marriage (2022), Jono McLeod's My Old School (2022), Brian de Palma's Blow Out (1981), and Sydney Pollack's The Way We Were (1973).

Tickets are only $5 each or free for All-Access Passholders. We can't wait to see you there!!!