Special Events and Series
We’re Moving!
We recently learned that our lease will not be renewed when it expires in February 2025. Our plan has always been to relocate the cinema. Help us build an even grander Grand Illusion!
Native American Heritage Month 2024
Four free showings for Native American Heritage Month, co-presented with Mother Nation.
Now Playing
Salad Days: A Decade of Punk in Washington, DC (1980-90)
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- Wednesday, Nov 20, 2024, 7:00pm
10th anniversary director's cut! In-person introduction by filmmaker Scott Crawford.
SALAD DAYS examines the early DIY punk scene in the Nation's Capital. It was a decade when seminal bands like Bad Brains, Minor Threat, Government Issue, Scream, Void, Faith, Rites of Spring, Marginal Man, Fugazi, and others released their own records and booked their own shows - without major record label constraints or mainstream media scrutiny. Contextually, it was a cultural watershed that predated the alternative music explosion of the 1990s (and the industry's subsequent implosion). Thirty years later, DC's original DIY punk spirit serves as a reminder of the hopefulness of youth, the power of community and the strength of conviction.
This director’s cut will only be available in cinemas and not available on physical media or streaming (at least anytime soon).
Pulp Fiction – New 35mm print!
- Thursday, Nov 21, 2024, 7:00pm
- Friday, Nov 22, 2024, 7:00pm
- Sunday, Nov 24, 2024, 4:00pm
- Monday, Nov 25, 2024, 7:00pm
- Tuesday, Nov 26, 2024, 7:00pm
- Wednesday, Nov 27, 2024, 7:00pm
30th anniversary! New 35mm print of Quentin Tarantino's groundbreaking crime classic!
Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) are hitmen with a penchant for philosophical discussions, whose story is interwoven with those of their boss, gangster Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames), his wife Mia (Uma Thurman), struggling boxer Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis), and a nervous pair of armed robbers, "Pumpkin" (Tim Roth) and "Honey Bunny" (Amanda Plummer).
Part of our 20th Anniversary Celebration Series!
“A spectacularly entertaining piece of pop culture.” Todd McCarthy, Variety
“It’s a film that still satisfies like a ‘quarter-pounder with cheese’ – then hits like a bullet to the gut.” Geoffrey Macnab, The Independent
Candy Mountain
- Saturday, Nov 23, 2024, 2:00pm
A new restoration of one of the great cult classics of the 1980s, starring character actors Kevin J O’Conner and Harris Yulin, with a supporting cast featuring real-life music legends Tom Waits, Leon Redbone, Joe Strummer, Dr. John, David Johansen and more. CANDY MOUNTAIN combines the keen eye of legendary photographer Robert Frank with novelist/screenwriter Rudy Wurlitzer’s mythic American prose to produce the quintessential road movie.
New York City, 1980s. A struggling, deadbeat musician named Julius has fallen on hard times. With no guitar, band or paying gigs, he cooks up a get-rich-quick scheme – to find the legendary, yet elusive guitar-maker Elmore Silk. Considered one of the greatest luthiers in the business, Silk’s disappearance from the scene has only made his work more coveted by musicians and executives looking to make a buck off his name. Julius agrees to track the man down and sets out on the road. Meant to be a simple journey upstate, Julius stumbles down a long, winding road full of dead-ends and wrong turns towards an eventual revelatory conclusion in the Canadian wilderness.
“Ambling along like a wry, laid-back Heart of Darkness, this likable and touching film makes good use of Frank’s remarkable photographic eye and Wurlitzer’s witty, acerbic, and quasi-mystical handling of myth that has served him well in his novels.” Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
“Watching Candy Mountain, we’re lulled into a mood of uncertain but pleasurable anticipation. It’s the kind of sensation that comes from not quite knowing where you are, or where you’ll wind up next, like driving through unfamiliar territory without a map. This isn’t an experience that we encounter much at the movies these days, and that’s not meant as a criticism; it’s high praise.” Hal Hinson, Washington Post
BOOM! A Film About the Sonics
- Saturday, Nov 23, 2024, 4:30pm
- Saturday, Nov 30, 2024, 4:30pm
BOOM chronicles one of rock ‘n’ roll’s wildest and most influential bands: The Sonics. For the first time ever, all five original members explore how a relatively unknown band from the Pacific Northwest became a worldwide phenomenon 50 years later, shaping music for decades to come. Featuring interviews with homegrown heroes and breakthrough artists alike, including Pearl Jam, The Sex Pistols, Heart, Mudhoney, and many, many more.
Filmmaker Jordan Albertsen scheduled to be in attendance for a live Q&A at the Nov 23rd showing!
“Brilliantly displays why The Sonics are so important. It’s clear that this film will further cement the legacy of one of the greatest rock and roll bands of all time.” Glen Casebeer, Northwest Music Scene
“The spirit of BOOM is as righteous and undeniable as Gerry Roslie’s howl.” Dave Segal, The Stranger
Placebo: This Search For Meaning
- Saturday, Nov 23, 2024, 7:15pm
- Sunday, Dec 1, 2024, 5:00pm
THIS SEARCH FOR MEANING charts Placebo’s ongoing impact and legacy through a visual meditation on contemporary themes such as surveillance culture & scrutiny, sexuality & gender identity, addiction & trauma, as well as the climate crisis. These significant and weighty themes are explored in both an informal and personally authored manner through brand new interviews with band members Brian Molko and Stefan Olsdal.
The film’s overall narrative is structured around incredible and completely new performances of Placebo’s latest songs, captured at Britain’s legendary Twickenham Film Studios. The documentary also features rare archive interviews with David Bowie, along with exclusive interviews with Yungblud, Shirley Manson, Joe Talbot of Idles, Robbie Williams and others.
VHS Uber Alles Nov 2024
- Saturday, Nov 23, 2024, 9:30pm
A ragged band of survivors of a nuclear holocaust (led by the awesomely-named DACK RAMBO) fights for survival against evil villain Bishop who is imprisoning radiation scarred survivors (“muties”) from fallout in his zirconium mines. Or Something Like That? A true Corman-copia holiday feast, this movie blends together extensive stock footage, endless scraps of other movies, and then sprinkles on probably 10 minutes of original footage shot in Peru to bake-off the most epic SciFi Post-Apocalyptic Action-Adventure movie you’ve never seen!
“A mix between George Miller’s The Road Warrior and countless other sci-fi B-movies, with a heaping helping of stock footage.” ScreenAnarchy.com
“I don’t remember how many films I borrowed footage from … maybe 25? It was a lot. And for all my hard work and sins against cinema, I was awarded a co-directing credit.” Kevin Tent
Never released on DVD! Only on VHS! Only $3!
Ojibwe Star Wars
- Sunday, Nov 24, 2024, 7:15pm
Free screening in honor of Native American Heritage Month!
See the brand new Ojibwe dub of STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE. Produced in collaboration between Lucasfilm, the University of Manitoba and the Dakota Ojibway Tribal Council, a group of Manitoba First Nations. In Ojibwe with English subtitles (obviously!).
PLEASE NOTE: This is the "Special Edition" of STAR WARS with the added scenes and CGI.
Screenings are co-presented with Mother Nation and we ask that you support them with a donation this month. You can donate directly to them at their website or in-person at these screenings.
Free ticket reservations will begin one week prior to the film’s showtime. They will help us manage demand and guarantee you a seat, but it is not required.
Part of our Native American Heritage Month series of free screenings. Funding for this screening provided by 4Culture’s Sustained Support grant.
Coming Soon
Hippo
- Friday, Nov 29, 2024, 7:00pm
- Saturday, Nov 30, 2024, 2:00pm
- Sunday, Dec 1, 2024, 7:15pm
- Monday, Dec 2, 2024, 9:15pm
- Tuesday, Dec 3, 2024, 7:00pm
- Wednesday, Dec 4, 2024, 9:15pm
HIPPO examines the coming-of-age of two step-siblings: Hippo (Kimball Farley), a video-game addicted teenager, and Buttercup (Lilla Kizlinger), a Hungarian Catholic immigrant with a love of classical music and Jesus. Like the Ancient Greek Aphrodite, Buttercup’s love is unrequited by a brother who prefers to indulge the art of war and chaos. The result is a hormone-fueled, tragicomic waking nightmare that must be seen to be believed. Executive produced by David Gordon Green, Danny McBride, and Jody Hill.
“[Director] Rapaport plays with topics that would make even the most hardened film fan blush… It’s a mind f**k of a movie, filled with uncomfortable laughs, ludicrous characters, and if that wasn’t enough, it is topped off with a soupçon of narration from the one and only Eric Roberts. Hippo is America’s answer to Dogtooth, and it’s wonderful.” J Hurtado, ScreenAnarchy
“A transfixing oddity… not afraid to push buttons of weirdness.” Nick Allen, RogerEbert.com
“Hippo’s strange and dark humor is quintessential viewing and a wonderful reminder of why we all got into indie filmmaking in the first place… a brilliant feature debut.” David Gordon Green
Female Trouble in 35mm
- Friday, Nov 29, 2024, 9:30pm
- Sunday, Dec 1, 2024, 2:30pm
- Monday, Dec 2, 2024, 7:00pm
- Tuesday, Dec 3, 2024, 9:30pm
- Wednesday, Dec 4, 2024, 7:00pm
50th anniversary!
Glamour has never been more grotesque than in FEMALE TROUBLE, which injects the Hollywood melodrama with anarchic decadence. Divine, director John Waters’ larger-than-life muse, engulfs the screen with charisma as Dawn Davenport, the living embodiment of the film’s lurid mantra, “Crime is beauty,” who progresses from a teenage nightmare hell-bent on getting cha-cha heels for Christmas to a fame monster whose egomaniacal impulses land her in the electric chair. Shot in Waters’ native Baltimore on 16 mm, with a cast drawn from his beloved troupe of regulars, the Dreamlanders (including Mink Stole, David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, Edith Massey, and Cookie Mueller), this film—the director’s favorite of his work with Divine—comes to life through the tinsel-toned vision of production designer Vincent Peranio and costume designer/makeup artist Van Smith. An endlessly quotable fan favorite, FEMALE TROUBLE offers up perverse pleasures that never fail to satisfy.
Part of our 20th Anniversary Celebration Series!
“Waters smashes the bowdlerizing codes of Hollywood morality with self-consciously delirious parodies of classic Hollywood genres and tropes; the resulting feast of sex, violence, cruelty, and frivolity mocks sentimental notions of family, work, and love, and turns the egomaniacal furies of pop culture inside out.” Richard Brody, The New Yorker
“John Waters’ trashterpiece is just as hilarious today as it was 50 years ago. Just bring your pearls with you in case you need to clutch them.” Trace Thurman, Horror Queens Podcast
Heavy Trip and Heavier Trip double feature
- Saturday, Nov 30, 2024, 7:00pm
In the offbeat comedy from Finland, HEAVY TRIP, Turo is stuck in a small village where the best thing in his life is being the lead vocalist for the amateur metal band Impaled Rektum. The only problem? He and his bandmates have practiced for 12 years without playing a single gig. But when the guys get a surprise visitor from Norway—the promoter for a huge heavy metal music festival—they decide it’s now or never, so they steal a van, a corpse, and even a new drummer in order to make their dreams a reality.
Then, in HEAVIER TRIP, the world’s most ferocious death metal band, Impaled Rektum, is back and ready to unleash hell! Shackled by fate and locked up in a Norwegian prison, the band discovers their lead guitarist’s family reindeer slaughterhouse faces a financial storm. Turo, Lotvonen, Xytrax, and Oula hatch a daring escape plan to help. Desperate for the money, and the chance to perform at the ultimate battleground for metal warriors, Impaled Rektum takes a journey through northern Europe to the legendary Wacken music festival. But hot on their trail is a vengeful prison guard, thirsting for revenge, and a sketchy record label executive, weaving lies that could shatter their dreams and worse, compromise the integrity of the band. Amidst the chaos, the band must forge a bond stronger than the darkest riffs – forging alliances with the most unexpected compatriots, including an epic cameo from the Japanese Kawaii-metal band, BABYMETAL. Only the raw power of metal can determine their fate!
In English and Finnish with English subtitles.
“[Heavy Trip] achieves the status of bonafide crowd-pleaser, for a crowd that isn’t normally acknowledged with such detail and warmth.” Nick Allen, RogerEbert.com
“Audiences returning for another tour with Impaled Rektum won’t be disappointed… Heavier Trip is another gift to metalheads that has me hungry for a third.” Matthew Donato, Collider
Hundreds of Beavers
- Saturday, Jun 1, 2024, 8:30pm
- Saturday, Jul 13, 2024, 8:30pm
- Saturday, Aug 10, 2024, 8:30pm
- Saturday, Sep 7, 2024, 6:15pm
- Sunday, Oct 20, 2024, 8:00pm
- Tuesday, Nov 12, 2024, 7:15pm
- Thursday, Dec 5, 2024, 7:15pm
- Sunday, Dec 8, 2024, 6:00pm
HAPPY GNAWLIDAYS! - 7th, 8th, and 9th encore screenings added!
In this 19th century, supernatural winter epic, a drunken applejack salesman must go from zero to hero and become North America’s greatest fur trapper by defeating hundreds of beavers.
Created by Mike Cheslik and Ryland Brickson Cole Tews, the duo behind the modern cult hit LAKE MICHIGAN MONSTER (2018).
“Starts strange, gets stranger, and yet remains resolutely adorable… embraces the defiant glee of art cinema and distills it into something so thoroughly pure and sincere that it is surely hard not to fall in love with it.” Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Alliance of Women Film Journalists
“It’s sure to develop a significant cult following with its unique mix of silent-era slapstick, animation elements, theme-park-style critter costumes, and general air of inspired absurdity.” Dennis Harvey, Variety
“Steroidally swollen with gags and smarts.” Guy Maddin
It’s a Wonderful Life
- Friday, Dec 6, 2024, 6:45pm
- Saturday, Dec 7, 2024, 4:00pm
- Sunday, Dec 8, 2024, 3:00pm
- Monday, Dec 9, 2024, 7:00pm
- Friday, Dec 13, 2024, 7:00pm
- Saturday, Dec 14, 2024, 3:30pm
- Saturday, Dec 14, 2024, 6:30pm
- Sunday, Dec 15, 2024, 4:00pm
- Sunday, Dec 15, 2024, 7:00pm
- Monday, Dec 16, 2024, 7:00pm
- Tuesday, Dec 17, 2024, 7:00pm
- Wednesday, Dec 18, 2024, 7:00pm
- Thursday, Dec 19, 2024, 7:00pm
- Friday, Dec 20, 2024, 7:00pm
- Saturday, Dec 21, 2024, 3:30pm
- Saturday, Dec 21, 2024, 6:30pm
- Sunday, Dec 22, 2024, 4:00pm
- Sunday, Dec 22, 2024, 7:00pm
- Monday, Dec 23, 2024, 7:00pm
- Thursday, Dec 26, 2024, 7:00pm
This cinema’s 54th consecutive engagement on 35mm film! (But please know that a few showings may be digitally projected due to staffing). Please join us for what will be your last opportunity to see this holiday classic at our current location. And donate to our relocation fund so we can continue this Seattle tradition in a new location!
“It’s a great — really great — film, so densely well made that to watch any three minutes is to realize how paltry the vast majority of movies are by comparison.” Richard T. Jameson
“The epiphany of movie sentiment and a transcendent experience.” Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day showtimes are TBD and will be added soon.
**ADVANCE TICKETS RECOMMENDED**
Please note: As of this time, all screenings will be on 35mm except those listed below, which will be projected digitally and will still look fabulous! Digital showings are subject to change to 35mm depending on 35mm-trained projectionist availability.
- Sunday, December 8 – 3pm
- Saturday, December 14 – 3:30pm
- Saturday, December 21 – 3:30pm
- Sunday, December 22 – 4pm
Silent Night, Deadly Night
- Friday, Dec 6, 2024, 9:30pm
- Sunday, Dec 8, 2024, 8:30pm
Santa Claus is coming to town... and this time he’s got an axe! Community leaders tried to stop it. The P.T.A. fought to ban it. Now, one of the most controversial slasher films of all time is back for its 40th anniversary, restored from the original camera negative. SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT is the demented story of little Billy Chapman, traumatized by his parents’ Christmas Eve murder and then brutalized by sadistic nuns in an orphanage. When Billy grows up and dresses as Santa, he goes on a yuletide rampage to punish the naughty with extreme prejudice. Robert Brian Wilson and Linnea Quigley (NIGHT OF THE DEMONS) star in this harrowing horror classic that continues to ruffle the feathers of angry parents and stuffy critics forty years later.
Part of our 20th Anniversary Celebration Series!
“Buried beneath the blood-soaked Santa suit, Silent Night, Deadly Night has something a lot of slasher films lack – a unique identity, and thus cult film status.” Matthew Rozsa, Salon.com
“I would like to hear the filmmakers explain to their children and their grandchildren that it’s only a movie.” Roger Ebert
The Third Man – 4K Restoration
- Saturday, Dec 7, 2024, 7:00pm
75th anniversary! Join us for this special fundraiser screening of Carol Reed's THE THIRD MAN. We need your help to build an even grander Grand Illusion and the proceeds from your $25 ticket purchase will go towards our relocation. Plus you get to see one of the greatest films of all time restored in 4K!
Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten), a writer of pulp Westerns, arrives in a bombed-out, post-war Vienna at the invitation of his childhood friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles) only to find him dead. Martins develops the ultimate conspiracy theory after learning of a “third man” present at the time of Harry’s death, butting up against interference from British police officer Major Calloway (Trevor Howard), and falling head-over-heels for Harry’s grief-stricken lover Anna (Alida Valli).
Part of our 20th Anniversary Celebration Series!
“The best revelation in all of cinema.” Martin Scorsese
“Exquisite! Encapsulates all the reasons we go to the movies!” Stephanie Zacharek, The Village Voice
“I’ve seen it 50 times and it’s still magic.” Roger Ebert
Black Christmas
- Saturday, Dec 7, 2024, 9:30pm
- Tuesday, Dec 10, 2024, 7:30pm
50th anniversary!
Years before he crafted the ultimate comedic yuletime experience, A CHRISTMAS STORY, genre pioneer Bob Clark gave us one of the most influential Hitchcockian slashers of all time. When sorority sisters Olivia Hussey (ROMEO & JULIET), Margot Kidder (SUPERMAN) and Andrea Martin (SCTV) are under attack from a vicious, obscene killer, it’s up to police chief John Saxon (A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET) to even the odds. But what about Keir Dullea (2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY), the brooding art-school pianist? Could he have something to do with the Christmas rampage? One part frosty Christmas atmosphere, one part stalk ‘n’ slash magnificence, and all parts awesome, BLACK CHRISTMAS is a timeless, terrifying, and demented holiday tradition that gets everything right.
Part of our 20th Anniversary Celebration Series!
“Bob Clark’s Black Christmas is a masterful exercise in tension. That it happens to be one of the most progressive horror films of the ’70s is just an added bonus.” Trace Thurman, Horror Queers Podcast
“There’s no doubting that Black Christmas had all the advantages of being first of its kind. The film stands as the mother of the modern slasher. It was able to make its own rules, and subsequently created a template for the films that came after.” Jourdain Searles, Thrillist
AXCN: BABYMETAL Legend – 43 The Movie
- Wednesday, Dec 11, 2024, 7:00pm
Anime Expo Cinema Nights (AXCN) presents a special concert film of the band BABYMETAL with their worldwide tour Legend - 43. In April 2023, SU-METAL (Vocal, Dance), MOAMETAL (Scream, Dance), and MOMOMETAL (Scream, Dance) entered a new stage as the newly born BABYMETAL. Since then, they have embarked on their largest world tour, "BABYMETAL WORLD TOUR 2023 - 2024," which took them to 25 countries, including Japan. The headline tour, excluding festivals and guest acts, drew a cumulative audience of more than 280,000 people for a total of 98 performances. The final chapter of the world tour, the first Okinawa performance "TOUR FINAL IN JAPAN LEGEND - 43", has been fully filmed. The film is BABYMETAL's first live film that allows viewers to experience all of the diverse music, unique worldview, and production that only a tour finale can offer, and the overwhelming performance of BABYMETAL, which has evolved even further during their world tour.
“With just over 80 minutes onstage, the band fly through each song with a sense of unstoppable energy and infectious joy that leaves no question as to how they’ve managed to take pride of place as one of the biggest success stories of 21st Century metal.” Rich Hobson, Metal Hammer
The Speakeasy Show in 16mm by Astral Projections
- Thursday, Dec 12, 2024, 7:30pm
Calling all bims and brunos! Astral Projections visits from Portland, OR to open a 16mm Speakeasy right here at the Grand Illusion. Drawing from the legendary archive of Dennis Nyback, they'll whisk you back to a 1920s smoky cocktail lounge, where the waiters, entertainers, and even your food wear roller skates. Garrett Schroeder and Ioana Cherascu have cooked up a hotsy-totsy rumpus of shorts featuring animation, sing-alongs, and stories from nearly a century ago. You'll be wooed by crooners, wowed by jazz, and awed by death-defying daredevils! So hop in your steamer and come on down to a time of ecstasy and excess, of sorrow and blues. More fun than a zozzled rub in a breezer – it's the beginning of life as we know it.
Phantom of the Paradise
- Saturday, Dec 28, 2024, 6:00pm
50th anniversary! Join us for this special screening of Brian De Palma's cult classic rock musical. For $25 you get to see an amazing movie and help us relocate.
A disfigured composer (William Finley, SISTERS) sells his soul for the woman (Jessica Harper) he loves so that she will perform his music. However, an evil record tycoon (Paul Williams) betrays him and steals his music to open his rock palace, The Paradise.
This screening is generously sponsored by Stephanie Kurtz Mascis, an employee of the Grand Illusion during its 80s incarnation.
Part of our 20th Anniversary Celebration Series!
“A crazy, savage film — iconoclastic and truly liberating.” Richard Schickel, Time Magazine
“The film is a one-of-a-kind entertainment, with a kinetic, breakneck wit.” Pauline Kael, The New Yorker