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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!

Now Playing

It’s a Wonderful Life

Frank Capra · 1946
130min · 35mm
  • 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
  • Tuesday, Dec 24, 2024, 1:00pm
  • Tuesday, Dec 24, 2024, 4:00pm
  • Wednesday, Dec 25, 2024, 2:00pm
  • 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

**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.

  • Saturday, December 7 – 4pm
  • Saturday, December 14 – 3:30pm
  • Saturday, December 21 – 3:30pm
  • Sunday, December 22 – 4pm

The Third Man – 4K Restoration

Carol Reed · 1949
104min · 4K DCP
  • 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

Bob Clark · 1974
98min · 4K DCP
  • 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.

A very limited number of arthouse-cinema-exclusive green variant, silkscreen printed 18″ x 24″ posters featuring new artwork by Phantom City Creative (pictured) will be for sale, courtesy of AGFA in partnership with Mutant. Please note that the posters will be for sale only while supplies last, so if they sell out at the first screening, they won’t be available at the second.

Both screenings will be introduced by AGFA’s Executive Director, Jackson Cooper!

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

Hundreds of Beavers

Mike Cheslik · 2024
108min · DCP
  • 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!

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

Silent Night, Deadly Night

Charles E. Sellier Jr. · 1984
79min · DCP
  • 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

AXCN: BABYMETAL Legend – 43 The Movie

Hiroya Brian Nakano · 2024
85min · DCP
  • 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

Various directors and years
120min · 16mm
  • 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.

Co-presented by The Sprocket Society.

Coming Soon

Oh, Canada

Paul Schrader · 2024
95min · DCP
  • Saturday, Dec 14, 2024, 1:00pm
  • Sunday, Dec 15, 2024, 1:30pm
  • Saturday, Dec 21, 2024, 1:00pm
  • Sunday, Dec 22, 2024, 1:30pm

Aging filmmaker Leonard Fife (Richard Gere), still fiery despite his battle with illness, wants to tell his life story, unfiltered, before it’s too late. As the director of acclaimed documentary exposés, he has much to be proud of, but his Vietnam War draft-dodging and his past relationships harbor thorny truths. Leonard sits for an extended interview with his former student Malcolm (Michael Imperioli), relating candid stories about his younger self (Jacob Elordi) in the tumultuous 1960s and beyond. At Leonard’s insistence, his wife and indispensable artistic partner, Emma (Uma Thurman), bears witness to it all. His successes are held up against his failings and, as the man is cleansed of the myth, Leonard must confront what is left.

Paul Schrader’s adaptation of Russell Banks’s novel sees him reunited with Gere more than 40 years after AMERICAN GIGOLO, and together they deliver a moving and deeply personal take on this story of an artist reflecting on a lifetime of storytelling. Named one of the ten best movies of the year by Richard Brody of The New Yorker.

“Schrader bravely forsakes the narrative fastidiousness of his recent work and takes on grand themes of memory, mortality, and artistic self-reckoning, to formally ragged but sincerely moving effect.” Justin Chang, The New Yorker

“There’s much to like here, particularly in Gere’s vulnerable performance and just how openly Schrader is expressing what feels like his own concerns about aging, regret, and reputation.” Brian Tallerico, RogerEbert.com

“Gere gives his best performance in years, evoking Philip Baker Hall in the similarly confessional Secret Honor, at once defiant, uncertain and just the slightest bit frightened.” Hannah Strong, Little White Lies

VHS Uber Alles Dec 2024

1989
89min · VHS
  • Saturday, Dec 14, 2024, 9:30pm
  • Saturday, Dec 21, 2024, 9:30pm

Three rad and witchy 80s teen girls botch their anti-Christmas candle ritual in the woods, awakening a long-dormant bloodthirsty elf. The Elf kicks off his murderous rampage by stomping on over to the local mall to kill Santa. Coincidentally, our three ladies are having an after-hours sexy sleepover party that night… The bloodbath continues!

“Twas the night before Christmas, And all through the town, Blood-thirsty Elves are about to get down!” –Actual VHS Box Quote

NEVER RELEASED ON DVD! ONLY $3! ONLY ON VHS!

Anora in 35mm

Sean Baker · 2024
139min · 35mm
  • Friday, Dec 27, 2024, 7:00pm
  • Saturday, Dec 28, 2024, 2:30pm
  • Sunday, Dec 29, 2024, 4:00pm
  • Sunday, Dec 29, 2024, 7:00pm
  • Monday, Dec 30, 2024, 7:00pm
  • Tuesday, Dec 31, 2024, 3:00pm
  • Wednesday, Jan 1, 2025, 4:00pm
  • Wednesday, Jan 1, 2025, 7:00pm
  • Thursday, Jan 2, 2025, 7:00pm

Sean Baker's Palme d'Or winner ANORA is an audacious, thrilling, and comedic variation on a modern day Cinderella story. Mikey Madison captivates as Ani, a young sex worker from Brooklyn whose life takes an unexpected turn when she meets and impulsively marries Vanya, the impetuous son of a Russian billionaire. However, when Vanya's parents catch wind of the union, they send their henchmen to annul the marriage, setting off a wild chase through the streets of New York.

CRITIC’S PICK! “Sometimes a movie actually earns the old cliché of a ‘star-making turn,’ and I’m here to say that Sean Baker’s Anora is this year’s star maker.” Alissa Wilkinson, New York Times

“At once a frenzied fairy tale and a tender-hearted character study, Anora is an intoxicating pairing of director and star. Baker’s unique, humanistic approach to filmmaking is as riveting and rewarding as ever.” Beth Webb, Empire Magazine

“At this point in his career, Baker has cultivated his own style of breathless, relentlessly pressurized urban realism, and Anora is as assured a piece of filmmaking as you’re likely to see this year.” Adam Nayman, The Ringer

Phantom of the Paradise

Brian De Palma · 1974
92min · DCP
  • 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

Living Pictures: The Birth of Cinema

Various Directors · 1894-1901
90min · 16mm
  • Saturday, Dec 28, 2024, 8:30pm

On Dec. 28, 1895, in the basement of a Paris café, 33 people witnessed moving photographs projected onto a screen — the birth of cinema as we know it. Exactly 129 years after this legendary event, The Sprocket Society presents a very special program celebrating the origins and earliest evolution of motion pictures from 1894-1901.

In the style of the time, Spencer Sundell will give live narration and an illuminated lecture, providing fascinating history and anecdotes about these remarkable films and their creators.

Travel back in time to the 19th century. Walk the streets of Paris, New York, and even Gold Rush-era Seattle. Witness historic events and simple moments of ordinary life.

Selections include Edison Kinetoscopes, Lumière actualities, early films by Georges Méliès, loops by Max Skladanowaky, and more. Examples of pre-cinema and the earliest movie storytelling will also be shown. As befitting the occasion, all will be screened from rare 16mm film prints.