IU Cinema celebrates sequels, new and classic horror, filmmaker Kevin Willmott, more this fall

Among many other films to be featured this fall, IU Cinema will screen "Love Lies Bleeding,” a scorching neo-noir film starring Kristen Stewart and IU alumna Katy O'Brian. Photo courtesy of IU Cinema

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Beginning with a free open house Aug 22, Indiana University Cinema’s fall season will offer a 3D presentation of “Mad Max: Fury Road”; a 35th anniversary screening of Tim Burton’s “Batman,” with producer and IU alumnus Michael Uslan in attendance; a monthlong tribute to Hollywood icon Cary Grant; returning series like Art and a Movie, CINEkids and Michael A. McRobbie’s Choice; and so much more.

In partnership with the IU Black Film Center & Archive, the cinema will welcome Oscar-winning filmmaker Kevin Willmott to campus for an onstage conversation. Willmott’s visit will be part of the Jorgensen Guest Filmmaker Series. Screenings will include “The 24th,” co-written and directed by Willmott, and “BlacKkKlansman,” which he co-wrote with director Spike Lee and others. A screenwriter, director and producer, Willmott critically examines America’s racial history through many genres, representing characters and subjects generally avoided by mainstream film.

Acknowledging the impact of the radical film collective known as Newsreel, the cinema will welcome filmmakers, scholars and activists Giulia Gabrielli and Matt Peterson, who are creating an oral history of the collective. Gabrielli and Peterson’s visit will include a program of Newsreel shorts and a discussion of the collective’s legacy as part of the series Newsreel: A Polyphonic History of 1968.

Recognizing recent art house and independent releases from North, Central and South America, New Americas Cinema will showcase:

• “Love Lies Bleeding,” a scorching neo-noir film starring Kristen Stewart and IU alumna Katy O’Brian.
• “The Eternal Memory,” Chile’s life-affirming 2024 Oscar nominee for Best Documentary Feature.
• “I Saw the TV Glow,” the iconoclastic festival favorite that critics raved about this year.
• A new 4K restoration of Glauber Rocha’s searing “Black God, White Devil.”
• “Sujo,” a Mexican coming-of-age tale about a son’s reckoning with his father’s violent legacy.

“His Girl Friday” is one of several acclaimed films starring Cary Grant to be featured at IU Cinema this fall. Photo courtesy of IU Cinema

The series Everyone Wants to Be Cary Grant will include:

• “His Girl Friday,” the beloved rom-com where the legendary actor creates chaos to win back his ex-wife.
• “To Catch a Thief,” Alfred Hitchcock’s classic about tracking down a cat burglar.
• “Charade,” a caper starring Grant alongside Audrey Hepburn.
• “Bringing Up Baby,” the definitive screwball comedy with Grant and Katharine Hepburn.

IU Cinema’s lower lobby display will be dedicated to Grant, featuring items from the Lilly Library.

For all the horror fans out there, Friday Night Frights presents:

• The supernatural chiller “The Others” with Nicole Kidman.
• “The Brood” from body-horror master David Cronenberg.
• John Carpenter’s “In the Mouth of Madness,” followed by a live taping of the “Weird Studies” podcast.
• One of the scariest flicks of 2024, “Oddity.”
• Zombie classic “Train to Busan.”
• The Found Footage Freakout Double Feature on Halloween, with this year’s unnerving “Late Night With the Devil” and a 25th-anniversary screening of “The Blair Witch Project.”

Tim Burton's "The Nightmare Before Christmas" will screen as part of a holiday double feature at IU Cinema this fall. Photo courtesy of IU Cinema

Representing the long and evolving history of queerness and film, the series Q+ will focus on the theme “Queer Resistance: Be Gay, Do Crimes” this semester. Highlighting the inherent linkage between the freedom in queerness and in a life outside the law, films will include the cult camp classic “Death Becomes Her” with Goldie Hawn and former IU Cinema guest Meryl Streep, the Wachowskis’ steamy noir “Bound” and Park Chan-wook’s thrillingly complex “The Handmaiden.”

Additional upcoming programs at IU Cinema include:

• Sequelibrium, a series celebrating some of the cinema’s favorite stories that have been told on the other side of “to be continued,” such as the irresistible “Paddington 2,” a 50th-anniversary screening of “The Godfather Part II” and the iconic “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.”
• “L’Inferno,” which has been called cinema’s first feature-length horror film. The film will be accompanied by indie chamber music group Montopolis.
• L.A. Scams Itself, a four-film series about the complicated truths of one of America’s most mythologized cities, with acclaimed detective yarns like “L.A. Confidential” and “The Nice Guys.”
• The world premiere of a new score for the Gloria Swanson romantic melodrama “Queen Kelly,” part of the Jon Vickers Scoring Award.
• A special holiday double feature of yuletide staples “Carol” and “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”

For full information and film listings and to download IU Cinema’s calendar, visit the IU Cinema website and follow @iucinema on Instagram, X and Facebook.