The Queen's Film Society upcoming events

FILM AS ART: Wild Strawberries (Ingmar Bergman, 1957) (8 Sep 2026)

Wed, 09 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Wild Strawberries (Ingmar Bergman, Sweden 1957, 92 min.)

Traveling to accept an honorary degree, Professor Isak Borg—masterfully played by veteran director Victor Sjöström—is forced to face his past, come to terms with his faults, and make peace with the inevitability of his approaching death. Through flashbacks and fantasies, dreams and nightmares, Wild Strawberries dramatizes one man’s remarkable voyage of self-discovery. This richly humane masterpiece, full of iconic imagery that evokes artists including Salvador Dalí, Edvard Munch, and William Hogarth, is a treasure from the golden age of art-house cinema and one of the films that catapulted Ingmar Bergman to international acclaim.

Reviews:

“One of Bergman's warmest, and therefore finest films.”

--Time Out

“A richly rewarding expedition into the labyrinth of the soul... A gem.”

--Newsweek

“One of the truly outstanding works of post-war European cinema.”

--BBC

“A film to cherish. A masterpiece. Ingmar Bergman is able to vary the tone from melancholy to gaiety in the most deeply satisfying way.”

--The Guardian

Trailer

FILM AS ART: Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro, Mexico/Spain 2006) (15 Sep 2026)

Wed, 16 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro, Mexico/Spain 2006, 118 min.)

20th Anniversary!

In this spellbinding fantasy, a small family in Spain moves into an old house in 1943 after the rise of Fascism. Their eldest daughter, at age 12, falls in love with a fawn that lives in the old ruined labyrinth behind their decrepit home. Pan's Labyrinth's Oscar-winning art direction and cinematography evoke the hypnotic, sometimes disturbing art of Arthur Rackham, Félicien Rops, and, in one horrifying moment, Francisco Goya.

Reviews:

"Guillermo del Toro has crafted a masterpiece, a terrifying, visually wondrous fairy tale for adults that blends fantasy and gloomy drama into one of the most magical films to come along in years."

--Associated Press

“So breathtaking in its artistic ambition, so technically accomplished, so morally expansive, so fully realized that it defies the usual critical blather. See it, and celebrate that rare occasion when a director has the audacity to commit cinema.”

--Washington Post

"One of the finest modern fantasies to date."

--Arizona Republic

Rated R for graphic violence and some language.

Trailer

FILM AS ART: Mamma Roma (Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italy 1962) (22 Sep 2026)

Wed, 23 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Mamma Roma (Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italy 1962, 110 min.)

Anna Magnani is Mamma Roma, a middle-aged sex worker who attempts to extricate herself from her sordid past for the sake of her son. Filmed in the great tradition of Italian neorealism, Mamma Roma offers an unflinching look at the struggle for survival in postwar Italy and highlights director Pier Paolo Pasolini’s lifelong fascination with the marginalized and dispossessed. Facing a firestorm of controversy upon its release in Italy (a pimp's wedding banquet is composed to resemble The Last Supper), Mamma Roma is recognized now as a classic. It features a powerhouse performance by one of cinema’s greatest actresses and a roughhewn aesthetic that manages to organically incorporate the sensibilities of master artists including Leonardo, Caravaggio, Masaccio and, even though Pasolini denied it for some reason, Andrea Mantegna’s stunning Lamentation of Christ (1480) during the film's heartbreaking conclusion.

Reviews:

“Extraordinarily moving… A cry of social protest.”

--Sight and Sound

"[Writer/Director] Pasolini's verbal skills are more than matched by visual ones. He always had a knack for making the faces of his impoverished subjects look like angels in a canvas by Caravaggio."

--The Baltimore Sun

“As the titular, tragic prostitute, Anna Magnani executed one of the great roles of her career.”

--Slant

"A chorale of longing, a scream of pain... a neglected classic."

--The Chicago Tribune

"Heartbreaking and powerful thanks to Magnani's devastating performance... [She] is a force of nature on the screen."

--Paper Magazine

"The least known of Pier Paolo Pasolini's features in this country also happens to be one of his very best. Pasolini’s final image of blighted urban wasteland, a vacant lot surrounded by grimy buildings and a church…, reverberate[s] like an El Greco. Not to be missed.”

--Chicago Reader

Trailer

FILM AS ART (101 Variant): Liquid Sky (Slava Tsukerman, US 1982) (24 Sep 2026)

Fri, 25 Sep 2026 01:00:00 GMT

Liquid Sky (Slava Tsukerman, US 1982, 112 min.)

Margaret (Anne Carlisle) is a fashion model with dreams of stardom, whose alter ego and rival, Jimmy (also Carlisle), abuses and takes advantage of her to satisfy his rampant drug addiction. Unknown to them, tiny, invisible aliens have landed on the roof above the squalor in which they live and begin killing anyone Margaret has sex with to feed on their pleasure giving neurotransmitters. All the while, a German scientist attempts to capture and study them.

Liquid Sky has been hailed as an underground masterpiece of avant-garde science fiction filmmaking set against the visual majesty of New York's early 80s New Wave scene, filled with arresting cinematography by Yuri Neyman and electrified by an acclaimed original soundtrack.

Features the hit single "Me & My Rhythm Box"

Reviews:

“There’s never been a better evocation of the so-called punk/New Wave ethic or a more concise explanation of what it’s all about—part rebellion against middle-class values, part thrill-seeking, and part aesthetic imperative that demands that every waking moment be lived as art.”

--Robert W. Butler, The Kansas City Star

“The funniest, craziest, dirtiest, most perversely beautiful science-fiction movie ever made.”

--David Denby, New York Magazine

“Fascinatingly repellent, technically dazzling!”

--Harper Barnes, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“Genuinely startling! The right audiences are bound to appreciate the originality, the color, rage, nonchalance, sly humor, and ferocious fashion sense.”

--Janet Maslin, New York Times

“Dazzling, shocking, funny and disturbing… If Matisse and Carl Orff had lived in the electronic/space age, they might have produced the kind of magical sight and sound that makes the $400,000 production look like a million bucks.”

--Judy Stone, San Francisco Chronicle

“Much of the film’s meaning and power exist because [director Slava] Tsukerman and [director of photography Yuri] Neyman realize the story in a cinematography of loving brilliance and transforming vision. The skies and skyscrapers of New York, indeed the whole cityscape, are photographed in rapturous colors: gorgeous lavenders, purples, golds and oranges. As one character explains, enthralled by a rooftop view, ‘what a city!’ … Liquid Sky has the force, I believe, of Godard’s Breathless.”

--John M. Gourlie, Film Quarterly

Rated R for sex, nudity, drug use, language, and a scene of sexual violence.

Free and un-ticketed.

Trailer

FILM AS ART: Bedlam (Mark Robson, US 1946) (29 Sep 2026)

Wed, 30 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Bedlam (Mark Robson, US 1946, 79 min.)

In 1760s London, an actress campaigns to reform a horrific hospital for the insane, but instead finds herself committed to the institution by the corrupt head of the asylum. The final thriller from the Val Lewton production unit at RKO Studios, which gave us Cat People, Isle of the Dead and I Walked with a Zombie, Bedlam is one of the only films to have acknowledged not a novel, play or short story as the source material, but a visual image. The credit reads: "Suggested by The William Hogarth painting 'Bedlam' Plate #8 The Rake's Progress." It's also based, loosely, on a true story.

Reviews:

"A smash surprise climax! Karloff gives a brilliant portrayal."

--The Record American

"Far above the usual level of 'horror' films."

--The Daily Worker

“Several cuts above the average run of so-called horror films… As the sadistic chief warden of Bedlam, Boris Karloff is completely at home and is his usual sinister self.

--The New York Times

“Its tale of the celebrated 18th century madhouse is both intelligently written and admirably acted… Few Hollywood films ever had such ambition.”

--Time Out

"Well done! Excellent acting by Karloff!"

--South Bend Tribune

"It will shock you... Well above the average period movie."

--The Toronto Star

“Creepy, atmospheric, yet underrated Val Lewton thriller.”

--San Francisco Examiner

Clip

FILM AS ART: Sinners (Ryan Coogler, US 2025) A Members/PVFA College Community Only Event (30 Sep 2026)

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Sinners (Ryan Coogler, US 2025, 137 min.)

A QFS members/A&M College of Performance, Visualization & Fine Arts Community only event.

Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers (both played by Michael B. Jordan in an Oscar winning performance) return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back.

A short lecture by art historian Kris Belden-Adams will precede the screening.

Reviews

"Ryan Coogler’s Sinners is a big-screen exultation — a passionate, effusive praise song about life and love, including the love of movies.

--The New York Times

“Both a wildly ambitious meditation on American history and a rip-roaring good time."

--Slate

"An awe-inspiring ode to what music means to communities and cultures."

--Chicago Reader

Rated R for strong bloody violence, sexual content and language.

Trailer