The Queen's Film Society upcoming events

AUGUST Members' Meeting at 1000 Shady Drive (18 Aug 2026)

Wed, 19 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Queen's Film Society Late Summer Soirée

(AKA Monthly Members' Meeting)

Help choose the Next Three Queen Members' Pick'd Flicks and enjoy an epic round of movie trivia, with prizes, at a special location: 1600 Shady Dr, in College Station.

We'll have wine, cheese, sweat snacks and more. Send in five film selections, by Monday at midnight, that you think should be shown at the Queen in October, November, and December to: thequeensfilmsociety@gmail.com

We'll be discussing those movies at the meeting. It will also just function as a party, so we hope to see you there.

Pieces AKA: A Thousand Cries in the Night (Juan Piquer Simón, Spain 1982) (27 Aug 2026)

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 01:00:00 GMT

Pieces [Mil gritos tiene la noche] AKA: A Thousand Cries in the Night, AKA: Chainsaw Devil (Juan Piquer Simón, Spain 1982, 85 min.)

Equal parts slasher, giallo, police procedural, campus thriller, and outright fever dream, Pieces barrels from one jaw-dropping scene to the next with complete confidence that nothing needs to make sense as long as it's entertaining. It has something to do with a deranged killer who suffered a traumatic episode involving a jigsaw puzzle as a child and now, as a result, dismembers women with a chainsaw. Egads. As the tagline for the US release quite honestly puts it, "It's exactly what you think it is." Also honest, the critic from Brooklyn Magazine who opined: "It’s absolutely fucking nuts."

Free and un-ticketed--you don't think we'd charge for something like this, do you?

Reviews:

“An authentic hardcore splatter film of the sort Santa Cruz rarely has to endure.”

--Santa Cruz Sentinel

“Pieces may have been assembled as a welfare project to provide employment of the chronically untalented since there’s not a shred of evidence of ability on the part of anyone connected with this production.”

--The Harrisburg Evening News

"In keeping with the conventions of ’80s slasher movies, there is plenty of tits and ass on display."

--Little White Lies

"Lynda Day George... plays a well-known tennis star and undercover cop. (How she manages to be both is one of the film's lesser puzzles.)"

--Los Angeles Times

Trailer

FILM AS ART: The Wings of the Dove (Iain Softley, UK 1997) Registration available soon (1 Sep 2026)

Wed, 02 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Wings of the Dove (Iain Softley, UK 1997, 102 min.)

Tickets available soon.

An impoverished woman who has been forced to choose between a privileged life with her wealthy aunt and her journalist lover, befriends an American heiress. When she discovers the heiress is attracted to her own lover and is dying, she sees a chance to have both the privileged life she cannot give up and the lover she cannot live without. Based on a novel by Henry James and starring Helena Bonham Carter, Linus Roache, Alison Elliott, Charlotte Rampling and Elizabeth McGovern, the film's dazzling, Oscar-nominated cinematography evokes the breathtaking paintings of James McNeill Whistler, John Singer Sargent, Thomas Wilmer Dewing, John Everett Millais and Ettore Tito.

A Member Pick'd Flick!

Reviews

"A luscious, surprisingly complex adaptation of the Henry James novel."

--Edward Guthmann, San Francisco Chronicle

“Flat-out terrific… As thrilling as any movie this year.”

--Renée Downing, Arizona Daily Star

“A magnificent and spellbinding film. Helena Bonham Carter gives the performance of her career.”

--Stephen Holden, The New York Times

“A brilliant movie. Instead of being subjected to the confining elegance of, say, a Merchant-Ivory flick, the audience is seduced by lush, sometimes downright decadent, imagery… It's exquisite – and very adult – entertainment.”

--Carol Buckland, CNN

“The film [has] the vibrancy and urgency of a thriller, yet still seems faithful to the unique spirit of James… Director Iain Softley brings the last Edwardian world to life with an effortless verisimilitude and the grandeur of a major Hollywood historical epic. His love scenes are voluptuous, erotic, genuinely romantic.”

--William Arnold, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

“The actors – Helena Bonham Carter, Linus Roache and Alison Elliott – and director [Iain] Softley do brilliantly and succinctly in images what James did slowly and discursively in dense prose. They convey the mixture of yearning, obsession, hypocrisy, manipulation, ambition, greed, betrayal and passion exuded by James’ upper crust characters at a turning point in the first decade of the 20^th century.”

--Joan Bunke, Des Moines Register

“If you’re thinking you’ve seen this all before – repressed Brits in tangled romances played out in Italy, a la Enchanted April or Room with a View – think again … and buy a ticket.

--Bob Fischbach, Omaha World-Harald

Rated R for sexuality.

Trailer

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

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

--BBC

“A wonderfully composed movie in which Ingmar Bergman is able to vary the tone from melancholy to gaiety in the most deeply satisfying way.”

--The Guardian

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

--Newsweek

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.)

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 prostitute 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. Banned upon its release in Italy for obscenity (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) durning 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:

“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

“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

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

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

--San Francisco Examiner

Clip

FILM AS ART: Sinners (Ryan Coogler, US 2025) Registration available soon. (30 Sep 2026)

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT

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

Free with registration. Registration available soon.

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 aned language.

Trailer