The flagship non-profit movie theater of the American Film Institute (AFI), showcasing the best in American and international cinema.
Now Playing at AFI Silver | Fri-Thurs, May 10–16
Stories
"Spend May Day at the Movies With the DC Labor FilmFest"
It's May Day and that means the 2024 DC Labor FilmFest is now in full swing!
"1959’s ANATOMY OF A MURDER Was Designed to Push Boundaries"
Our Columbia Pictures Centennial Retrospective continues this weekend with screenings of Otto Preminger's ANATOMY OF A MURDER on Sunday, April 28 and Wednesday, May 1. Washington City Paper writer Noah Gittell examines how the film pushed the boundaries of Hollywood's production code and set the template for courtroom dramas for decades to come.
Labor Goes to the Movies
May Day is just around the corner and that means another edition of the DC Labor FilmFest is nigh! Co-presented by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the AFI Silver, this annual series, now in its 24th year, features a wide-ranging selection of "laborific" films about work, workers and the wider issues affecting workers' lives.
The 5 Places Every Horror Movie Fan Needs to Visit in DC Dread Central
Announcing Mondo Morricone: A 35-Film Retrospective
Saddle up for (more than) a fistful of iconic film scores at AFI Silver! Inspired by Giuseppe Tornatore's recent documentary ENNIO, we're presenting Mondo Morricone, a 35-title series that explores the breadth of Ennio Morricone's career, from his best-known work perfecting the sound of the Spaghetti Western with Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy to his celebrated Hollywood output and everything – and we mean everything – in between.
A Conversation with Tom Fallows About George A. Romero's Independent Cinema
Tom Fallows is something of a Romero expert: the author of two books and several articles on the subject and a bona fide admirer and supporter of his work. He recently hosted the opening NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD screening of our George A. Romero's Independent Cinema series, and will be back to introduce the film's equally brilliant follow-up, DAWN OF THE DEAD, on Friday, April 12, plus sign copies of his "George A. Romero's Independent Cinema: Horror, Industry, Economics."
Foster Hirsch on the Fabulous '50s
Foster Hirsch is a name everyone should be familiar with — especially fans of film noir — and AFI Silver's Director, Todd Hitchcock, spoke to the noted author and film historian about his latest book, "Hollywood and the Movies of the Fifties," which inspired our Fabulous '50s series, now running through May 2.
Bigger Is Better: 70mm at AFI Silver
This winter and spring, our audiences were given the opportunity to experience not one, not two but four films on glorious 70mm — the rare, ultra-high-definition format that has been undergoing a welcome resurgence over the past decade. From the historic battles featured in Ridley Scott's NAPOLEON to the wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey TENET to the spice fields of Arrakis in DUNE: PART TWO and, coming up the weekends of April 5 & 12, the masterpiece of 70mm photography that is LAWRENCE OF…
20th New African Film Festival | Programmer Picks
The 20th edition of the New African Film Festival (NAFF) kicks off this Friday, March 15! Presented by AFI and Africa World Now Project, the festival brings the vibrancy of African filmmaking from all corners of the continent and across the diaspora to the Washington, DC area. This year's stellar lineup features 26 films from 16 countries, including three
Lists
Now Playing at AFI Silver | Fri-Thurs, May 10–16 19 films
Buy your tickets at AFI.com/Silver.
2024 DC Caribbean FilmFest 15 films
June 7–12, 2024
In recognition of Caribbean Heritage Month in June, AFI Silver is proud to once again host the…
2024 Spanish Cinema Now 10 films
May 31–June 6, 2024
AFI Silver Theatre and the Cultural Office of the Embassy of Spain in Washington, DC, are…
2024 DC Labor FilmFest 10 films
May 1–30, 2024
Organized and presented by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the AFI Silver, this annual series features a…
Kinuyo Tanaka Classics 11 films
May 18—July 11, 2024
Expanding on the retrospective of pioneering Japanese filmmaker and actor Kinuyo Tanaka's directorial work held at…
Tales of Cinema: The World of Hong Sangsoo 9 films
May 5–July 10, 2024
Co-presented with the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art and National Gallery of Art.
Prolific and…
Recent reviews
May 10, 12–14
Recent Restorations
New 4K Restoration
Unemployed circus clown Louison (Dominique Pinon) applies for a job as a handyman at an apartment building in post-apocalyptic France, unaware that the ad is meant to lure people to slaughter. The butcher/landlord Clapet (Jean-Claude Dreyfus) provides human meat for his tenants. When Louison and Julie (Marie-Laure Dougnac), the butcher's daughter, fall in love, it takes all their wits to escape the knife. A surreal black comedy, the breakthrough feature of Jean-Pierre…
May 10–12
Recent Restorations
New 4K Restoration
Andrei Tarkovsky explained that in Russian the word "nostalghia" conveys "the love for your homeland and the melancholy that arises from being far away." This debilitating form of homesickness is embodied in the film by Andrei (Oleg Yankovsky, THE MIRROR), a Russian intellectual doing research in Italy. He becomes obsessed with the Botticelli-like beauty of his translator Eugenia (Domiziana Giordano), as well as with the apocalyptic ramblings of a self-destructive wanderer named Domenico…
May 10, 11, 14 & 16
Recent Restorations
New 2K Restoration
[LE FABULEUX DESTIN D'AMELIE POULAIN]
With her iconic bob and a whimsical sense of mischief, Amélie Poulain sent shock waves through the early aughts international art-house scene. Audrey Tautou's breakthrough role, Amélie is a waitress in a Parisian café whose vivid imagination belies a tragic childhood. After finding a curious artifact hidden in her apartment walls, she sets out on a journey to improve the lives of those around her,…
May 10, 12, 14 & 16
Mondo Morricone
[I PUGNI IN TASCA]
Tormented by twisted desires, a young man takes drastic measures to rid his grotesquely dysfunctional family of its various afflictions, in this astonishing 1965 feature debut from Marco Bellocchio. With its coolly assured style, shocking perversity and savage gallows humor, FISTS IN THE POCKET was a gleaming ice pick in the eye of bourgeois family values and Catholic morality — a truly unique work that continues to rank as…
May 11, 11, 14 & 15
Mondo Morricone
4K DCP
[LA BATTAGLIA DI ALGERI]
Filming on the streets of Algeria documentary-style with a cast of mostly nonprofessional actors, director Gillo Pontecorvo re-created the struggle for independence from the French occupiers so well that a disclaimer had to be added: "Not one foot of newsreel has been used." As the fervor of the community peaks in the film, everyone is implicated in the ongoing warfare, from children to soldiers. One of the…
May 10, 13–16
Columbia Pictures Centennial: Part Two
Dixon Steele (Humphrey Bogart), a cynical, violent-tempered Hollywood screenwriter headed toward has-been status, becomes the prime suspect in the brutal murder of a young woman. His personal and professional lives take a dramatic turn when he falls in love with his alibi — Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame), a vulnerable new neighbor in his apartment court. An emotionally authentic and mature film about the frailty of human relationships and the glory and agony…
Opened on Friday, May 10.
New 4K Restoration
In a career-defining performance, Alain Delon plays Jef Costello, a contract killer with samurai instincts. After carrying out a flawlessly planned hit, Jef finds himself caught between a persistent police investigator and a ruthless employer, and not even his armor of fedora and trench coat can protect him. An elegantly stylized masterpiece of cool by maverick director Jean‑Pierre Melville, LE SAMOURAÏ is a razor-sharp cocktail of 1940s American gangster cinema and 1960s…
May 9
2024 DC Labor Film Fest
Q&A moderated by Sara Nelson, International President of AFA-CWA, with filmmaker Maren Poitras, subject Stephanie Kelton and Rev. Delman Coates, Senior Pastor, Mt. Ennon Baptist Church and founder, Our Money
An intrepid group of economists is on a mission to instigate a paradigm shift by flipping our understanding of the national debt — and the nature of money — upside down. We all use money, yet the questions of what it is and…
Buy your tickets at AFI.com/Silver.