Current & Upcoming Film Series
Past Film Series-
Frederick Wiseman: America at Work
October 18, 2025–February 19, 2026With the federal government slashing staff and reneging on promised funding to local governments and grant-supported institutions, this series spotlights the labor of public employees through seven decades of documentary films from Frederick Wiseman, “an artist of extraordinary vision” (Mark Binelli, New York Times).
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Akira Kurosawa: Four Recent Restorations
December 10, 2025–February 20, 2026BAMPFA showcases four classics directed by Japanese master Akira Kurosawa—from his searing portrait of modern society Ikiru, to his highly influential works The Hidden Fortress, Yojimbo, and High and Low, with Toshiro Mifune in the lead. These films are shown in recent 4K restorations.
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In the Mood for Love: The Films of Wong Kar Wai
January 9–February 28, 2026A retrospective of the films of influential Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar Wai, who combines neo-Expressionist cinematography, richly textured production design, and elliptical narrative structures to explore the existential complexities of change, desire, memory, love, friendship, and self-realization.
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Special Screenings
OngoingRecent releases, restored classics, and special guests grace the Barbro Osher Theater.
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Swedish Silent Cinema: Victor Sjöström & Mauritz Stiller
January 16–February 28, 2026This series features a selection of the best films from the Golden Age of Swedish silent cinema, presented in 35mm archival prints and digital restorations, along with an illustrated lecture (free admission) on Victor Sjöström by Jon Wengström, Senior Curator of the Archival Collections at the Swedish Film Institute.
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Laura Truffaut on François Truffaut
January 17–February 28, 2026From his debut feature, The 400 Blows, to his final film, Confidentially Yours, this series allows us to learn about French filmmaker François Truffaut (1932–1984) through the eyes of his daughter, Laura Truffaut, who will introduce and lead post-screening discussions.
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Documentary Voices
February 4–April 22, 2026This array of innovative nonfiction films documents the labor of truckers, models, cowboys, and a Palestinian photojournalist, and chronicles war and resistance, colonialism, climate, and more. With filmmakers Reid Davenport, Lucrecia Martel, Amy Reid, and Jeffrey Skoller in person.
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Climate Journalism on Screen
February 7–22, 2026Following the success of last winter’s Climate Journalism on Screen series, this new installment continues the exploration of how contemporary filmmakers address the myriad issues around climate change with new subjects, environments, and documentary techniques, presented in feature, mid-length, and short film form.
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Psychedelia & Cinema
March 1–May 10, 2026Organized with the support of the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics, this kaleidoscopic array of movies explores expanded or enhanced consciousness, psychedelic experiences, and the means of getting there.
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Fassbinder and the New German Cinema
March 6–May 17, 2026The New German Cinema movement began in the mid-1960s and continued through the 1980s, bringing an awakening of form, style, and expression of the postwar German experience. Rainer Werner Fassbinder was a driving force behind the movement; we showcase a selection of his films alongside those of his fellow West German filmmakers.
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Iranian Cinema: From Aesthetics to Politics
March 7–April 23, 2026Join us for a rare visit by celebrated Iranian filmmaker and screenwriter Rakhshan Banietemad, who will be in person April 22–23 to speak about her work in both documentary and feature filmmaking. Also screening are three classic films made by filmmakers associated with the Iranian New Wave.
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African Film Festival
March 8–May 9, 2026Coming-of-age stories and portraits of dynamic cities in transition anchor this year’s African Film Festival, with stories from across Africa and its global diaspora, from the coasts of Kenya to the cityscapes of Lagos and Cayenne, French Guiana, Mali, and Chicago.
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Impulses and Abstractions: Sound and Music in 1960s French Cinema
March 14–29, 2026In a roundtable on Alain Resnais’s Hiroshima mon amour published in the Cahiers du cinéma in 1959, Jacques Rivette suggested that “the problems Resnais sets himself in film are parallel to those that [Igor] Stravinsky sets himself in music.” This series will investigate what Rivette may have been getting at in linking Resnais to the great modernist composer—and will show that the French cinema of the early 1960s was just as playful in its approach to sound as to image.
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Sentimental Education: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha at the Pacific Film Archive
April 2–19, 2026Pairing works from Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s studies in film with the artist’s own experiments in film and video, Sentimental Education: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha at the Pacific Film Archive maps the global cinematic influences on a remarkably singular artist.
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Lucrecia Martel: Un destino común
April 4–19, 2026In conjunction with the acclaimed director’s residency at UC Berkeley, BAMPFA presents Lucrecia Martel: Un destino común, a retrospective of her films, including short films rarely seen on the big screen and her 2025 documentary, Our Land/Nuestra Tierra.