A mind-blowing 'acid-western' which shocked and bedazzled audiences upon its controversial original release, El Topo single-handedly invented the American midnight movie phenomenon... Jodorowsky's most violent and notorious film sees the director play 'The Mole' of the title: a black-clad. master gunfighter. In the first half, El Topo journeys across the desert dreamscape with his young son (Bron...

The third in a year-long series of feature and short film screenings presented by Obscure Film at Cultplex in 2026! This special screening will present the personal copy of a feature by Lizzie Borden, director of many films featuring women in the centre who are otherwise pushed to the margins: sex workers, anarchists, collectivists, poets, journalists, artists. Her daring 1980s films are highly p...

Amélie ( Audrey Tatou ), the heroine of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s award-winning whimsical romance, is no ordinary young woman. A waitress in a Montmartre, Paris bar, Amélie observes people and lets her imagination roam free. One day, she suddenly finds her purpose in life: to solve other people’s problems. We follow her around a lovingly and vividly photographed Paris of saturated colors, as she engine...

One of the most beloved films of all time, this sizzling masterpiece by Billy Wilder set a new standard for Hollywood comedy. After witnessing a mob hit, Chicago musicians Joe and Jerry ( Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon , in landmark performances) skip town by donning drag and joining an all-female band en route to Miami. The charm of the group’s singer, Sugar Kane ( Marilyn Monroe , at the height of ...

‘Tick’ Belrose, aka Mitzi Del Bra ( Hugo Weaving ), a Sydney drag artist, accepts an invitation from his ex-wife ( Sarah Chadwick ) to bring his stage show to the outback. Tick recruits two friends – a brash young drag queen called Felicia ( Guy Pearce ) and an aging transgender woman called Bernadette ( Terence Stamp ). They set off for Alice Springs in a second-hand bus they dub ‘Priscilla, Quee...

John Waters made bad taste perversely transcendent with the forever shocking counterculture sensation Pink Flamingos, his most infamous and daring cinematic transgression. Outré diva Divine is iconic as the wanted criminal hiding out with her family of degenerates in a trailer outside Baltimore while reveling in her tabloid notoriety as the “Filthiest Person Alive.” When a pair of sociopaths ( Min...

Have you ever tried sketching a film, in the dark, at the cinema, as a group? Here’s your opportunity to experience it with similar minded creatives. A fun way to connect with the film and see it in a different light. Cultplex and Sketch & Cafe founder and illustrator Jenny Ho ( www.jennyhostudio.com ) are collaborating to bring you a ‘ Sketch , Watch & Social’ experience featuring a Wes Anderso...

This media satire, directed by Sidney Lumet from a brilliantly incisive script by Paddy Chayefsky , is an X-ray of the corrupted soul of a corporate-dominated America, startlingly prescient in its anticipation of today’s outrage-driven news cycle. At a struggling television network, ambitious executive Diana Christensen ( Faye Dunaway ) finds herself with a hit on her hands when disgruntled newsca...

We Are Making A Film About Mark Fisher is a 65-minute cinematic experiment exploring the continuing relevance of the late theorist’s ideas on capitalism, culture, and the future. Directed by Simon Poulter and Sophie Mellor (collaborating as Close and Remote) the film was made in 2024-2025 using Instagram (@markfisherfilm) as a methodological tool to find collaborators, generate research and dissem...

The fourth in a year-long series of feature and short film screenings presented by Obscure Film at Cultplex in 2026! Each of the Genre Identities programmes will feature two hours of short films by local and international filmmakers, exploring the relationship between themes and concepts of a wide variety of film genres and the identities of themselves and their communities. This bumper screenin...

Iconic and game-changing, AKIRA is the definitive anime masterpiece! Katsuhiro Otomo's landmark cyberpunk classic obliterated the boundaries of Japanese animation and forced the world to look into the future. AKIRA's arrival shattered traditional thinking, creating space for future generations of ground-breaking movies. July, 1988— World War III breaks loose. Then, in 2019, in megalopolis Tokyo...

A bottomless film screening that will strike fear in the hearts of any cinema employee... Picking up the story three years after Mike bowed out of the stripper life at the top of his game, "Magic Mike XXL" finds the remaining Kings of Tampa likewise ready to throw in the towel. But they want to do it their way: burning down the house in one last blow-out performance in Myrtle Beach, and with lege...

Winner of the Academy Award® for Best Animated Feature, Hayao Miyazaki ‘s wondrous fantasy adventure is a dazzling masterpiece from one of the most celebrated filmmakers in the history of animation. Chihiro’s family is moving to a new house, but when they stop on the way to explore an abandoned village, her parents undergo a mysterious transformation and Chihiro is whisked into a world of fantast...

Sam, a young film student, discovers a USB detailing the life and career of forgotten Italian horror director Saturnino Barresi. As she begins to investigate his mysterious disappearance, Sam finds herself pulled into a violent conspiracy eerily similar to those of the films she adores. City Wide Fever runs the well-worn tropes of 1970s horror - sex, violence, and endless style - through our frau...

Make A Scene Film Club invites you to witness Eyes of Laura Mars - a supernatural horror thriller so stylish it practically demands to be watched with a cocktail in hand and cigarette to steady your nerves. Directed by Irvin Kershner (later of The Empire Strikes Back fame) and written and by none other than horror maestro John Carpenter , this 1978 oddity blends high fashion, psychic visions and s...

Following a sold out event in Birmingham, which covered Chuck Norris, Superman, the new Moana trailer, a local female comedy group, the BFI, Peaky Blinders, people randomly shouting out Hudson Hawk and a lectern that nearly fell over – the next leg of the Simon Brew Film Stories Live tour is in Manchester. For the first time ever, I’m playing a venue I’ve been keen to get to for yonks: the might...

A deadly game of chance and destiny plays out against the stark backdrop of early-1980s West Texas in Joel and Ethan Coen’s powerful adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel. When he happens upon more than two million dollars from a drug deal turned desert massacre, a retired welder and Vietnam veteran ( Josh Brolin ) sets into motion a wave of senseless, inexorable violence as he’s stalked across th...

Elaine, a beautiful young witch, is determined to find a man to love her. In her gothic Victorian apartment she makes spells and potions, and then picks up men and seduces them. However her spells work too well, and she ends up with a string of hapless victims. When she finally meets the man of her dreams, her desperation to be loved will drive her to the brink of insanity and murder. With a visua...

What is it that, once lost, you can never get back? In a world where humanity has lost the ability to dream, one creature remains entranced by the fading illusions of the dreamworld. This monster, adrift in reverie, clings to visions no one else can see, until a woman appears. Gifted with the rare power to perceive these illusions for what they truly are, she chooses to enter the monster ’ s drea...

Global Justice Now Youth present First Reformed: This thriller follows Reverend Ernst Toller’s journey with grief, faith and discovery as he investigates the global environmental crisis. In counselling a radical environmentalist and his wife, Toller’s belief system is challenged as he questions his purpose in a world with a potentially disastrous future due to climate change. First Reformed is hig...