The Best Films Playing in New York and Los Angeles Repertory Theaters in January 2025

Welp, it’s January. That special time of year where everyone is simultaneously recovering from the holidays and trying to kick off the new year by putting their best foot forward. TV shows that have been on break will soon return and mid-season premieres quickly follow thereafter, but for film, January is often looked at as slow period for new releases, with offerings like “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera,” Leigh Whannell’s “Wolf Man,” and Steven Soderbergh’s “Presence” being unveiled. Films that have had awards-qualifying runs like Mike Leigh’s “Hard Truths” and Gia Coppola’s “The Last Showgirl” will also expand wider, boosting their profiles in time for Oscar voting, but generally, there’s not much going on to excite the average movie-goer this month. So what better time to say, “Out with the new, in with the old!”

Repertory theaters in New York and Los Angeles have a heap of treasures during January to keep you out of the cold and in the warm embrace of cinematic history. The Metrograph on the Lower East Side of Manhattan has multiple series going on, including a tribute to Lebanese-French actress Delphine Seyrig that features “Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles,” named Sight and Sound’s Greatest Film of All Time in its 2022 critics’ poll. Heading to the West Coast, Landmark’s Nuart Theatre will be hosting a late-night ode to the Coen Brothers every Friday this month with 4K restorations of some of their most beloved films. In anticipation of the upcoming presidential inauguration, multiple theaters are also doing series on resistance cinema, including the Plaza Theatre located in Atlanta, Georgia. Keep reading below to find out all our picks and more info on when you can catch them.

NEW YORK

Metrograph

‘JEANNE DIELMAN, 23, QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES’Everett Collection / Everett Collection

As part of its series “Delphine Seyrig: Rebel Muse,” Metrograph will be highlighting nine of the actress’ films, including Jacques Demy’s musical fantasy “Donkey Skin,” Luis Buñuel’s Academy Award-winning surrealist comedy “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie,” and the 2019 documentary “Calamity Jane & Delphine Seyrig: A Story.” Seyrig passed away from lung cancer in 1990, but cinematographer and director Babette Mangolte pieced the doc together from footage they’d shot of Seyrig working on a film about frontierswoman Martha Jane Canary and the letters she wrote to her daughter. Films in the Seyrig series will be shown throughout the month, particularly on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.

Another talent being honored by Metrograph in January is Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi. Known for her work in “Memoirs of a Geisha,” the theater will be showcasing three of her more physically demanding parts with martial arts films “House of Flying Daggers,” “The Grandmaster,” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” all screening in 35mm. All three have multiple showtimes across January 24, 25, and 26. If you’re looking for something a bit creepier, Metrograph’s “Amongst Humans” features of cinema’s best alien invasions, from John Carpenter’s “The Thing” to Jonathan Glazer’s “Under the Skin.”

IFC Center

‘Battle Royale’©Anchor Bay/Courtesy Everett Collection

Having passed away in June of 2024, actor and activist Donald Sutherland has already been granted tribute by many a rep theater with screenings of his wide array of performances, but IFC Center is going all out in celebration of a truly one-of-a-kind talent. Starting this Wednesday, January 8, for a series called “Donald Sutherland: (Never) the Guy Next Door,” the Greenwich Village arthouse theater will be screening 13 of Sutherland’s films, including his rebellious turn as Hawkeye Pierce in Robert Altman’s “M*A*S*H” and his devastating portrayal of a father and husband at the end of his rope in the Best Picture-winning “Ordinary People.” Other films being screened as part of the series are “The Dirty Dozen,” “Klute,” “The Day of the Locust,” “Don’t Look Now,” “Backdraft,” “JFK,” “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” “Six Degrees of Separation,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Fellini’s Casanova,” and “Little Murders.”

IFC also has a whole month full of fun late-night favorites for its “Waverly Midnights: School Sucks” series, which centers around the best and bloodiest student-related horror films. Selections include Dario Argento’s “Suspiria,” Kinji Fukasaku’s “Battle Royale,” the supernatural mystery “The Craft,” and Karyn Kusama’s “Jennifer’s Body.” They will all screen on Fridays and Saturdays throughout the month.

MoMA

‘7th Heaven’©20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection

The Museum of Modern Art is the place to be this month as it kicks off another year of its “To Save and Project” series. For the last 21 years, MoMA has been presenting recently restored gems at the top of every new year, with 2025’s selections including Frank Borzage’s 1927 romance “7th Heaven,” “The Craving” and “The Post Telegrapher” — both pre-sound films from John Ford’s brother, Francis Ford — and Anthony Mann’s 1952 western featuring Jimmy Stewart, “Bend of the River.” The National Society of Critics recently presented “To Save and Project” with a Film Heritage award this past weekend.

LOS ANGELES

Landmark Nuart

‘Raising Arizona’©20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection

While Sean Baker’s “Anora” remains the main item on screen at Landmark’s Nuart Theatre in West Los Angles, for those nite-owls out there, the art house staple will be playing a different Coen Brothers film every Friday at 10:30pm. “Raising Arizona,” “The Big Lebowski,” and “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” are all amongst the films screening, as well as “Miller’s Crossing,” which celebrates its 35th anniversary this year. Starring Gabriel Byrne, Albert Finney, John Turturro, and Marcia Gay Harden and set during the late 1920s, when gangs ruled the day and every man was for himself, “Miller’s Crossing” follows the muscle of an Irish mobster forced to deal with competing allegiances and deadly consequences. Though it was a box office failure after premiering in 1990 at New York Film Festival, critics loved it and the film has grown in popularity over the years, earning a Criterion Collection release in 2022.

New Beverly Cinema

‘Big Night’©Samuel Goldwyn Films/Courtesy Everett Collection

If you haven’t already started shedding those holiday pounds, the New Bev is cooking up some tasty treats you absolutely shouldn’t pass on. For those who missed it in theaters last year, Nathan Silver’s offbeat religious dramedy “Between the Temples” screens on Wednesday, January 15, and Thursday, January 16 in glorious 35mm — a rare opportunity as it was initially shown only in DCP. Having been shot on 16mm, the print for the film is sure to impress. Carol Kane is also up for an Independent Spirit Award next month, so best to catch the film now in a theater (and in the best possible format) while you still can. Later in the month, on January 28, 29, and 30, a delicious double feature of “Tampopo” and “Big Night” will be served hot for everyone’s enjoyment. Both are staples of the food cinema genre and celebrate the agony and ecstasy cuisine and cooking can offer.

Plaza Theatre — Atlanta, GA

‘SALO, OR THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM,’ (aka ‘SALO O LE 120 GIORNATE DI SODOMA’)Courtesy Everett Collection

First opened in 1939 — widely considered one of the best years in cinema history (see “The Wizard of Oz,” “Gone with the Wind,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” etc.) — The Plaza Theatre is Atlanta, Georgia’s longest-running independent cinema. The first film to play there was George Cukor’s “The Women” and though it’s faced difficulties in its almost 90-year history, including a stint as a venue for adult cinema in the 1970s, it has continued to be home to the Atlanta Film Festival since 2013 and has rebounded considerably since new ownership took over in 2017.

This month, Plaza is placing a spotlight on “Resistance Cinema” with a series that includes Lizzie Borden’s genre-defying “Born in Flames,” as well as Guillermo del Toro’s historical fantasy “Pan’s Labyrinth” and Charlie Chaplin’s searing satire of fascism, “The Great Dictator,” both screening on 35mm. But if there’s one film in this series not to miss, it’s Pier Paolo Pasolini’s politically-charged horror piece, “Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom.” Also being presented on 35mm, “Salo” centers around a group of wealthy elites living during the fascist Republic of Salò (1943-1945) and their endless decent into vile debauchery as sexual deviousness becomes their only source of fulfillment. A scathing indictment of capitalism and the desires it breeds in individuals and the collective, the film feels particularly potent for Americans about to face four more years with a convicted felon and sexual abuser as their president.