Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 138: Mon May 18

White Men Can't Jump (Shelton, 1992): Prince Charles Cinema, 8.55pm

This is a £1 for members screening at the Prince Charles Cinema.

Time Out review:
America's homeboy comedy of the year is about basketball only in the sense that writer-director Ron Shelton's Bull Durham was about baseball. It's a truly terrific piece of entertainment propelled by the magic and dynamism of its stars. Sidney Deane (Wesley Snipes) meets Billy Hoyle (Woody Harrelson) on a public court where the game is played as a mix of macho combat, stand-up comedy and con-artistry. The jokes and banter are wonderful. But this is also a most unlikely buddy movie, where the black/white pair team up as hustlers floating around the rougher areas of Los Angeles, turn on each other, and finally bury the hatchet to get Billy out of hock to some surprisingly obliging hoods. Sadly, in doing so, the duo alienate Billy's long-suffering Hispanic girlfriend (Rosie Perez), who dreams of the straight life and spends her time memorising trivia in hopes of a TV game show break. Snipes and Harrelson bounce off the screen like Michael Jordan, while Shelton and cinematographer Russell Boyd perfectly capture the agile thrills of the game itself. A double-whammy slam-dunker of a movie.
Steve Grant

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 137: Sun May 17

Never Let Go (Guillermin, 1960): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 12.20pm

The screening of Never Let Go on Friday 29 May will be introduced by season curator Ehsan Khoshbakt. This is part of the excellent British Post-War Cinema season at BFI. Details here.

BFI introduction:
This first-class thriller follows a salesman, brilliantly played by Todd, whose quest to recover his stolen car leads him into the hands of a brutal London gang, led by a cast-against-type Sellers. Guillermin’s brassy precision, revealing his fascination with characters driven by obsession and psychopathy, is heightened by John Barry’s score and Ralph Sheldon’s fast, riotous editing.

Here (and above) is an extract.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 136: Sat May 16

Theatre of Blood (Hickox, 1973): Phoenix Cinema, 7pm

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with League of Gentleman actor Steve Pemberton.

Chicago Reader review:
A British black comedy/horror film (1973) about a demented Shakespearean actor (Vincent Price) having his revenge in the most macabre ways on eight critics: Ian Hendry, Robert Morley, Robert Coote, Harry Andrews, Jack Hawkins, Michael Hordern, Arthur Lowe, and Coral Browne. Gory, imaginative, wildly melodramatic—good fun. With Diana Rigg as Price's helpful daughter.
Dan Druker

Here (and above) are the gorgeous opening credits.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 135: Fri May 15

The Stepford Wives (Forbes, 1975): Rio Cinema, 11.30pm

Rio Cinema introduction: The second screening of Category H horror film club’s Rio Forever/Rio Never Ever season is Ladies Night, a double bill of THE STEPFORD WIVES X TEETH. Dedicated to women in horror taking charge of the narrative and fighting back against the corrupt men who surround them, we present two controversial feminist horror films. Join us this 15th May, 23:30, for a night of misandry to remember and a Ladies Night like no other. Kicking off the evening is the rarely screened THE STEPFORD WIVES (1975). Inspiration to Jordan Peele, THE STEPFORD WIVES is a searing satire of the American aspirational middle class. After being persuaded to move to a suburban town by her husband, Joanna begins to notice that there is something uncanny about the other women of Stepford. They don’t talk about anything other than their households, their facial expressions are moulded in a sinister smile, there’s just something not right about them. Aided by her one ally, fellow Stepford wife outcast Bobbie, she attempts to get to the bottom of the conspiracy at the heart of the suburbs and falls into a labyrinth of power she might never be able to escape from. Afterwards, settle in for the 00s sleepover classic, a film whispered about in school corridors as the “one where she’s got teeth in her vagina”, the infamous TEETH (2007). President of her school's abstinence club, Dawn’s world is turned upside down when the proud virgin discovers her body can bite! She harnesses her newfound jaws in a refreshing horror comedy in which women bite back, literally. Category H is excited to give TEETH the big screen treatment it deserves, showing this modern classic at the Rio Cinema for the first time. 

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 134: Thu May 14

Gattaca (Niccol, 1997): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 8.45pm

This is a 'Members Picks' screening (at just £8 for BFI patrons).

Time Out review:
In the future, geneticists will design test-tube babies to be disease-free. Physical perfection will become the norm, and those flawed specimens born the old-fashioned way will form the new underclass - the 'in-valids'. Vincent Freeman (Ethan Hawke), an in-valid with a heart defect, is only taken seriously in the powerful Gattaca space programme when he assumes the identity of Jerome (Jude Law), a 'valid' who supplies blood, tissue and urine samples in return for shelter (he himself having been crippled in a car accident). The subterfuge is successful - until a murder draws unwelcome scrutiny from the authorities. Self-consciously at a remove from the trashy B-movie sensibilities which have dominated science-fantasy movies in recent times, this harks back to the vacuum-packed, classically alienated dystopia of Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451. Chilly, elegant, and a little bloodless.
Tom Charity

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 133: Wed May 13

Obsession (De Palma, 1976): Prince Charles Cinema, 2.20pm

At the Prince Charles Cinema there is a requests board and I have been requesting this movie (which I haven’t seen on the big screen since it was shown at Manchester Cornerhouse in the late 1980s) regularly for many months. Don’t miss the chance to see a great early example of Brian De Palma’s work and luxuriate in Bernard Herrmann’s haunting score.

Chicago Reader review: One of Brian De Palma’s better thrillers (1976)—perhaps because its true auteur is neither De Palma nor screenwriter Paul Schrader but composer Bernard Herrmann, who contributed one of his last scores to the film. It was Herrmann who insisted on cutting the third act of Schrader’s already excessive script (a rather tortured hommage to Hitchcock’s Vertigo), about a businessman (Cliff Robertson) who feels responsible for the death of his wife (Genevieve Bujold) in a kidnapping plot, and who meets and marries her double 15 years later. There’s nothing in the aesthetic and neo-Freudian delirium within hailing distance of Vertigo, and the plot’s often more complicated than complex, but Herrmann’s overpowering score and De Palma’s endlessly circling camera movements do manage to cast a spell. Jonathan Rosenbaum

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 132: Tue May 12

Tender Mercies (Beresford, 1983): Prince Charles Cinema, 6pm

This is a 35mm screening.

Time Out review:
Alongside works by Terrence Malick, John Cassavetes and John Huston, this breathtaking 1983 melodrama is one of the wellsprings of US indie cinema. Writer Horton Foote – most famous for scripting ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ – and his star Robert Duvall shopped the screenplay to every major American director, but ended up having to settle for Aussie Bruce Beresford making his first Hollywood film. It’s a bizarre trio – the respected playwright, the not-quite-bankable star, the Ocker sex-comedy veteran – especially when one considers that the film they came up with – all downhome reverence, stifled emotion and expressive minimalism – stands completely alone in each man’s CV (at least until Duvall co-starred in virtual remake ‘Crazy Heart’). Duvall plays Mac Sledge – greatest character name ever? – the strung-out former country star who washes up in a remote Texas town and shacks up with the local widow. Redemption stories are ten to the dozen in Hollywood, but this one feels heartbreakingly genuine – Duvall was never better, and that’s saying something. The look of the film is entrancing, from a series of disconcertingly flat rural landscapes to the gorgeous photography of human faces – head on, eyes wide, nothing hidden. It’s a film of quiet, relentless power which demands – and rewards – a level of belief, even faith in its characters which few other films even dare to suggest. For all its simplicity, this is bold, heartfelt filmmaking. A masterpiece.
Tom Huddleston

Here (and above) is the trailer.