Coolidge in the News: "Why the moviegoing experience remains special — and in Greater Boston especially"

I’m late. The movie starts in five minutes, and I’m 13 away, trapped on the Red Line. The Brattle Theatre, in Cambridge, has a timeless feel, a faded red-brick barn in the federal Harvard style. But that does nothing to change the basic timeliness of a movie theater: the show starts now and won’t wait for you.

I belong to a generation that has taken for granted something radical: Movies come to us, so we don’t go to the movies. Netflix-and-chill slayed dinner-and-a-show, and few seem to mourn. Why should they?

This Week

  • Showcasing the best in documentary short films from around the world!

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  • A bold, iconoclastic take on one of the world’s most compelling stories, from filmmaker From Maggie Gyllenhaal and starring Jessie Buckley & Christian Bale.

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  • A frisky, feminine, film noir about psychoanalysis and many other things… 

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  • A father, accompanied by his son, goes looking for his missing daughter in North Africa.

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  • Among the most important documentaries ever made, The Thin Blue Line, by Errol Morris, erases the border between art and activism.

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  • Showcasing the best in live action short films from around the world!

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  • Pre-film seminar by Dr. Shilpa Parnami of Boston University. 

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  • In this five-week class, explore women's voices at the intersection of direction and cinematography.

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  • With her take on Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, Sailor, Claire Denis firmly established herself as a great visual tone poet of our time.

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  • Winner of the Audience Award: U.S. Documentary at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

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  • See it before, or after, watching Boorman and the Devil at BUFF! 

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  • 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by water. That's a big place to find one fish.

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  • The new film from acclaimed director Christian Petzold (Phoenix, Transit). 

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  • Peter Jackson brings J.R.R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings from page to screen in this epic, Academy-Award winning trilogy.

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