Films
Now Playing
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Ernest Cole: Lost & Found
Directed by Raoul Peck
(USA, 2024, 105 minutes, in English)
Brown Auditorium Theater, digitalOscar-nominated filmmaker Raoul Peck’s latest documentary chronicles the life and work of Ernest Cole, one of the first Black freelance photographers in South Africa. Cole’s early pictures, shocking at the time of their first publication, revealed Black life under apartheid to the world.
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The Stranger and the Fog (Gharibeh Va Meh)
Directed by Bahram Beyzaie
(Iran, 1974, 146 minutes, in Persian with English subtitles)
Brown Auditorium Theater, 4K digital restorationIranian New Wave director Bahram Beyzaie's visually ravishing masterwork—banned for decades after the Iranian revolution—is set around the northern coast of Iran, where a boat drifts onto the shore of a small village.
- Friday, January 24, 2025
- 7 p.m.
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The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Danaye anjir-e moabad)
Directed by Mohammad Rasoulof
(Germany, 2024, 168 minutes, in Persian with English subtitles)
Brown Auditorium Theater, digitalIranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof was facing eight years in prison for creating films that criticized the government, before his narrow escape to exile in Europe. Shot entirely in secret, Rasoulof’s award-winning thriller centers on a family thrust into the public eye when one of them is appointed as an investigating judge in Tehran.
- Saturday, January 25, 2025
- 7 p.m.
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6 A.M. (Sa'ate 6 Sobh)
Directed by Mehran Modiri
(Iran, 2024, 89 minutes, in Persian with English subtitles)
Brown Auditorium Theater, digitalSara lives in Tehran and has been accepted by a doctoral program in philosophy at a Canadian university. She has a 6 a.m. flight to catch, but her friends have planned one last party before she leaves Iran. What follows is a tense social drama depicting a group of people celebrating their friend’s success while the guest of honor worries about her early flight the next day.
- Sunday, January 26, 2025
- 2 p.m.
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Universal Language (Une langue universelle)
Directed by Matthew Rankin
(Canada, 2024, 89 minutes, in Persian and French with English subtitles)
Brown Auditorium Theater, digitalCanadian filmmaker Matthew Rankin and Iranian writers Ila Firouzabadi and Pirouz Nemati won the inaugural Directors’ Fortnight Audience Award at Cannes for this absurdist comedy that variously evokes the films of Abbas Kiarostami, Wes Anderson, and Guy Maddin.
- Sunday, January 26, 2025
- 5 p.m.
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My Stolen Planet (Sayyareye dozdide shodeye man)
Directed by Farahnaz Sharifi
(Germany/Iran, 2024, 82 minutes, in Persian with English subtitles)
Brown Auditorium Theater, digitalUsing the essayistic style of a diary, director Farahnaz Sharifi traces how the Islamic Revolution changed life for women in Iran. Born in 1979, shortly after the fall of the Pahlavi dynasty, Sharifi draws on home movies and found 8mm recordings of strangers’ lives to show moments of private joy and public defiance under the regimented oppression in Tehran.
- Friday, January 31, 2025
- 7 p.m.
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Sugarcane
Directed by Emily Kassie and Julian Brave NoiseCat
(USA, 2024, 107 minutes, in English)
Brown Auditorium Theater, digitalA stunning tribute to the resilience of Native people and their way of life, Sugarcane is an epic cinematic portrait of a community during a moment of international reckoning.
- Sunday, February 2, 2025
- 2 p.m.
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2025 Oscar-Nominated Short Films: Live Action
(2025, 120 minutes)
Brown Auditorium TheaterView the nominated short films in the category of Live Action from this year’s Academy Awards, and see if your favorite wins when the Oscars are presented on March 2!
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2025 Oscar-Nominated Short Films: Animation
(2025, 90 minutes)
Brown Auditorium TheaterView the nominated short films in the category of Animation from this year’s Academy Awards, and see if your favorite wins when the Oscars are presented on March 2!
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2025 Oscar-Nominated Short Films: Documentary
(2025, 180 minutes)
Brown Auditorium Theater and Lynn Wyatt TheaterView the nominated short films in the category of Documentary from this year’s Academy Awards, and see if your favorite wins when the Oscars are presented on March 2!
Coming Soon
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Love & Basketball
Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood
(USA, 2000, 124 minutes, in English)
Brown Auditorium Theater, digitalAll is fair in Love & Basketball. Celebrating its 25th anniversary, this romance and sports genre film serves as a landmark for Black women filmmaking for its authentic representation of female athletes, Black love, and female independence.
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Dahomey
Directed by Mati Diop
(France/Senegal/Benin , 2024, 68 minutes)
Lynn Wyatt Theater, digitalMati Diop’s hypnotic documentary explores the journey of 26 historical artifacts being returned from French museums to present-day Benin (formerly the West African Kingdom of Dahomey), from where they were plundered during colonial times.
- Saturday, February 15, 2025
- 7 p.m.
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Daughters of the Dust
Directed by Julie Dash
(USA, 1991, 113 minutes, in English)
Brown Auditorium Theater, 35mmJulie Dash’s rapturous vision of Black womanhood and vanishing ways of life in the turn-of-the-century South was the first film directed by an African American woman to receive a wide release. Set in 1902, it follows a multigenerational family in the Gullah community on the Sea Islands near South Carolina as they struggle to maintain their heritage.
- Sunday, February 16, 2025
- 5 p.m.
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Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Directed by Howard Hawks
(USA, 1953, 91 minutes, in English)
Brown Auditorium Theater, 35mmHoward Hawks’ Technicolor musical comedy is anchored by the performances of Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe as Jazz Age lounge singers on a Transatlantic ocean liner to Paris.
- Friday, February 21, 2025
- 7 p.m.
Street Address
1001 Bissonnet Street Houston, TX 77005Mailing Address
MFAH Films P.O. Box 6826 Houston, TX 77265-6826MFAH Films Information
Accessibility Questions or Requests?
If you have any questions about accessibility resources in the Museum’s auditoriums, email accessibility@mfah.org or call 713.639.7300.