What Movies to See in Miami Theaters in June

Lace-up those kinky boots and hoist those rainbow flags because Miami is taking Pride to the movies this June. Plenty of repertory screenings focusing on queer cinema are happening this month, including a queer Latin cinema showcase at Coral Gables Art Cinema on Thursday nights. You can also find classic cult movies from some kooky Germans, an important Russian director's penultimate feature restored in 4K, the return of a beloved animation studio, and a massive Miami-set blockbuster in theaters.

Check out New Times' movie picks for June below, and check the local listings and showtimes at miaminewtimes.com/miami/movietimes.

Fitzcarraldo and Nosferatu the Vampyre at Mad Arts

Mad Arts, the cutting-edge digital museum in Dania Beach that opened a few months ago, is expanding its programming with a pretty impressive cult cinema series. The series launched last month with Alejandro Jodorowsky's Santa Sangre and continues in June with two classics from iconic German director Werner Herzog.

Our Take

Thanks to his skills as a thickly-accented narrator, Herzog is best known nowadays as a kind of pop-culture character, appearing in everything from Rick and Morty and Parks and Recreation to his own documentaries that intone darkly about the amorality and meaninglessness of life. But before he settled into a life of gently mocking his larger-than-life persona, he was one of the most extreme filmmakers on the planet, becoming legendary for breaking laws and traveling to the ends of the Earth to realize his cinematic visions. He occasionally brought along Klaus Kinski, the only man on his sets crazier than him, as lead actor. (Despite his iconic presence, it must be said that Kinski's mental illness and sexual abuse of his two daughters is no laughing matter.)

No film better exemplifies Herzog's obsessive filmmaking than Fitzcarraldo. Returning to the same Amazon in which he shot his breakthrough film Aguirre: The Wrath of God, the director casts Kinski as the titular Fitzcarraldo, an Irishman determined to build a grand opera house in the jungles of early-20th century Iquitos, Peru. To do this, he must gain access to a massive field of rubber trees, and to get to the rubber, he has to drag a steamship up a narrow strip of land between two rivers. This is where the film gets its edge: Eschewing special effects and shooting on location in Peru, Herzog bought a real steamship and actually had it hauled up a hill by the crew. The making of this scene and the rest of the film is catalogued in Les Blank's documentary Burden of Dreams, which is equally as entertaining as Fitzcarraldo and features some highly memed footage of Herzog describing the jungle.

Nosferatu the Vampyre, meanwhile, is a vastly different film than Fitzcarraldo. An atmospheric remake of the F.W. Murnau silent original, the film retells the tale of Dracula with a sinister style. Kinski disappears into his role as the titular vampire Count Dracula, playing the monster as a weary, decrepit shade that has tired of immortality. Bruno Ganz plays hapless real estate agent and Dracula's first victim, Jonathan Harker, while Possession scream queen Isabelle Adjani plays Lucy Harker, who aims to seduce the Count in order to destroy him and save her town. With haunting sequences of ancient castles, bats in flight, mummified remains, and rats swarming through cities, as well as the dark intimacy between Lucy and the ancient monster, Nosferatu the Vampyre is a gothic romance par excellence and a fitting tribute to Murnau's original. It's also good prep for Robert Eggers' upcoming remake, which stars Bill Skarsgard as the Count. Fitzcarraldo runs from Thursday, May 30 through Sunday, June 9; Nosferatu the Vampyre runs from Thursday, June 13 through Sunday, June 23; Mad Arts, 481 S. Federal Hwy., Dania Beach; 754-239-0707; yeswearemadarts.com. Tickets cost $16.90 or $37.95 via yeswearemadarts.com/cinema.

Empaná de Pino and Pink Flamingos Double Feature at Gramps (June 2)

Local film society Celluloid 9 is getting into the Pride spirit by screening a double feature of queer classics at beloved Wynwood bar Gramps (long a queer-friendly zone itself thanks to its Double Stubble drag shows). They're pairing John Waters' delightfully disgusting Pink Flamingos with the 2008 Chilean film Empaná de Pino, which seems to be a transgender comedy about cannibalism. ¡Delicioso!

Our Take

We weren't able to watch Empaná de Pino — the film doesn't seem to be legally available to view in the U.S. — but the presence of Pink Flamingos alone makes this screening worthwhile. Just make sure you don't eat beforehand: This movie is so disgusting, even half a century on from its debut, that you might end up revisiting your dinner. Pink Flamingos follows the legendary drag queen Divine (playing herself) as she blazes a riotous, raucous trail to defend her title as "The Filthiest Person Alive." John Waters packed this film with every depraved and sickening act he could think of: murder, arson, rape, torture, castration, incest, bestiality, and even foot fetishism. But nothing will prepare you for the iconic coup de grace, a final scene unrivaled in the annals of cinema for its pure wretch-inducing audacity. Let's just say it's ruff. 4 p.m. Sunday, June 2, at Gramps, 176 NW 24th St., Miami; 855-732-8992; gramps.com. Admission is free.

Nostalghia 4K Restoration at Coral Gables Art Cinema (June 7)

Seeing a film by legendary director Andrei Tarkovsky in the theater is a must for any self-respecting cinephile, and miraculously, Miami will get a chance this month. Coral Gables Art Cinema is screening the brand-new 4K restoration of Tarkovsky's poetic, achingly beautiful Italian-language film Nostalghia.

Our Take

Between his departure from the Soviet Union in 1979 and his death from cancer in 1986, Tarkovsky made the final two of his seven feature films. Nostalghia, from 1983, is the penultimate one, and after years of suppression and censorship of his work by the Soviets, who even tried to prevent the film from winning the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, it feels like the work of an unburdened creative soul. Supported by the Italian broadcaster RAI and shooting in the country, the director was finally free to explore the idea of faith outside of the confines of state-mandated atheism, resulting in a deeply personal film, down to naming his protagonist after himself. This Andrei (Oleg Yankovsky), a writer traveling aimlessly through Italy on a flimsy premise of researching a Russian composer, finds a kindred spirit in an eccentric named Domenico (Erland Josephson), who harbors a dark past and a belief in the oncoming end of the world. As usual for Tarkovsky's late period, the film is quiet, glacially paced, and shot in a washed-out style emphasizing shadow and smoke. But it's full of soul-searching, philosophical dialogue and ecstatic, mysterious imagery — visions of ancient ruins and miraculous rituals intertwined with haunting dreams and memories — all of it meant for viewers to ponder and get lost in. Nostalghia is not simply a film that one watches — it's a film that one feels. Friday, June 7, through Sunday, June 9, at Coral Gables Art Cinema, 260 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables; 786-472-2249; gablescinema.com. Tickets cost $10 to $11.75.

Bad Boys: Ride or Die (June 7)

Ride or Die? More like, "This franchise just won't die!" Without the keen directorial eye of Michael Bay, the Miami-set cop comedy series starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence returned from a long, long absence — 17 years — and put out a third installment, Bad Boys For Life, in January of 2020. Yes, January of 2020. Much has happened since, and I'm not just talking about the whole pandemic thing — lest we forget that Will Smith got himself blacklisted from the Oscars in 2022 by slapping Chris Rock on national television right before winning Best Actor? Bad Boys: Ride or Die is his comeback, an attempt at making us remember why we all fell in love with the Fresh Prince in the first place before he became a casualty of Hollyweird. Martin Lawrence is in it, too, because he has to be. Will the film be more entertaining than watching the Slap on repeat for two hours? Opens Friday, June 7; check local listings.

Inside Out 2 (June 14)

The stakes are somewhat high for Pixar's latest animated sequel. Over the last decade, the studio has failed to reach the creative heights of its 2000s golden era, suffered a #MeToo scandal, and saw three of its original films go straight to streaming during the pandemic. (It finally made it to theaters this year.) To make matters worse, they laid off 14 percent of their staff last week. The studio needs to get its mojo back, and executives are hoping Inside Out 2, the follow-up to their high-concept comedy about the anthropomorphized emotions in a teenage girl's head, will be the film to do it. Most of the original voice cast has returned from the 2014 original, including Parks and Recreation's Amy Poehler as Joy, while some newcomers add a few additional, more complicated emotions: Ayo Edebiri of The Bear and Bottoms plays Envy, Stranger Things' Maya Hawke plays Anxiety, and Richard Jewell star Paul Walter Hauser plays Embarrassment. Remember, kids, adolescence is hell! Opens Friday, June 14; check local listings.

The Bikeriders and Janet Planet (June 21)

These are two very different films focusing on two very different families. The Bikeriders, from Mud and Take Shelter director Jeff Nichols, stars Austin Butler, Tom Hardy, and Michael Shannon as members of a '60s motorcycle club that slowly, tragically transforms from a tight-knit band of outsiders into a criminal gang. Biker gang stories have long populated cinema, from the Marlon Brando-starring The Wild One in the '50s, Kenneth Anger's experimental, homoerotic Scorpio Rising, and Dennis Hopper's iconic counterculture classic Easy Rider in the '60s. Sons of Anarchy even brought the genre to the small screen in 2008. The Bikeriders sets itself apart through its unique inspiration: It's based on a photo book by celebrated photojournalist Danny Lyon.

Janet Planet, meanwhile, tells the story of Janet (Julianne Nicholson), an acupuncturist, and her daughter Lacy (Zoe Ziegler) as they spend the summer of '91 at home in western Massachusetts. It's a tender, author-driven drama from Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Annie Baker, making her directorial debut, and it's released by A24, which has signaled they may not want to be in the tender, author-driven drama business for much longer. Both films open Friday, June 21; check local listings.

DSA Miami Movie Night Mondays: Dressed in Blue at Golem Games (June 24)

If you're looking for a Pride month movie that's just a little less raunchy than Pink Flamingos, you've certainly got options. Coral Gables Art Cinema is running a showcase series on Queer Latin Cinema, screening underseen LGBTQ films from Latin America every Thursday night in June. Meanwhile, the Democratic Socialists of America's Miami chapter is showing Dressed in Blue, an outstanding, once-lost documentary on trans women in post-Franco Spain. The activist group has held four "Movie Night Mondays" screenings this year, ranging from blockbusters like Starship Troopers to classics of foreign cinema by Agnes Varda of France and Eduardo Coutinho of Brazil.

Our Take

Six finely dressed ladies assemble for tea in the stately Palacio de Cristal in Madrid's Parque del Retiro, a far cry from the dangerous, marginal lives some of them lead as transgender women in Spain's capital. Some of them perform in drag shows; others do sex work to get by and risk arrest. A few have escaped to the city from the villages and towns in Spain's hinterlands. Restored and reissued in 2022, Dressed in Blue (Vestido de Azul) joins a pantheon of critical trans-focused documentaries that includes the groundbreaking Funeral Parade of Roses from Japan and Paris is Burning from the United States. Yet director Antonio Giménez-Rico looks even deeper, with perhaps less discretion, than those films. We see the subjects at work, walking the street and picking up customers, even going to one's home. We sit in on their interactions with their family members, for the ones that still talk to their family, and one even talks to the woman they married while closeted. And we see their bodies exposed, touched, even operated upon — the director films one of the women receiving breast enhancement surgery. The tragic tone of certain sequences can occasionally be distracting, making us feel as though we're watching a soap opera. But tragedy and lack of acceptance were a part of life for these women, some of whom died during the AIDS crisis shortly after the movie was filmed. As conservative governments across the country, including in Florida, continue to stifle and oppress trans and gender-nonconforming people, Dressed in Blue serves as both an essential document of queer history and a reminder of the prejudices that persist against them. 7 p.m. Monday, June 24, at Golem Games, 2067 NE 163rd St., North Miami Beach; 786-831-1646; golemgames.co. Admission is free.

Kinds of Kindness (June 28)

Yorgos Lanthimos may be the most unlikely Oscar-winning filmmaker of recent memory. After a career of bizarre mid-budget, darkly comedic psycho-dramas — Dogtooth, The Lobster, The Killing of a Sacred Deer — and the 18th century period drama The Favourite, his sweetly demented, sex-positive Victorian fantasy Poor Things just won four Academy Awards, including a shocking Best Actress win for Emma Stone. Rather than resting on their laurels, the pair have just debuted a brand new film, the demented anthology Kinds of Kindness, at the Cannes Film Festival. Not only that but it's set to drop in select theaters this month. Early reviews report that those who only know Lanthimos from Poor Things may be shocked by the vibe shift. The film, shot in New Orleans, jettisons the frilly costumes and funny accents for a contemporary America stocked by all kinds of sickos engaging in bizarre games of power and manipulation. The film's cast is seriously stacked — Willem Dafoe, Jesse Plemons, Margaret Qualley, Mark Ruffalo, Hunter Shafer, and Hong Chau are among the players. And Lanthimos' reuniting with traditional screenwriting partner Efthimis Filippou means the Greek Freaks are truly back in the saddle. Opens Friday, June 28; check local listings.

Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 and A Quiet Place: Day One (June 28)

While much of the attention at Cannes this year was taken up by Francis Ford Coppola's gonzo modern fantasy epic Megalopolis, another icon of the American screen returned with his own costly, years-in-the-making vanity project. Kevin Costner, who recently revived his acting career as the star of Taylor Sheridan's cable drama Yellowstone, has returned to the director's chair with a sweeping western of his own, Horizon: An American Saga. Set somewhere in the Old West during the Civil War, the film depicts the conflict between white settlers and native Apache. Although longer than most movies at 181 minutes, it's part one of a planned four-part series — Chapter 2 will bow in August, with the remaining parts coming later. Chapter 1 debuts in theaters beside a very different film, A Quiet Place: Day One. A prequel to John "Office Jim" Krasinski's surprise hit sci-fi horror about a family evading monstrous aliens by staying absolutely quiet, Day One depicts the invasion. The original film's cast has been replaced by Lupita Nyong'o, Joseph Quinn, and Djimon Hounsou, while horror specialist Michael Sarnowski steps into the director's chair to replace Krasinski, whose family film IF just bombed at the box office. Both films open Friday, June 28; check local listings.