One of the most fruitful film seasons is autumn, when studios don’t have to compete with the sun to get you inside the movie theater, and Academy Award recognition is more likely if the film and performances are fresh in memory.
This is a catalogue of films across a compelling range of subjects, to see physically in a local theater or a nearby Marcus multiplex, including a biographical comedy drama focusing on OpenAI CEO Sam Altman spearheaded by the director behind “Call Me by Your Name,” a four-hour documentary desperately trying to figure Elon Musk out and a horror movie tackling a pre-existing IP much to fan’s chagrin by the director of “Weapons” and “Barbarian.”
Milwaukee Film, the nonprofit arts organization that maintains the Oriental Theatre and the Downer Theatre on the East Side is also presenting year three of its Dialogues Documentary Film Festival from Sept. 24 to Sept. 27, 2026.
This festival is four days of films and discussions curating timely and relevant non-fiction stories, with a few select documentaries making their world premieres.
Arts & Culture Editor Annabelle Hershelman, Multimedia Editor Mitch Ultaut and writer Mitra Malekghasemi present a selection of curated films to see in person, in theaters this autumn.
Dialogues Documentary Festival Films
“Agatha’s Almanac”
Following 90-year-old Agatha Bock over the span of six years, a crew observes her on ancestral lands as she tends to it. This film was shot on 16 mm, and I have an interest in seeing how they captured this and how they captured Agatha’s everyday life. This film, with an 86-minute runtime, screens on Friday, Sept. 25, at 1:00 p.m. at the Oriental Theatre. – Mitch Ultaut
“The project captures the handmade materiality inherent in both the medium of the film and Agatha’s tactile world.”
“Amazing Live Sea Monkeys”
When I was a child, I remember seeing the ads on television about sea monkeys and desperately wanting some. Monkeys that lived in water? I needed to see them with my own eyes. Of course, my parents knew they were, in reality, brine shrimp, but I loved them nonetheless.
Whether you saw them on television or had some yourself, chances are you have heard of them. This documentary shows us the battle Yolanda Signorelli von Braunhut faces to reclaim the rights to her late husband’s iconic product and the story behind its invention.
A filmmaker discussion will follow the screening. See it at the Downer Theatre on Sunday, Sept. 27th at 7:00 p.m. – Mitra Malekghasemi
“Exodus”
Director Nimco Sheikhaden presents a portrait of two women dealing with the fallout of incarceration. Two women, Trinity Copeland and Assia Serrano, navigate their post-release realities.
How does incarceration impact a person’s perspective of the outside world and what they will return to? Join me in finding out at the Oriental Theatre on Friday, Sept. 25th at 12:30 p.m.
A talkback will follow this screening. – Mitra Malekghasemi
“First They Came for My College”
You might recall that in early 2023, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, having announced his presidential bid a month prior, initiated a controversial takeover of the traditionally progressive New College of Florida as part of his wider aims to reshape higher education.
Patrick Xavier Bresnan’s verité feature explores this event and what followed by embedding with the student newspaper and wider student body, bringing viewers as close to the community as possible.
See it at the Oriental Theatre on Friday, Sept. 25 at 4:00 p.m. – Mitra Malekghasemi
“Ghost in the Machine”
What is artificial intelligence?
This is the big question this film is looking to answer by looking back in time and talking to historians about what has led artificial intelligence to this point and what the future might hold.
With the way the technology is coming, this film does look like it asks the hard questions and tries to find the answers.
See it Saturday, Sept. 26 at 5:15 p.m. at the Oriental Theatre. – Mitch Ultaut
“Mexicanamerican”
One of the programmes opening the Dialogues Documentary Festival sees UWM alum Madeline James McGuire’s senior documentary short film, “馬小麥” or “Little Madeline McGuire,” open for Eddie Sànchez’s debut feature documentary “Mexicanamerican,” which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year.
Both weave family archives and interviews together to explore personal family histories and wider themes of immigration and reconnection. A filmmaker question-and-answer session will follow this program.
See both of the films at the Oriental Theatre this Thursday, Sept. 24 at 6:30 p.m. – Mitra Malekghasemi
“Odyssey”
An archival look at the start of NASA’s “fail success” as we look through the lens of Jim Lovell’s Apollo 13 mission.
Filmmakers went through 2,500 hours of film, most not shown to the public, to create a different look at the mission’s supposed “success.”
It would be nice to see a twist on this heavily covered mission, maybe even learn something that we already don’t know about the mission. As a space nerd, it’s high on my list of films I am excited to see this weekend.
The film screens Sunday, Sept. 27 at 1:45 p.m. at the Oriental Theatre. – Mitch Ultaut
“Time Warp”
The Oriental Theatre is ground zero for Milwaukee’s longstanding love affair with “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” as it is home to the world’s longest continuous run of the film with a shadowcast.
What better place, then, to see a film about Rock Springs, Wyoming’s first drag and queer theatre company staging their own shadowcast of the iconic cult classic?
A talkback will follow this program. See it at the Oriental Theatre on Saturday, Sept. 23 at 9:15 p.m. – Mitra Malekghasemi
Wide-Release Films
These selections by Arts & Culture Editor Annabelle Hershelman include films released widely and nationally in movie theater chains, including AMC Theaters, Cinemark Theaters and Marcus Theatres across the United States.
“Resident Evil”
“Resident Evil,” directed by Zach Cregger, was theatrically released in Wide and IMAX to 3,684 theaters by Sony Pictures Releasing domestically in the United States on Sept. 18, 2026.
The movie is playing in larger multiplex theaters now. It does not have a closing date currently. But it will most likely stay for four to six weeks. Sony Pictures has its films run for a range of 24 to 45 days, according to the New York Times.
Austin Abrams plays an everyman medical courier whose eyes audiences see a bloodied Racoon City through, as he bumbles through the impossible situation of delivering a medical package in a blizzard.
“Weapons” and “Barbarian” director Zach Cregger attempts to re-create the experience of immersing the viewer in a horror video game perspective.
“Primetime”
Shape-shifting star Robert Pattinson morphs into Chris Hansen, the host of “To Catch a Predator,” which was an American reality television series that was featured as part of the news program “Dateline NBC.”
The film, directed by Lance Oppenheim in his narrative feature-film debut, is based on the 2007 Esquire article “Tonight on Dateline This Man Will Die,” which goes into detail of how a sting operation planned for the show and filmed went wrong, and subsequently led to the end of the show.
The film will be in theaters on Sept. 25.
“The Social Reckoning”
The legal thriller film, “The Social Reckoning,” will be playing in theaters beginning on Oct. 9, 2026. Aaron Sorkin, who won an Academy Award for his screenplay of “The Social Network” in 2011.
He returns to hold Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg accountable and present a dramatized account of the 2021 Facebook leak by whistleblower and Facebook data engineer Frances Haugen (played by Mikey Madison in the film) and Jeff Horowitz (embodied by Jeremy Allen White), an investigative technology reporter.
“Fjord”
“Fjord,” a film written, co-produced and directed by Romanian director Cristian Mungiu, won the Palme d’Or, the highest prize awarded to the director of the Best Feature Film within the main competition of the 2026 Cannes Film Festival.
Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve star as a Romanian-Norwegian conservative couple who face an accusation of potential abuse of their children and the social impacts that follow.
Neon will release the film in the United States on October 9, 2026.
“You Can See Everything”
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, before serving an 11-year prison sentence for fraud, invites Nathan Fielder into her home with a film crew spearheaded by director Lance Oppenheim, catching the entire mystifying experience.
The film premiered as a secret screening at the 53rd Telluride Film Festival on Sept. 6, 2026, and will be theatrically released by A24 on Oct. 16, 2026.
“Musk”
“Musk,” directed by Academy Award and Emmy-winning documentarian Alex Gibney, has a runtime that nearly reaches four hours. There’s even a 10-minute intermission.
The subject of the exposé has called the film a “hit piece,” but Gibney is no stranger to pushback from his documentary subjects. His 2015 documentary “Going Clear,” investigating Scientology, prompted the church to respond by taking out full-page ads in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times campaigning against the film.
A national run of “Musk” in theaters will begin on Oct. 16, 2026.
“Artificial”
This biographical comedy drama set in the world of artificial intelligence is of interest because of Luca Guadagnino’s attachment to it, as he is a director whose catalogue is filled with eroticism and queer stories.
How will the “Call Me by Your Name” director tackle the controversial firing and re-hiring of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman?
The film will be released in theaters in the United States on December 25, 2026.