5 Poignant Films Playing at IFC This November

WEST VILLAGE, NY — The IFC Center, a West Village and New York City staple, plays the best independent films in the country, and the widest selection of them. The theater also offers plenty of special series and exhibitions for New Yorkers to enjoy. Patch put together some of the most intriguing films playing this month:

Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened

Opens Friday, Nov. 18

This dark documentary follows the Broadway musical that tanked in 1981 called Merrily We Roll Along. The show should have been a giant hit, but expectations were too high. It only lasted 16 performances. Lonny Prince, one of the original cast members of the show, put together the touching story of how it crashed and burned.

Uncle Howard

Opens Friday, Nov. 18

• Fri Nov 18: Dir. Aaron Brookner & prod. Paula Vaccaro in person for Q&A Fri night!
• Sat Nov 19: Dir. Aaron Brookner & prod. Paula Vaccaro in person Q&A Sat night!
• Sun Nov 20: Dir. Aaron Brookner & prod. Paula Vaccaro in person for Q&A at Sun matinee!

Director Aaron Brookner profiles his uncle, who was a documentary filmmaker in the 1980s. Brookner found his uncle, Howard's, lost archives of writing, photos, and footage featuring Allen Ginsberg and other famous writers and artists. According to the IFC description, "the film evokes the ravages of the AIDS epidemic and the vibrant, all-but-vanished downtown arts scene of the ’70s and ’80s."

Mifune: The Last Samurai

Opens Friday, Nov. 25

This documentary in English and Japanese features interviews with the likes of Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, who were fans of the movie's subject, Toshiro Mifune, the Japanese star performer. Movies with Mifune by director Akira Kurosawa inspired many American blockbusters like Star Wars and The Magnificent Seven.

Tickets on sale and showtimes announced Mon Nov 21 at 6pm.
Mifune & Kurosawa retrospective screens is in IFC's Weekend Classics program. See the full schedule here.

Evolution

Opens Friday, Nov. 25

This French thriller follows a remote village by the sea, only populated by young boys and adult women, where a 10-year-old boy finds a young boy dead with a red starfish over his stomach. IFC calls it "mind-bending."

Old Stone

Opens Wednesday, Nov. 30

IFC calls this Chinese film in Mandarin with English subtitles a "gritty social-realist drama" that transforms into a "blood-drenched noir." It follows a Chinese taxi driver who gets into a car accident that changes his entire life. Variety called the film "excoriating... a suspense thriller with Dostoevskyan undertones."

Find the full schedule of the next few months' films at IFC Center here.

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