SFFILM’s 2026 Festival Returns to the Castro Theatre — in Part

San Francisco’s biggest film event, the 69-year-old San Francisco International Film Festival, is finally returning to its spiritual home at the Castro Theatre. But just for two nights.

The bulk of the festival — 79 programs showing April 24–May 4 — will remain in the Marina and Presidio neighborhoods, and at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. These days, you’re more likely to see a comedy act or a major-label musician at the Castro than you are to catch a movie. Something to do with chairs?

Several of the festival’s marquee nights are already sold out (including both screenings of Boots Riley’s hotly anticipated latest, I Love Boosters, and the perplexing closing night screening of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back). Yet there are plenty of other beautiful, surprising, big-name-helmed and under-the-radar films coming our way in just a few short weeks.

Here, a smattering of screenings to watch out for when tickets go on sale to the general public on Friday, April 3, at 10 a.m.

‘Late Fame’

April 24, 5:30 p.m. at Castro Theatre

San Francisco’s movie palace will host just three screenings for the 2026 festival, but you have two opening films to choose from as you plan your return. My vote is for Late Fame, the newest feature from Kent Jones (Diane), about a poet’s rediscovery by a younger generation. The always-mesmerizing Greta Lee (Past Lives) leads that group of bohemians, and Willem Dafoe stars as the poet-turned-postal worker in this extremely New York story.

‘The Oldest Person in the World’

April 26, 4 p.m. at Premier Theater at One Letterman

Former Bay Area resident Sam Green returns to SFFILM with what seems to be a fairly straightforward documentary premise: track down the world’s oldest person, per the Guinness Book of World Records. Except the holder of that record keeps changing. And so Green keeps pursuing them and interviewing them, one after the other, over the course of a decade. Inevitable, heartfelt reflections on the nature of time, memory, a life’s work and this never-ending project ensue.

As an added treat, Don Hertzfeldt’s 14-minute animated short film Paper Trail plays before the feature.

‘The Arch’

April 30, 6 p.m. at Marina Theatre
May 3, 4:30 p.m. at BAMPFA

SFFILM turns 70 next year and seems to be in a nostalgic mood. Hence “Films from the Vault,” a new program of movies from festivals past. Among the retrospective titles screening this year are Claire Denis’ Beau Travail, Leos Carax’s Bad Blood and Agnès Varda’s Vagabond. (Less filmmakers to fly out?)

Even more rare and worth your while is T’ang Shushuen’s The Arch, presented at SFFILM in 1968 and rarely seen since. The film’s original 35mm negatives have been lost; this restoration was made from materials preserved at BAMPFA and the British Film Institute. The story centers on a proud widow, revered in her village for her virtuousness, whose virtue is tested by the arrival of a troop of soldiers. The captain, especially, upsets Madam Tung’s hold on her emotions (as well as her daughter’s).

‘American Doctor’

May 1, 8:30 p.m. at Premier Theater at One Letterman

Po Si Teng’s directorial debut follows three U.S.-based physicians of three different backgrounds — Palestinian, Jewish and Zoroastrian — as they treat patients in Gaza. The film follows them from Gaza’s strained and failing medical infrastructure back to the United States, where they face the challenge of speaking truth to power — about the injuries they encountered and who their patients were (so many, too many children).

‘Power Ballad’

May 3, 4 p.m. at Jewish Community Center of San Francisco

The newest film from Once director John Carney stars Paul Rudd as wedding singer Rick and Nick Jonas as former boy-band member Danny (casting against type, I see). One wedding and a late-night jam session later, Danny releases a global hit based on one of Rick’s songs. This is an indignity too far: Comic misadventures follow as Rick heads to Los Angeles for a musical confrontation. Everyone does their own stunts — I mean, does their own singing — in this one.

‘How to Clean a House in 10 Easy Steps’

May 1, 6 p.m. at Premier Theater at One Letterman

Described as “as fun as it sounds” by SFFILM’s programmers, this documentary from Carolina Gonzalez Valencia leans into colorful aesthetics and animated sequences to pay homage to her mother’s work as a house cleaner in the United States. Play becomes Gonzalez Valencia’s way into what is also a painful story about her mother’s long separation from her children in Colombia.

Honorable mention:

‘I Love Boosters’

April 28, 6:30 and 9:30 p.m. at the Grand Lake Theatre

Both screenings are already at rush, so I can’t in good conscience put this on a list of hot tickets, but I Love Boosters opens in theaters on May 22, so we don’t have much longer to wait for Boots Riley’s follow-up to Sorry to Bother You and I’m a Virgo. We desperately need another dose of Riley’s wonderful weirdness.

The 69th San Francisco International Film Festival takes place April 24–May 4, 2026. Tickets go on sale to the general public Friday, April 3, at 10 a.m.