BSFI Free Summer Movies in June 2026 at BSPAC!

BSFI Free Movies Continue at BSPAC with June Screenings

How the time flies when we’re watching really good movies! It’s already June – the third month of our free movie screenings program at BSPAC – and we’re settling into a hot summer of great cinema, screening every other Wednesday, through the end of December.

All screenings are held on Wednesday evenings at 7pm at the Borrego Springs Performing Arts Center, 590 Palm Canyon Drive, Borrego Springs, CA 92004. 

Our newly updated full schedule for 2026 is posted on the BSFI website:  www.borregospringsfilminstitute.org. Please note due to the vagaries of film licensing, the schedule is always subject to change, so please check the website for the most up to date information.

Here are the movies coming to BSPAC in June:

Wednesday, June 3, 2026 at 7pm – High and Low – 1963 – Not Rated – 2h 23m

High and Low, known in Japanese as Tengoku to Jigoku ("Heaven and Hell"), is widely regarded as one of the masterworks of world cinema. It is a Japanese police procedural directed by Akira Kurosawa, written by Kurosawa along with Hideo Oguni, Eijirō Hisaita, and Ryūzō Kikushima, and loosely adapted from the 1959 novel King's Ransom by Evan Hunter (writing as Ed McBain). Toshirō Mifune stars as Kingo Gondō, a wealthy shoe company industrialist whose family becomes the target of a cold-blooded kidnapper — though in a cruel twist, the kidnappers accidentally snatch the son of Gondō's chauffeur rather than his own child yet still demand an enormous ransom. The film's genius lies in its bold structural shift: the first half is a tense moral drama confined to Gondō's penthouse suite, where he wrestles with whether to ruin himself financially to save another man's child, while the second half descends to the street-level slums of Yokohama as the police, led by Chief Detective Tokura (Tatsuya Nakadai), scour the city for the kidnapper. Tsutomu Yamazaki appears in a small but pivotal role as the kidnapper, showcasing considerable depth and leaving a lasting impression. Released in Japan in 1963, High and Low became the highest-grossing film at the Japanese box office that year. Critically, the film was celebrated both at home and abroad — Rotten Tomatoes describes it as "meticulously crafted" and "an enthralling procedural imbued with weighty moral heft." The film was entered into the Official Selection at the Venice Film Festival in September 1963 and was nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Golden Globe Awards in 1964.  Its reputation has only grown with time, with critics consistently praising Kurosawa's movement from a riveting race-against-time thriller to exacting social commentary, creating a diabolical treatise on class and contemporary Japanese society.  In Japanese with English subtitles.

Wednesday, June 17, 2026 at 7pm – Hard Truths – 2024 – Rated R – 1h 37m

Hard Truths is a fierce and deeply compassionate drama set in London, written and directed by Mike Leigh, starring Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Michele Austin, and David Webber.  Jean-Baptiste plays Pansy, a woman so full of rage that every interaction devolves into lashing out — whether at her utterly cowed husband and son, or random strangers who have the temerity to address her. In contrast, her younger sister Chantelle (Austin) lives with her two vivacious daughters and runs a successful hairdressing business, putting clients at ease all day long. Yet beneath Pansy's abrasive exterior are hints of a more fragile psyche, one motivated by fear and damaged by repressed pain. Jean-Baptiste and Austin were reunited with Leigh for the first time since his multiple Oscar-nominated film, Secrets & Lies. The film was written and developed by Leigh using his characteristic method of close collaboration with his actors. It premiered at the 49th Toronto International Film Festival in September 2024. Commercially Hard Truths was a modest arthouse release, earning a worldwide total of $1.6 million.  Critically, however, the film was a triumph: with Rotten Tomatoes’ consensus praising Jean-Baptiste's "prickly masterclass" and calling it "another superb character study from writer-director Mike Leigh," and it was named one of the top ten independent films of 2024 by the National Board of Review. On the awards front, Jean-Baptiste's performance generated enormous attention: she received Best Actress nominations at the Critics' Choice Awards, the BAFTA Film Awards, and the Gotham Awards, and swept the Best Actress trifecta at the New York Film Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and the National Society of Film Critics, becoming the first woman of color to do so.

And looking forward, here are the scheduled movies through the rest of the summer: 

Wednesday, July 1, 2026 at 7pm – Raiders of the Lost Ark – 1981 – PG – 1h 45m

Continuing our “Summer Blockbuster” tradition in July, Steven Spielberg's genre-defining adventure follows the irresistible archaeologist Indiana Jones — played by Harrison Ford — as he races Nazi operatives across the globe to claim the legendary Ark of the Covenant before it can be weaponized for world domination. Crackling with wit, spectacle, and irresistible momentum, the film reinvented the action-adventure genre by channeling the spirit of 1930s serials through a thoroughly modern cinematic lens. Few films are as purely, unabashedly fun — and it remains one of Hollywood's most beloved and influential blockbusters.

Wednesday, July 15, 2026 at 7pm – The Great McGinty – 1940 – Not Rated – 1h 22m

Preston Sturges made his directorial debut with this razor-sharp political comedy, following small-time opportunist Dan McGinty (Brian Donlevy) as he claws his way from street-level muscle to the mayor's office — courtesy of a thoroughly corrupt political machine. Trouble arrives when McGinty falls genuinely in love with his marriage-of-convenience wife and makes the catastrophic mistake of trying to do the right thing. Wickedly funny and surprisingly pointed, it set the template for Sturges' celebrated run of Hollywood satires that followed.

Wednesday, July 29, 2026 at 7pm – A Simple Plan – 1998 – Rated R – 2h 1m

When three men stumble upon a crashed plane carrying over four million dollars in cash in the snowy woods outside their small town, what seems like a stroke of impossible luck quickly curdles into something far darker. Director Sam Raimi's tense and deeply moral thriller — anchored by Bill Paxton and a remarkable Billy Bob Thornton — charts with quiet precision how greed, fear, and small compromises can unravel ordinary lives. It is a modern fable about the price of keeping secrets, and one of the most underrated American films of its decade.

Wednesday, August 12, 2026 at 7pm – Can You Ever Forgive Me? – 2018 – Rated R – 1h 47m

Melissa McCarthy delivers a career-defining dramatic performance as Lee Israel, a down-and-out biographer in 1990s New York who turns to forging letters by literary legends to keep herself afloat. Directed by Marielle Heller, the film is both a sharp-edged portrait of literary obsession and a surprisingly tender story of loneliness and self-destruction. Richard E. Grant shines as her raffish accomplice, and the film lingers long after the credits as a meditation on talent, desperation, and the lies we tell ourselves.

Wednesday, August 26, 2026 at 7pm – Chinatown – 1974 – Rated R – 2h 10m

Roman Polanski's landmark neo-noir remains one of the most perfectly constructed films ever made, following Los Angeles private detective J.J. Gittes (Jack Nicholson) as a seemingly routine infidelity case pulls him into a labyrinth of corruption, murder, and devastating family secrets. With Faye Dunaway as the enigmatic Mrs. Mulwray and John Huston as a villain of quietly monstrous authority, the film operates as both a flawless thriller and a cynical elegy for American idealism. Robert Towne's Oscar-winning screenplay is a masterclass in plotting, and its ending remains one of cinema's most haunting.

This season’s BSFI movie screenings are being generously underwritten by the Borrego Valley Endowment Fund (BVEF).

See you at the movies!

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