Want more? Here’s everything we recommend this month: Music, Visual Art, Literature, Performance, Film, Food, and This That. The Most Terrible Times in My Life May 8–10 Here are three, no four, things I love about The Most Terrible Time in My Life: (1) It’s a detective/gangster flic k, (2) it’s shot in black-and-white, (3) it’s the first in a trilogy, and (4) it’s about a terrible time in someone’s life. What can I say, I’m a glutton for misery and pain. Directed by Kaizo Hayashi, the film begins with private eye Maiku Hama saving a Taiwanese immigrant waiter after a fight breaks out in a mahjong parlor. Turns out that the immigrant, Yang, is searching for his missing brother, and Maiku agrees to help. But, whoops, he’s stumbled into a gang war/revenge plot. To paraphrase one of the top Letterboxd reviews, making smoking look sublime is the mark of a good film. (Northwest Film Forum, times vary) VIVIAN McCALL Ann Wilson: In My Voice May 11 Last year, when I interviewed Heart for our November issue, I asked Ann Wilson what it was like revisiting old footage for the then-forthcoming documentary In My Voice. “Very surreal!” she said. “Recently … I was looking at some slides from my teenage years. It’s so wonderful to see all of those faces again. There were people I could barely recognize now.” Now, the film is making its worldwide debut in Seattle, followed by a QA with the queen herself. Directed by multi-hyphenate filmmaker, TV producer, writer, and musician Barbara Hall (who directed Milk and created the CBS drama Madam Secretary), the documentary brings together video, photos, and interviews that chronicle the Wilsons’ beginnings, the formation of Heart, their rise to icon status, and Ann’s life beyond the band. (Neptune Theatre, 8 pm, all ages) AUDREY VANN Late Spring May 30–31 What better to watch in late spring than Late Spring? Yasujirō Ozu, one of the great directors, shot intimate family dramas that were always thoughtful of the social forces that constrained women. Late Spring, the story of a widower marrying off his cherished only daughter in the tumult of post-war Japan, is considered one of his best. It was actually shot in post-war Japan and subject to censorship from the occupying Allied powers. The film is the first of Ozu’s Noriko trilogy, in which actress Setsuko Hara plays three different young single women named Noriko. (So if you like what you see, check out the next two installments, Early Summer and Tokyo Story.) What set Ozu’s stories of ordinary life apart was his eye. The director kept the camera low to the ground and the shots tight, so the viewer feels as if they are sitting in the room with the characters. (Northwest Film Forum, times vary) VIVIAN McCALL More Once Upon a Time in Beirut: The Cinema of Jocelyne Saab Through May 7, Beacon, times vary Here’s Your List of Friends in the Order They Died: Teen Anarchy Japan Through May 22, Beacon, times vary An Evening of Film with Usman Ally and Mouzam Makkar May 8, Kerry Hall, 7:30 pm, all ages Erupcja May 8–17, Northwest Film Forum, times vary Symphony of Sight and Sound: A Jon Behrens Retrospective May 9, Northwest Film Forum, 7 pm Seattle International Film Festival May 7–17, multiple locations (See preview, pg. 24.) The Room May 7, Central Cinema, 8 pm District 9 May 8–12, Central Cinema, times vary Millennium Actress May 8–13, Central Cinema, times vary 9th Annual Tasveer Gala 2026 May 9, Seattle Convention Center, 5:30 pm Mamma Mia! May 10, Central Cinema, 4 pm Mermaids May 10, Central Cinema, 7 pm How Green Was My Valley May 10–11, Beacon, times vary In the Midst of the End of the World: António Reis and Margarida Cordeiro May 10–17, Beacon, times vary Two Seasons, Two Strangers May 13–17, Northwest Film Forum, times vary An Evening with Sky Hopinka May 15, Northwest Film Forum, 6:30 pm The Girl Who Leapt Through Time May 15–19, Central Cinema, times vary Arco May 15–20, Central Cinema, times vary Let the Bullets Fly 让磾弹飞 May 17, Tasveer Film Center, 1 pm The Grapes of Wrath May 17–18, Beacon, times vary Cher’s 80th Birthday: Moonstruck May 20, Central Cinema, 7 pm Baron Von Terror Presents: Demons May 21, Central Cinema, 8 pm Altered States (4K Restoration) May 22–24, Northwest Film Forum, times vary Wagon Master May 24–25, Beacon, times vary Secret Cinema May 28, Beacon, 7:30 pm Stalker May 31, Beacon, 5 pm The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance May 31–June 1, Beacon, times vary The post May Things to Do: Film appeared first on The Stranger. ...read more read less