FATHERLAND centres on the relationship between the Nobel Prize-winning writer Thomas Mann (Hanns Zischler) and his daughter Erika (Sandra Hüller) – actress, writer and rally driver. In the summer of 1949, at the height of the Cold War, father and daughter embark on a challenging and emotional road trip in a black Buick taking them across a Germany in ruins – from US dominated Frankfurt to Soviet controlled Weimar. Returning home after sixteen years of exile in the US, Thomas Mann has to face not only a divided fatherland, but also a deep fracture within his own family.

Ever since his beloved wife was horribly burned in an auto accident, Dr. Robert Ledgard (Antonio Banderas), a skilled plastic surgeon, has tried to develop a new skin that could save the lives of burn victims. Finally, after 12 years, Ledgard has created a skin that guards the body, but is still sensitive to touch. With the aid of his faithful housekeeper (Marisa Paredes), Ledgard tests his creation on Vera (Elena Anaya), who is held prisoner against her will in the doctor’s mansion.

This Oscar-winning melodrama, one of Pedro Almodóvar’s most beloved films, provides a dizzying, moving exploration of the meaning of motherhood. In an instant, nurse Manuela (Cecilia Roth) loses the teenage son she raised on her own. Grief-stricken, she sets out to search for the boy’s long-lost father in Barcelona, where she reawakens into a new maternal role, at the head of a surrogate family that includes a pregnant, HIV-positive nun (Penélope Cruz); an illustrious star of the stage (Marisa Paredes); and a transgender sex worker (Antonia San Juan). Beautifully performed and bursting with cinematic references, All About My Mother is a vibrant tribute to female fortitude, a one-of-a-kind family portrait, and a work of boundless compassion.

Raimunda (Penélope Cruz) and her sister Sole lost their parents in a tragic fire years ago…or did they? Superstitious villagers claim that the girls’ departed mother, Irene (Carmen Maura), has been seen wandering around their Aunt Paula’s home. When Irene appears to Sole, she explains that she has returned to set right her daughters’ troubled lives and reveal shocking secrets that will impact everyone! Raimunda has “female troubles” of her own, least of which is a corpse in the freezer! Winner of numerous film festival and critics’ awards, VOLVER is a hilarious tale of love, loss and forgiveness.

Melding melodrama with screwball farce, this Academy Award–nominated black comedy was Pedro Almodóvar’s international breakthrough and secured his place at the vanguard of modern Spanish cinema. Continuing the auteur’s exploration of the female psyche, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown tells the story of Pepa—played by the director’s frequent collaborator Carmen Maura—who resolves to kill herself with a batch of sleeping-pill-laced gazpacho after her lover leaves her. Fortunately, she is interrupted by a deliciously chaotic series of events. The filmmaker channeled Hollywood inspiration into his own unique vision, arriving at the irreverent humor and vibrant visual sense that define his work today. With an exceptional ensemble cast that also includes Antonio Banderas and Rossy de Palma, this film shows an artist in total control of his craft.

Pedro Almodóvar's Bitter Christmas tells two alternating stories, one starring Elsa, an advertising director, in 2004, during a long weekend in December. The second takes place in 2026 and stars Raúl, a screenwriter and director who is writing a script that we soon discover is the story of Elsa, her boyfriend Bonifacio, and her friends Patricia and Natalia. Mixed with fiction, Elsa is, in a way, Raúl’s alter ego, who, like him, resorts to autofiction as a solution to a long period of creative drought. He looks inside himself, and he can’t help but also look at the people who make up his most intimate universe: his partner and his assistant.

SHOWING NOVEMBER 29 & DECEMBER 3. Josh O’Connor (The Crown; Challengers) leads the cast in this searing revival of Clifford Odets’ knockout American classic. 1930s New York, at the height of the Depression. Joe Bonaparte is a gifted young violinist with a future in music, until a chance at fame and fortune lures him into the brutal world of professional boxing. He must confront what he’s willing to sacrifice, who he’s willing to become and how to find his place in a world that demands he choose a side. Brought to life with a live string quartet and filmed live from the Almeida Theatre. Olivier Award-winner Sam Yates (Vanya) directs this propulsive drama exploring ambition, identity, and the high price of success.

SHOWING WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2. Free tickets for Friends of The Ross members are available at the Ross Box Office (not available online). **With Scanners, David Cronenberg plunges us into one of his most terrifying and thrilling sci-fi worlds. After a man with extraordinary—and frighteningly destructive—telepathic abilities is nabbed by agents from a mysterious rogue corporation, he discovers he is far from the only possessor of such strange powers, and that some of the other “scanners” have their minds set on world domination, while others are trying to stop them. A trademark Cronenberg combination of the visceral and the cerebral, this phenomenally gruesome and provocative film about the expanses and limits of the human mind was the Canadian director’s breakout hit in the United States.

SHOWING DECEMBER 5 & 13 | Sacred, scandalous, and irresistibly alluring, Saint-Saëns’s spectacular take on the biblical hero of legendary strength and the seductive Philistine whose beauty overpowers him returns in the Met’s larger-than-life production. Giacomo Sagripanti conducts an electrifying cast led by the formidable star pairing of mezzo-soprano Aigul Akhmetshina and tenor Clay Hilley, transmitted live to cinemas worldwide.

SHOWING SUNDAY, DECEMBER 6. Free tickets for Friends of The Ross members are available at the Ross Box Office (not available online). **In the enthralling Blow Out, brilliantly crafted by Brian De Palma, John Travolta gives one of his greatest performances, as a film sound-effects man who believes he has accidentally recorded a political assassination. To uncover the truth, he enlists the help of a possible eyewitness to the crime (Nancy Allen), who may be in danger herself. With its jolting stylistic flourishes, intricate plot, profoundly felt characterizations, and gritty evocation of early-1980s Philadelphia, Blow Out is an American paranoia thriller unlike any other, as well as a devilish reflection on moviemaking.

SHOWING JANUARY 23 & 31, 2027 | Puccini’s exhilarating drama of the Wild West returns in a new staging by celebrated British director Richard Jones, marking the company’s first new production of La Fanciulla del West in more than 30 years. Soprano Sondra Radvanovsky adds to her already remarkable Met repertoire, making her role debut as Minnie, the tough tavern owner with a heart of gold who finds love when she least expects it.

SHOWING MARCH 20 & 28, 2027 | Following his smash-hit company debut with The Hours, composer Kevin Puts returns to the Met with his Pulitzer Prize–winning first opera, inspired by the true events of the 1914 Christmas truce, when soldiers spontaneously set aside the horrors of the First World War and crossed the trenches to mingle, exchange gifts, and sing carols with the enemy.