April 30, 2026
BSFI Free Movies in May 2026 at BSPAC!
Share
BSFI Free Movies Continue at BSPAC with May Screenings of Ordinary People and Mother
In April, BSFI began our third year of free movie screenings with a packed house for the Academy Award winner, which was partially filmed here in Borrego, One Battle After Another! It was the largest audience we’ve had yet, and people seemed to really enjoy themselves. We followed that with the classic Western, The Ox-Bow Incident, and we will continue the BSFI free movies, screening every other Wednesday, through the end of December.
Our full schedule for 2026 is now 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 May:
Wednesday, May 6, 2026 at 7pm – Ordinary People – 1980 – Rated R – 2h 4m
Ordinary People is a deeply affecting American drama and the first feature directed by Robert Redford, based on a screenplay by Alvin Sargent adapted from Judith Guest's 1976 novel. The story centers on Conrad Jarrett (Timothy Hutton), a teenager tormented by guilt following his older brother's death in a sailing accident, who has attempted suicide and, upon returning home from a psychiatric hospital, struggles to reconnect with his cold and withdrawn mother Beth (Mary Tyler Moore) and his emotionally wounded father Calvin (Donald Sutherland), aided by his psychiatrist Dr. Berger (Judd Hirsch. The cast delivers uniformly powerful work — Sutherland gives what many consider the best performance of his career, capturing every nuance of a father struggling with past, present, and future, while Moore is memorable as a brittle, icy mother hiding behind a facade of composure. The film also launched the career of Elizabeth McGovern, who played Hutton's character's love interest. Released by Paramount Pictures in1980, Ordinary People met with both commercial and critical success, grossing $90 million on a budget of just $6.2 million. Critics were enthusiastic: Roger Ebert awarded it four stars, praising how it avoided cheap shots at suburban life, arguing the characters' problems grow from within themselves rather than from their environment. It currently holds a 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the critical consensus praising Redford's emotional intelligence as a filmmaker. At the Academy Awards, the film received six nominations and won four: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor for Timothy Hutton, who at age 20 became the youngest recipient of that award.
Wednesday, May 20, 2026 at 7pm – Mother – 1996 – Rated PG-13 – 1h 44m
Mother is a sharp and warmly observed comedy-drama written, directed by, and starring Albert Brooks. Reeling after his second divorce and struggling with writer's block, sci-fi novelist John Henderson (Brooks) resolves to figure out where his life went wrong and hits on an unorthodox solution: moving back in with his relentlessly disapproving, cheerfully passive-aggressive mother Beatrice (Debbie Reynolds), whose favorite son has always been John's younger brother Jeff (Rob Morrow). While staying with her, John discovers a box of novel and short story manuscripts his mother wrote in her youth, and learns that she was a skilled writer who had her talent discouraged by her husband and by social expectations — and that her passive aggression stems from envy of the career she never got to pursue herself. Mother was co-written by Brooks with Monica Johnson, and the cast also features Lisa Kudrow and John C. McGinley in supporting roles. Reynolds was making her first starring film role in 27 years, and her performance drew widespread admiration. Roger Ebert wrote that Brooks was "much too smart to settle for the obvious gags and payoffs," and that the audience laughter it drew was "the laughter of recognition, of insight, even sometimes of squirmy discomfort, as the truths hit close to home." It remains Brooks's highest-grossing directorial effort, earning $19.1 million at the box office. On the awards front, the film won the New York Film Critics Circle Award and the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Screenplay, making it the most award-winning film Brooks has directed.
This season’s BSFI movie screenings are being generously underwritten by the Borrego Valley Endowment Fund (BVEF).
See you at the movies!
Learn More About Borrego Springs
