BSFI Free Summer Movies -- JULY 2026 at BSPAC!

Summer in Borrego Springs can mean many things. Like empty streets, triple-digit heat, and star-filled night skies. But it also means Free Summer Movies screening every other Wednesday, through December at BSPAC. 

And on July 1^st, we continue our unofficial BSFI summer tradition of screening Steven Spielberg blockbusters in early July: In our inaugural season we played Jaws, the second year it was Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and this year it’s going to be Raiders of the Lost Ark! Don’t miss your chance to see this classic adventure on the big screen!

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 full schedule for 2026 is posted on the BSFI website:  www.borregospringsfilminstitute.org. 

Please check the website for the most up to date information.

Here are the movies coming to BSPAC in July:

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

Raiders of the Lost Ark is an action-adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg, with a screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan based on a story by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman. Harrison Ford leads the cast as Indiana Jones, a globe-trotting archaeologist racing Nazi forces to recover the long-lost Ark of the Covenant. Karen Allen plays his tough former lover Marion Ravenwood, Paul Freeman portrays the cunning rival archaeologist Dr. René Belloq, John Rhys-Davies appears as the jovial excavator Sallah, and Denholm Elliott plays Jones's trusted colleague Marcus Brody. Despite pre-release polling that showed little audience interest, Raiders became the highest-grossing film of 1981, earning approximately $354 million worldwide, and played in some theaters for over a year. Critically, the film was a phenomenon. The National Board of Review and critic Vincent Canby listed it as one of the ten best films of the year, with Canby labeling it an "instant classic" and a critic consensus calling it "one of the most consummately entertaining adventure pictures of all time." The film won five Academy Awards, seven Saturn Awards, and one BAFTA, and was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 1999. It remains one of the most celebrated and influential movies in cinema history, launching the beloved Indiana Jones franchise.

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

The Great McGinty is a sharp and audaciously funny political satire comedy that holds a singular place in Hollywood history. Written and directed by Preston Sturges, it was his first film as a director — he sold the screenplay to Paramount Pictures for just $10 on the condition that he be allowed to direct it. The story, told in flashback, follows Dan McGinty (Brian Donlevy), a Depression-era bum who is recruited into a crooked political machine and rises rapidly from ballot-stuffer to alderman, then mayor, and finally state governor — only to be brought down by one impulsive act of honesty after a lifetime of corruption. McGinty's marriage to his secretary Catherine (Muriel Angelus), initially a cynical political maneuver, gradually becomes genuine, and her moral influence plants the seed of his undoing. The film also stars Akim Tamiroff as the scheming political Boss and features William Demarest in a standout comic supporting turn. Both Tamiroff and Demarest became part of what Sturges developed into an unofficial stock company of character actors he returned to throughout his career. Released as a B-film playing the lower half of double features, The Great McGinty nonetheless returned a tidy profit for Paramount, after which Sturges was given greater autonomy and larger budgets, enabling him to produce the string of comedy classics that followed. Critically it was well received, named one of the ten best films of 1940 by both the New York Times and Film Daily. At the Academy Awards, Sturges won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay — a fitting honor, as the film is also historically notable as the first movie to carry the credit "Written and Directed by" followed by a single name, paving the way for writer-directors like John Huston and Billy Wilder to follow in his footsteps.

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

A Simple Plan is a gripping neo-noir crime thriller that represents a striking departure from Sam Raimi's reputation as a master of horror and stylized genre filmmaking. Directed by Raimi and written by Scott B. Smith, adapting his own 1993 novel, the film stars Bill Paxton, Billy Bob Thornton, and Bridget Fonda, and is set in rural Minnesota.  The story follows brothers Hank (Paxton) and Jacob Mitchell (Thornton), who, along with Jacob's friend Lou (Brent Briscoe), stumble upon a crashed plane in the woods containing $4.4 million in cash. The four — including Hank's wife Sarah (Fonda) — go to great lengths to keep the money secret, but begin to doubt each other's trust, resulting in lies, deceit, and murder. Roger Ebert, who ranked the film fourth on his list of the best films of 1998, praised how rarely a film is "this skillful at drawing us, step by step, into the consequences of criminal action," and Gene Siskel called it "an exceedingly well-directed genre picture" in which Raimi "does an excellent job of presaging the lethal violence that follows."  A Simple Plan premiered at the 1998 Toronto International Film Festival to critical acclaim, before a limited US release in 1998.  It underperformed at the box office, grossing $16.3 million, but was widely praised by critics.  On the awards front, the film earned two Academy Award nominations: one for Best Supporting Actor for Thornton and one for Best Adapted Screenplay for Smith.  After Paxton's death in 2017, critic Matt Zoller Seitz declared his performance as Hank the finest of Paxton's career — a fitting testament to a film that, despite its modest box office, has only grown in reputation as one of the most emotionally devastating thrillers of its era.

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

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.

Wednesday, September 9, 2026 at 7pm – Sentimental Value – 2025 – Rated R – 2h 13m

Directed by Joachim Trier and written by Trier and Eskil Vogt, the film is a Norwegian comedy-drama that weaves together family drama, creative ambition, and the bittersweet pull of reconciliation. The story centers on sisters Nora and Agnes, whose estranged father Gustav — a celebrated but now semi-obscure film director — re-enters their lives following the death of their mother, hoping to cast Nora as the lead in his long-awaited comeback film. When she refuses, he turns to a glamorous American actress, upending the family's fragile peace and forcing all three to confront long-buried resentments. The film won the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. In Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, and English with English subtitles.

Wednesday, September 23, 2026 at 7pm - The Treasure of the Sierra Madre – 1948 – Not Rated – 2h 6m

Set in Mexico in the 1920s, two hard-luck Americans, Fred Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart) and Bob Curtin (Tim Holt), team up with Howard (Walter Huston), a wise old prospector, on a quest for gold deep in the remote Sierra Madre mountains. Written and directed by John Huston — who adapted the film from B. Traven's 1927 novel — the story takes a dark turn as the men's discovery of gold gives way to suspicion, paranoia, and greed that threatens to destroy them as surely as any bandit. The film is widely considered Huston's finest work, and in a historic sweep at the Academy Awards, John took home Oscars for Best Director and Best Screenplay while his father Walter won Best Supporting Actor — the only time a father and son have won in the same ceremony. Celebrated for its exceptional performances, authentic atmosphere, and moral complexity, the film is regarded as a timeless masterpiece of psychological depth and thematic richness.

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

See you at the movies!