Adam Cesare's Bram Stoker Award-winning slasher novel hits the big screen in an adaptation from TUCKER AND DALE VS EVIL writer/director Eli Craig and the producers of SMILE. (Fan of the book? Don't miss Cesare at FrankenCon 2025 May 9 & 10, including a special visit to Central Cinema to host Saturday night's screening!)

Join us for our new KHFF Arcana $7 grab bag series, featuring a special monthly treat curated by the Knoxville Horror Film Fest!

In his controversial masterpiece, Charlie Chaplin offers both a cutting caricature of Adolf Hitler and a sly tweaking of his own comic persona. Chaplin, in his first pure talkie, brings his sublime physicality to two roles: the cruel yet clownish “Tomainian” dictator and the kindly Jewish barber who is mistaken for him. Featuring Jack Oakie and Paulette Goddard in stellar supporting turns, THE GREAT DICTATOR is an audacious amalgam of politics and slapstick that culminates in Chaplin’s famously impassioned speech.

Central Cinema is pleased to team up with the Knox County Public Library's Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound for a free monthly screening event, alternating between regionally-relevant feature films and dispatches from their extensive archive of audiovisual treasures.

Our Dead Nazi Summer series continues with one of the cornerstones of the genre. (A real face-melter, if you will.)

After nearly seven years of local cinematic pride, it's high time we paid tribute to the prodigal son who unexpectedly took Hollywood by storm and brought the Knoxville name with him. Join us for one of the most unique nonfiction-ish films ever produced, a fascinating bit of dirtbag pure cinema that's sure to be ten times as fun with a roaring audience. (And for goodness sake, don't try this at home.)

Highlander Center's "Off The Hill" screening series – featuring free admission and non-alcoholic concessions! – resumes with this essential portrait of writer and activist Alice Walker.

Our new Asian Underground $7 grab bag series presents a monthly dispatch from the world of alternative Asian genre cinema, notorious and influential for boundary-smashing oddity and extremity. (Not suitable for audiences under the age of 18.)

Our summer collaboration with the Knoxville Museum of Art kicks off with Jacques Tati's staggering, career-derailing 1967 masterpiece of modernist critique and gentle visual comedy.

Join Americans United for Separation of Church and State for a FREE screening of this urgent documentary exploring the dangerous rise of Christian Nationalism in the United States.

Released the same year as PULP FICTION, Kevin Smith's debut deserves equal credit within the indie film boom: Tarantino took the world by storm with a flashy, star-studded classic, but Smith showed that you could also just mess around with buddies (and Visa cards) and still end up with your name in lights. Crude in every sense of the word, CLERKS is an unpretentious, laugh-out-loud funny tribute to jaded working class Gen X'ers, and we hope you'll join us in revisiting it.

Join us as we celebrate 50 years of Steven Spielberg's 1975 gamechanger, which singlehandedly ushered in the era of the Hollywood blockbuster.

Genre film lifer Mick Strawn is one of Central Cinema’s favorite guests, having joined us to discuss his various behind-the-scenes roles on films like BLADE, MORTAL KOMBAT and NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4. But until now we’ve never got around to the most intriguing credit in Mick’s wild filmography: his work as Production Designer and minatures coordinator on 1994’s infamously unreleased Roger Corman production of Marvel’s FANTASTIC FOUR. Join us and Nirvana Comics as we welcome Mick back to walk us through this unique film and its production… plus a special guest appearance from Justin Mason, the artist behind Marvel’s newly-revived The Thing standalone title.

Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, George Kennedy, John Cassavetes, Telly Savalas, Donald Sutherland, Robert Ryan and at LEAST three more dudes are on one hell of a mission in and that is NOT good news for the Nazis in this daring war pulp classic.

Our Skate Video Night series presents a monthly program of top-shelf skate videos, presented on VHS and DVD curated by our friend Chris Albiston.

Joe Pickett (The Onion) and Nick Prueher (Late Show) have over 14,000 VHS tapes in their collection and have been taking viewers on a guided tour through their latest and greatest finds since 2004. To celebrate two decades of this VHS nonsense, Joe & Nick will serve up their all-time greatest finds including the dumbest exercise videos, the craziest public access shows and updates with the most wonderful weirdos they’ve met along the way.

Childhood friends turned professional comedians Nick Prueher and Joe Pickett book their gag-strongman routine on unsuspecting morning news shows. When their pranks go viral, they land in federal court with a vengeful media conglomerate. The stress of the lawsuit and pressure to continue their pranks threaten their livelihood and tests their lifelong friendship.

An urgent, intimate portrait of America’s student movement, ignited at Columbia University as students protested their universities’ ties to the war on Gaza. Their actions sparked a nationwide uprising, with encampments spreading across hundreds of campuses. Featuring detained activist Mahmoud Khalil, alongside professors, whistleblowers, and organizers, the film captures the deeper stakes of a historic moment that continues to reverberate across the globe.

Join us for a special $15 double feature event as the Knoxville Horror Film Fest salutes Lucio Fulci with a screening of THE BEYOND (in a new 4K restoration) followed by a surprise rarity B-feature from the Italian horror maestro's deep catalog! (Individual tickets are also available for both films, and THE BEYOND will screen again in a Monday encore.)

Central Cinema is pleased to present Alex Ross Perry's appropriately convention-flouting tribute to one of indie rock's defining outfits, kicking off with a special guest Q&A screening with Pavement's Bob Nastanovich on Sunday, June 1. (The film will return for a limited run starting Friday June 6.)

Our latest $7 wildcard series reimagines our popular OVA Extreme events with an expanded purview... join us as we dig deep into the wide, wild world of anime with ANIME EXTREME!

Join us for our FREE monthly live standup engagement, showcasing the best comics from Knoxville and elsewhere, courtesy of our friends at Tiny Stage Comedy!

Join us as we host a one-night-only premiere of this locally-produced documentary about Knoxville skate culture... two showings only!