Housewife Beverly Sutphin (Kathleen Turner) seems to enjoy a life of domestic bliss. She has a loving husband (Sam Waterston), two fine teenage kids, and a beautiful Baltimore home. Hell, she even gives the birds in her backyard Christian names. Admittedly, she’s a little highly strung…
When Beverly goes on the rampage with a knife, chasing a scruffy teenager through the streets in her Sunday best, it’s in defence of all she holds most dear: family values, impeccable manners, road safety. Suburban conformity fosters its own pathologies. This is a killer comedy from the one and only John Waters (who says it’s his best film), with an uproariously funny, marvellously malicious performance from Turner.
During a time when shiny-haired tradwives in flowy dresses are attempting to turn motherhood into some sort of sacred blessing devoid of challenges, Beverly feels pretty relatable. She’s a matriarch who has had it, which is an emotional state that many of us can relate to. Beverly Sutphin isn’t real. Rooting for her doesn’t mean you’re a depraved lunatic. It just means you deeply understand that moms in this country need a freaking break.
Dina Gachman, New York Times (2026)
A funny, biting satire of suburban repression and hypocrisy, is as close as John Waters has yet come to making a mainstream film that retains the signature bad taste and biting anti-authoritarian streak of his early films.
Simon Abrams, rogerebert.com
Media Partner
John Waters
Kathleen Turner, Sam Waterston, Ricki Lake, Matthew Lillard
USA
1994
English
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
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Credits
Producer
John Fiedler, Mark Tarlov
Screenwriter
John Waters
Cinematography
Robert Stevens
Editor
Janice Hampton, Erica Huggins
Original Music
Basil Poledouris
Production Design
Vincent Peranio
90s, Baby!
Ten years. 11 weeks. 90 films from the 1990s. This summer, 90’s Baby! takes a deep dive into a defining decade of cinema.
Crash
Sex drive, David Cronenberg-style. The car-crash fetishists who orbit Cronenberg's metrosexual Toronto (they include James Spader, Holly Hunter, and Deborah Unger) obsessively seek a fusion of metal and flesh... Fender bender as the ultimate orgasm.
Trainspotting
Danny Boyle's blistering movie was a sensation in 1996: a kick in the teeth of old school British kitchen sink realism, it fearlessly transformed the dire circumstances of Edinburgh heroin addicts into an experience by turns exhilarating and devastating.
Fargo
Have the Coen brothers ever made a more satisfying movie than Fargo? This grisly comedy pits one of cinema's most pure-hearted cops (Frances McDormand's pregnant cop, Marge Gunderson) against the machinations of weak and mercenary men.
Lone Star
John Sayles's modern day Western is a murder mystery which draws sheriff Chris Cooper to investigate two of his predecessors, the notoriously corrupt Charlie Wade (Kris Kristofferson), and his own father, Buddy (Matthew McConaughey).
90s Mystery Movie + Trivia Night
And now for a shot in the dark... We're not announcing the Mystery Movie in advance, so you'll have to take a leap of faith. We can say it was released between January 1990 and January 2000, and it's not already showing elsewhere in this series. As an added enticement we're going to throw in a 90s movie trivia night with your ticket — plus prizes!
Princess Mononoke
A mystical fight between humans and the Animal Gods of the forest. Ashitaka, the last prince of a dying race, struggles to find a way for both sides to co-exist. But the fighting only becomes more and more bloody and all hope seems to be lost…
Gummo
Harmony Korine was just 24 when he made Gummo. It's become a cult favourite as much for its singularity as anything else: it's a strange, misshapen beast, a slice of beat poetry translated into experimental film.
Jackie Brown
Take half a dozen characters who know they're in a fix, and give them half a million dollars to fight over. Tarantino's crime movie (his best) transcends genre in large part because in Pam Grier and Robert Forster it gives us people we truly care about.
The Big Lebowski
The Coens' whacky, warped slacker generation riff on Raymond Chandler, a shaggy dog story which delights in going sideways at every turn. Jeff Bridges is the Dude, and what he really wants is to get his rug back...
Out of Sight
Adapted from Elmore Leonard's novel about the mutual attraction between an escaped bank robber and the FBI agent on his tail, Out of Sight is sexy and romantic, cosmopolitan, and full of Soderbergh's sleight of hand, shuffling time like a card sharp.
Buffalo '66
Vincent Gallo's directorial debut is an eccentric, provocative comedy which laces a poignant love story with both a sombre, washed-out naturalism and surreal musical vignettes. This one is something different...
Run Lola Run
In the hyper intense world of pre-millennial Berlin, Lola has just 20 minutes to come up with a 100,000 Deutchmarks or her boyfriend cops it. He's asking the right woman: Lola won't stop til she's saved the day... It's Speed, in the multiverse...
Rushmore
Precocious Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman) is befriended by depressed industrialist Harold Blume (Bill Murray) until they both fall in love with first grade teacher Miss Cross (Olivia Williams). Anderson's second feature is an old favourite.
The Blair Witch Project
The rushes of a student-made documentary investigating the legend of the Blair Witch in Burkittsville, Maryland, a quest that led the three filmmakers deep into the Appallachian woods. Easy to get lost in there...