#17: Anime and Films
✩ For the first year ever,
28 films will have Open Captioning! ✩
CLICK HERE for Films Schedule
Anime Schedule
Anime showings are at the Marriott Hotel in Grand Ballrooms 1–4. Check out these great screenings and download a copy of the Comic-Con 2023 Anime Guide from our website, which provides synopses of all the films. The Guide is available in all the Anime rooms.
*Due to some mature themes/content, no one under the age of 18 will be allowed into the Anime rooms after 10:00 PM at night unless accompanied by a parent or adult legal guardian.
Films Program Schedule
The Comic-Con Films Department is here to entertain you with quality screenings from morning until late into the night at the Marriott Marquis Hotel Grand Ballroom 5, and in the evening in Convention Center Room 4, throughout the convention.
At the Marriott, this year's screenings start on Preview Night at 7:00 PM, then each day at 10:00 AM, while at the Center, our evening Films program begins at 8:30 PM Thursday through Saturday. So whether it’s a film you’ve been dying to see or you just really want to have someplace to sit and relax a bit, drop by the Films Rooms and escape to realms of myth and legend, run away with friends in search of adventure in imaginary worlds, join with extraordinary heroes and heroines to save mankind from utter destruction, and celebrate some of the world’s most popular comic characters, alive on the silver screen! Following are the highlights for each day.
★ Films with Open Captioning can be filtered by searching "Open Caption: English" ★
PREVIEW NIGHT - WEDNESDAY
Starting at 7:00 PM in Marriott Marquis Grand Ballroom 5, we’re traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's a signpost up ahead—your next stop, the Twilight Zone: The Movie. We follow it up by getting musical and fighting the authority in Rock ’n’ Roll High School and end our night celebrating 40 years of Nicholas Cage in his first named performance: Valley Girl.
THURSDAY
In Marriott Grand Ballroom 5, we start our day at 10:00 AM with a history lesson showing the first film produced by the actual Warner Bros.: My Four Years in Germany, a World War I silent American propaganda film from 1918. We go from bold silence to some explosive drama in the 40th anniversary showing of The Outsiders, followed by a comedic look at perceptions of gender roles in the early 1980s with the 40th anniversary showing of Mr. Mom. Experience the final film of Natalie Wood with the 40th anniversary of the sf classic Brainstorm before moving on to a Lumpia double feature with Lumpia and Lumpia with a Vengeance. We’ll go back to the end of the 1990s where three anime nerds save us all from the end of the world in Iké Boys, then celebrate 30 years of being Dazed and Confused and finally get reminded that hell hath no fury like a 1958 Plymouth in this 40th-anniversary screening of Stephen King and John Carpenter’s Christine. In the Convention Center Room 4, our evening offerings begin at 8:30 PM: Celebrating the life and creations of the late Albert Pyun, a prolific cult filmmaker whose career spanned four decades, we bring you the 1990 Captain America and Pyun’s first film, The Sword and the Sorcerer.
FRIDAY
In Marriott Grand Ballroom 5, we examine the Rise of the AI with cinema—both recent and classic—that delves into questions of the ethics of AI. Starting at 10:00 AM, we salute 100 years of Disney innovation with Tron and its legacy sequel, Tron: Legacy, then feature the 40-year anniversary of WarGames. Will Smith investigates robotic murder in I, Robot, and then the toy M3GAN plays with those who aren’t her friends. Celebrate 50 years of malfunctioning killer gunslinger robots in the original Westworld. A man vies with his advanced home computer for the affections of his next-door neighbor in Electric Dreams, then we finish the day with a man who falls in love with a machine in Her. At 8:30 PM in Convention Center Room 4, we celebrate the final film of the first Star Wars Trilogy, Return of the Jedi, and then we serve up some suspense with more than a dash of dark satire in The Menu.
SATURDAY
Saturday starts with a family-friendly animated film: Howard Lovecraft and the Undersea Kingdom at 10:00 AM in Marriott Grand Ballroom 5. Disney gets more celebration of its 100th year, while also celebrating the 50th anniversary of the animated classic Robin Hood. We bring a close to our Rise of the AI with HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Space Command, an indie film celebrating classic themes of pulp and serial science fiction, next graces our silver screen. Final Fantasy has been a powerhouse in the gaming industry for over 35 years, with deep storylines that have fascinated audiences since the beginning and continue to this day across multiple formats and adaptations; the story unfolds cinematically in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. We will See How They Run, into an Empire of Light, before closing out the Marriott for the weekend by doing the time warp again in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. In Convention Room 4 at 8:30 PM, you’re advised to look closely before going into a new home in Saturday the 14th or an Airbnb in Barbarian.
The Comic-Con Films Department is proud to show movies in high-definition video, with stereo sound, and Open Captioning when available. Please enjoy the shows, and respect your fellow attendees by silencing your cell phones and not speaking during the movies (with the exception of sing-a-longs and audience participation films like The Rocky Horror Picture Show).
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