It's called White Zombie and it screens Saturday, along with an array of other iconic films you should know.

Friday, March 20

Few filmmakers have had a decade as fruitful as Robert Altman did in the 1970s. The Aero is screening selected favorites from his most prolific (and impressive) 10-year stretch this weekend, beginning tonight at 7:30 with his adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye and ending on Sunday with McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Elliott Gould’s take on genre-defining private detective Philip Marlowe is very much of its time but, as with most else in this classic L.A. neo-noir featuring a rather important cat, it has endured the test of time without feeling dated. americancinemathequecalendar.com

The New Beverly has set aside the entire month of March for classics from the ’90s, with tonight’s double feature of Speed and Rush Hour being perhaps the most purely enjoyable of them all. Anyone who thinks Keanu Reeves can’t act should revisit his performance in the classic action flick about a bus rigged to explode if it dips below 50 mph; the perennially underrated star’s quiet charisma is on full display as he defuses a life-or-death situation. Chris Tucker cemented his stardom alongside Jackie Chan in Rush Hour, and has appeared in only one movie outside the buddy-cop series since it began in 1998. thenewbev.com

The Long Goodbye

The Long Goodbye

Saturday, March 21

Two sides of the undead coin at UCLA’s Billy Wilder Theater: White Zombie and Ouanga, both on 35mm. The first feature-length zombie movie ever made (not to mention the industrial-metal band’s namesake), White Zombie’s influence is still felt today. Made in 1935 but not seen stateside for six more years, Ouanga’s hellacious production saw the death of several crew members. The screening is part of the UCLA Film & Television Archive’s Festival of Preservation, which restores classics and overlooked gems alike; Scott MacQueen, who heads the preservation program, will be there in person. cinema.ucla.edu

Cinefamily’s Heavy Midnites program presents Welcome to the Dollhouse, Todd Solondz’s feature debut. Though the indie stalwart’s body of work has proven increasingly divisive over time, his coming-of-age story centered around a seventh-grade outcast remains warmly received a full two decades after it was made. One of many independent classics to come out of Sundance’s ’90s heyday, Dollhouse provided early signs of the writer-director’s dark sense of humor and willingness to court controversy. cinefamily.org

Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion

Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion

Monday, March 23

In conjunction with Il Cinema Ritrovato, a festival in Bologna, Italy, dedicated to restoring classic films, Loyola Marymount begins its three-day Rediscovered Film series with Elio Petri’s Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion. Gian Maria Volonté stars in Petri’s 1970 crime drama as a homicide detective who kills his mistress and then investigates the murder. The movie won an Oscar for Best Foreign-Language Film and remains the Italian auteur’s best-known work. All screenings in the program (which also includes Marriage Italian Style and A Fistful of Dollars, among others) are free but require an RSVP. sftv.lmu.edu

Tuesday, March 24

Antoine Doinel’s story comes to a close in Love on the Run, the latest 1 p.m. Tuesday Matinee at LACMA. François Truffaut made five films about his semi-autobiographical avatar over the course of 20 years, with this one providing closure on his marriage to on-and-off love interest Christine and his life as a novelist. Truffaut only directed three more movies in the following five years before his untimely death at age 52. lacma.org

Thursday, March 26

Cal State Northridge’s semester-long Yasujiro Ozu retrospective continues with Tokyo Twilight at 7:30. Another in a long line of family dramas, this late entry in the filmmaker’s body of work focuses on two sisters reuniting with the mother who abandoned them years earlier. Ozu’s tone and approach vacillated from film to film, and Twilight, his last black-and-white production, is widely thought of as one of his most dispiriting. As with all Thursday Nights at the Cinematheque events, this screening is free and open to the public. csun.edu

For more things to do in L.A. visit laweekly.com/calendar.

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