The summer movie season is almost upon us – and in Brew City, we're lucky because movie mania arrives early thanks to the Milwaukee Film Festival, making its glorious return to the big screen in 2022. 

After a two-year virtual hiatus, the greatest two weeks of the year – April 21 through May 5, in 2022's case – are back where they belong: on the big screen in some of the city's loveliest movie venues, with a crowd of fellow film lovers laughing, crying and sometimes being very confused at the same time. 

Not everything is exactly the same from those halcyon days of 2019. For instance, the virtual component remains for those still warming up to returning to the cinema – or for those who never want the movie-watching to stop, even after the projectors turn off for the night – with 58 percent of the selections available from the comfort of your couch. The annual dance party screening "Stop Making Sense" is also gone (*sheds tear*), replaced this year by its spiritual sequel "American Utopia." (*tear says never mind and slides back into eye*)

But one thing has stayed constant from both The Before Times and the past two years: The Milwaukee Film Festival has a ton of awesome movies for you to watch. 

After weeks of tantalizing teases on social media, the festival revealed the full lineup of movies headed to screens across the city. And per usual, it's an outstanding plethora of options for all tastes and preferences (except for people who like boring and lame things – there's nothing for you here).

With almost 300 movies on the docket, the 2022 Milwaukee Film Festival has a little of everything. There's feature-length epics alongside shorts that pack a lot of cinema into a short running time. You can see famous faces (John Boyega, Tilda Swinton, Javier Bardem, Dakota Johnson) right after catching some remarkable unknowns delivering star-making performances. Documentary selections hit on serious topics like Russian politics, education and civil rights ... to significantly less serious topics like the invention of the automat, competitive table-setting contests and a Pez smuggler.

Rock docs showcasing the likes of Buddy Guy and Charli XCX? The 2022 Milwaukee Film Festival has that. Movies for kids and movies very much NOT for kids? The 2022 Milwaukee Film Festival has that. A Finnish movie about a little girl who befriends a growing monster egg? Sure, somehow the 2022 Milwaukee Film Festival has that too.

And that's somehow just the tip of this very cool cinematic iceberg. (I didn't even get to the documentary about men who love cats called "Cat Daddies.") As always with the film festival, if there's nothing amongst their picks that piques your interest, you might just not have any interests. 

Full film descriptions, the entire virtual program book and tickets (whether for the whole slate or just for the virtual screenings) are available on Milwaukee Film's website. But to help you map out your film festival plan of attack – whether you're binging from home or returning to the classic theater-hopping approach for in-person showings – here's the day-by-day schedule to everything the 2022 Milwaukee Film Festival has to offer starting midway through the month.

Here's to disappearing into glowing dark rooms for 15 days, here's to eating Milk Duds and popcorn as your daily meals, and here's to seeing everyone back at the movies once again thanks to the Milwaukee Film Festival.

Day 9: Friday, April 29

Oriental Theatre - Main House

12:30 p.m. – "Joy Womack: The White Swan"
3:30 p.m. – "Sirens"
6 p.m. – "Navalny"
9:30 p.m. – "Queen of Glory"
11:59 p.m. – "Hatching"

Oriental Theatre - Side Houses

1 p.m. – "Shorts: Stranger Than Fiction"
1:30 p.m. – "Estacion Catorce"
4 p.m. – "Shorts: Surprise, Surprise!"
4:30 p.m. – "Great Freedom"
6:30 p.m. – "Anonymous Club"
7:30 p.m. – "imperfect"
9 p.m. – "Medusa"
10:30 p.m. – "Me and the Beasts"

Avalon Theater

1:15 p.m. – "The 8th"
4 p.m. – "Finding Loren"
7 p.m. – "Jesus Lopez"
9:30 p.m. – "Cannon Arm and the Arcade Quest"

Times Cinema

1:30 p.m. – "Apples"
4 p.m. – "Hockeyland"
7 p.m. – "As In Heaven"
9:30 p.m. – "Saloum"

Day 10: Saturday, April 30

Oriental Theatre - Main House

12:30 p.m. – "Bitterbrush"
4 p.m. – "For the Left Hand"
7 p.m. – "David Byrne's American Utopia"
10 p.m. – "Watcher"

Oriental Theatre - Side Houses

10 a.m. – "A Butterfly's Heart"
10:30 a.m. – "Daughter of a Lost Bird"
1 p.m. – "Let Me Be Me"
1:30 p.m. – "Anonymous Sister"
3:30 p.m. – "One Road to Quartzsite"
4:30 p.m. – "What We Leave Behind"
6:30 p.m. – "After Sherman"
7:30 p.m. – "Straighten Up and Fly Right"
9:30 p.m. – "A Life on the Farm"
11 p.m. – "You Are Not My Mother"
11:59 p.m. – "Piggy"

Avalon Theater

10:30 a.m. – "Kids Shorts: Size Small"
1 p.m. – "One Pint at a Time"
4 p.m. – "Futura"
7 p.m. – "Charli XCX: Alone Together"
9:30 p.m. – "Hypochondriac"

Times Cinema

10:30 a.m. – "Kids Shorts: Size Medium"
1 p.m. – "The Milwaukee Project"
4 p.m. – "Cinema Sabaya"
6:30 p.m. – "Riotsville, USA"
9 p.m. – "Shorts: The Best Damn F*#@ing Midnight Program Ever. Shit."

Day 11: Sunday, May 1

Oriental Theatre - Main House

11:30 a.m. – "The Milwaukee Youth Show"
3:30 p.m. – "The Good Boss"
6:30 p.m. – "Cha Cha Real Smooth"
9:30 p.m. – "Klondike"

Oriental Theatre - Side Houses

10:30 a.m. – "North By Current"
11 a.m. – "Kids Shorts: Size Large"
1:30 p.m. – "Set!"
2 p.m. – "Gagarine"
4:30 p.m. – "Last Film Show"
5 p.m. – "Refuge"
7:30 p.m. – "Cine Sin Fronteras Shorts"
8 p.m. – "Whether the Weather is Fine"
10 p.m. – "Anonymous Club"

Avalon Theater

10:15 a.m. – "imperfect"
1 p.m. – "MAIKA"
5 p.m. – "Anais in Love"
7 p.m. – "The Conservation Game"
10 p.m. – "Good Madam"

Times Cinema

10:15 a.m. – "Icarus and the Minotaur"
12:30 p.m. – "Stay Prayed Up"
3:15 p.m. – "The Exchange. In White America. Kaukauna & King 50 Years Later"
6 p.m. – "Let the Little Light Shine"
9 p.m. – "They Want Me Gone"

Day 12: Monday, April 2

Oriental Theatre - Main House

1:30 p.m. – "Invisible: Gay Women in Southern Music"
5 p.m. – "The Automat"
8 p.m. – "The Milwaukee Show II"

Oriental Theatre - Side Houses

1 p.m. – "Zero Gravity"
2 p.m. – "Jesus Lopez"
3:30 p.m. – "ClayDream"
4:30 p.m. – "Exposing Muybridge"
6:30 p.m. – "Neptune Frost"
7 p.m. – "Shorts: Let's Get Animated"
9:30 p.m. – "892"

Avalon Theater

1:15 p.m. – "Wildhood"
4 p.m. – "Blind Ambition"
6:45 p.m. – "The Blind Man"
9 p.m. – "One Road to Quartzsite"

Times Cinema

3:30 p.m. – "Buddy Guy: Chase the Blues Away"
6 p.m. – "Sweetheart"
9 p.m. – "Black Lens Shorts"

Day 13: Tuesday, May 3

Oriental Theatre - Main House

4 p.m. – "Montana Story"
7 p.m. – "Look At Me: XXXTentacion

Oriental Theatre - Side Houses

12:30 p.m. – "As In Heaven"
2 p.m. – "Free Chol Soo Lee"
3 p.m. – "Shorts: Grab Bag 2022"
5 p.m. – "Lingui, the Sacred Bonds"
6 p.m. – "Breaking Bread"
7:30 p.m. – "Beba"
9 p.m. – "Good Madam"
10 p.m. – "Shorts: Out of This World"

Avalon Theater

1 p.m. – "A Love Song"
4 p.m. – "North By Current"
6:30 p.m. – "The Cathedral"
9:30 p.m. – "Sirens"

Times Cinema

1 p.m. – "Grain"
3:30 p.m. – "Private Desert"
6:30 p.m. – "Messwood"
9:30 p.m. – "Apples"

Day 14: Wednesday, May 4

Oriental Theatre - Main House

1 p.m. – "Black Lens Shorts"
4 p.m. – "Bad Axe"
7 p.m. – "Barbara Lee: Speaking Truth to Power"
10 p.m. – "Watcher"

Oriental Theatre - Side Houses

2 p.m. – "The Gravedigger's Wife"
4:30 p.m. – "We Feed People"
5 p.m. – "Gemmel & Tim"
8 p.m. – "Charli XCX: Alone Together"

Avalon Theater

1:15 p.m. – "The Velvet Queen"
4 p.m. – "Unclenching the Fists"
6:45 p.m. – "Gagarine"
9:30 p.m. – "Belle"

Times Cinema

1:45 p.m. – "Great Freedom"
4:45 p.m. – "Nowhere Special"
7:30 p.m. – "Deep Woods"

Day 15: Thursday, May 5

Oriental Theatre - Main House

5:30 p.m. – "The Job of Songs"
8 p.m. – "Petite Maman"

Oriental Theatre - Side Houses

1 p.m. – "Calendar Girls"
1:30 p.m. – "Tug of War"
3:30 p.m. – "Private Desert"
4:30 p.m. – "Costa Brava, Lebanon"
6:30 p.m. – "Aloners"
7:30 p.m. – "The Pursuit of Perfection"

Avalon Theater

3:30 p.m. – "Bitterbrush"
6 p.m. – "They Want Me Gone"

Times Cinema

1:30 p.m. – "Perejil"
4 p.m. – "Straighten Up and Fly Right"
6:30 p.m. – "Free Chol Soo Lee"

Virtual cinema options

• "The 8th" – available starting Monday, April 25
• "892" – available starting Sunday, April 24
• "A Distant Place" – available starting Monday, April 25
• "A Life on the Farm" – available starting Friday, April 22
• "A Love Song" – available starting Monday, April 25
• "After Sherman" – available starting Wednesday, April 27
• "Ali & Ava" – available starting Sunday, April 24
• "Aloners" – available starting Tuesday, April 26
• "Anonymous Sister" – available starting Wednesday, April 27
• "The Automat" – available starting Tuesday, April 26
• "Bad Axe" – available starting Monday, April 25
• "Barbara Lee: Speaking Truth to Power" – available starting Tuesday, April 26
• "Beyond the Infinite 2 Minutes" – available starting Sunday, April 24
• "The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic" – available starting Tuesday, May 3
• "Boycott" – available starting Tuesday, April 26
• "Cadejo Blanco" – available starting Tuesday, April 26
• "Cannon Arm and the Arcade Quest" – available starting Saturday, April 30
• "Cat Daddies" – available starting Monday, April 25
• "Charli XCX: Alone Together" – available starting Sunday, May 1
• "Cinema Sabaya" – available starting Sunday, May 1
• "The Conservation Game" – available starting Monday, May 2
• "Daughter of a Lost Bird" – available starting Friday, April 29
• "Estacion Catorce" – available starting Saturday, April 23
• "The Exchange. In White America. Kaukauna & King 50 Years Later" – available starting Friday, April 22
• "Finding Loren" – available starting Friday, April 22
• "For the Left Hand" – available starting Saturday, April 23
• "Futura" – available starting Sunday, April 24
• "Gabi, Between Ages 8 and 13" – available starting Friday, April 29
• "Gemmel & Tim" – available starting Tuesday, April 26
• "Girl Picture" – available starting Wednesday, April 27
• "Grain" – available starting Sunday, April 24
• "Hockeyland" – available starting Saturday, April 23
• "Homebody" – available starting Sunday, April 24
• "imperfect" – available starting Saturday, April 30
• "Invisible: Gay Women in Southern Music" – available starting Tuesday, April 26
• "The Job of Songs" – available starting Saturday, April 23
• "Joy Womack: The White Swan" – available starting Monday, April 25
• "Keep the Cameras Rolling: The Pedro Zamora Way" – available starting Tuesday, April 26
• "Klondike" – available starting Monday, April 25
• "Let Me Be Me" – available starting Saturday, April 23
• "Let the Little Light Shine" – available starting Sunday, April 24
• "Love, Spells, and All That" – available starting Saturday, April 23
• "Mama Bears" – available starting Sunday, April 24
• "Me and the Beasts" – available starting Monday, April 25
• "Memory Box" – available starting Sunday, April 24
• "Messwood" – available starting Friday, April 22
• "The Milwaukee Project" – available starting Friday, April 22
• "Montana Story" – available starting Saturday, April 23
• "North By Current" – available starting Monday, May 2
• "One Road to Quartzsite" – available starting Sunday, May 1
• "The Other Tom" – available starting Sunday, April 24
• "Queen of Glory" – available starting Monday, April 25
• "Refuge" – available starting Wednesday, April 27
• "Samichay, in Search of Happiness" – available starting Monday, April 25
• "Scarborough" – available starting Sunday, April 24
• "Set!" – available starting Monday, May 2
• "Stay Prayed Up" – available starting Tuesday, April 26
• "Straighten Up and Fly Right" – available starting Sunday, May 1
• "Sweetheart" – available starting Sunday, April 24
• "They Want Me Gone" – available starting Friday, April 22
• "Utama" – available starting Saturday, April 23
• "The Velvet Queen" – available starting Saturday, April 23
• "We Are As Gods" – available starting Tuesday, April 26
• "We Feed People" – available starting Wednesday, April 27
• "What We Leave Behind" – available starting Sunday, May 1
• "Wildhood" – available starting Saturday, April 23
• "The Youth Governor" – available starting Monday, April 25
• "Yuni" – available starting Monday, April 25
• "Zero Gravity" – available starting Saturday, April 23
• All shorts programs will be available virtually starting Friday, April 22