28 movies you should check out at the 2024 Milwaukee Film Festival

The 2024 Milwaukee Film Festival brings 300 movies to seven screens in four theaters over 15 days.

That's a lot of math.

And a lot of movies to sort through to find the right movies.

To help you get started, we've put together a starter kit of 28 movies to check out at this year's film festival. Operated by nonprofit Milwaukee Film, the festival runs from April 11-25, with screenings at the Oriental Theatre, the Downer Theatre, the Times Cinema and the Avalon Theater.

Tickets for the festival's premium screenings (marked with an asterisk below) are $20; $18 for seniors 60 and older, students, educators and military members; and $17 for Milwaukee Film members.

Tickets for the festival's other screenings are $15; $14 for seniors 60 and older, students, educators and military members; $13 for Milwaukee Film members; and $8 for kids 12 and younger. An all-access pass costs $625, $525 for Milwaukee Film members.

Tickets are available starting April 3 at mkefilm.org or by calling 414-755-1965, and at the Oriental Theatre box office starting April 5. Starting April 12, tickets also will be available at the other participating theaters. Note: Unlike the last three Milwaukee Film Festivals, the 2024 edition will not have a virtual component — this year, all movies are screening in theaters.

RELATED: 'Hoping this year feels fully normal': 2024 Milwaukee Film Festival all in-person, Downer back

If you like to catch up with movies you missed the first time around (even if that was a long time ago)

“The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”: The Anvil Orchestra offers live musical accompaniment to a big-screen showing of this 1920 surrealist horror-fantasy, which helped shape the look of a century of cinema.

5:30 p.m. April 18, Oriental*.

“Chasing Chasing Amy”: Filmmaker Sav Rodgers recounts the making of Kevin Smith’s 1997 movie “Chasing Amy” and explores how the groundbreaking LGBTQ romantic comedy became a cult classic and changed his life.

7:15 p.m. April 21, Oriental; 9 p.m. April 22, Avalon; 2 p.m. April 25, Oriental.

“Cinebuds Live: Footloose”: Kick off your Sunday shoes with a screening of the 1984 jukebox musical that turned Kevin Bacon into a dance icon. The screening is followed by an audience Q&A, part of a live taping of the Milwaukee Film/Radio Milwaukee podcast “Cinebuds.”

12:15 p.m. April 14, Oriental.

If you like movies with a Wisconsin accent

“Angels of Dirt”: Madison filmmaker Wendy Schneider began filming young racers at Aztalan Cycle Club in Lake Mills in 2006 when her lens first captured 9-year-old West Allis Charlotte Kainz. Schneider’s new documentary tells the story of Kainz’s rise in the world of professional flat-track motorcycle racing, including interviews with several people in Milwaukee’s racing scene.

8 p.m. April 18, Oriental; 11:30 a.m. April 20, Times.

“Corridor”: Milwaukee actor and Dr. Seuss rapper Wes Tank plays an inept security guard looking into a corporate murder scheme in this made-in-Milwaukee mystery-comedy.

5:30 p.m. April 13, Oriental; 7:45 p.m. April 21, Oriental; 6 p.m. April 22, Avalon.

“One Way Ticket: The Story of Greg Lutzka”: This documentary follows the arc of Milwaukee native Greg Lutzka, who went from a skatepark on the city's south side to the X Games and the pro skateboarding circuit.

7 p.m. April 12, Avalon; 9:45 p.m. April 13, Oriental; 10:30 a.m. April 21, Times.

“I’m Your Host”: This documentary by Milwaukee artist and filmmaker Alicia Krupsky explores the world of horror hosts on Kenosha public-access cable, who have created a community and a cult following.

9 p.m. April 15, Times; 8:30 p.m. April 21, Avalon; 9:15 p.m. April 24, Downer.

“String Theory: The Richard Davis Method”: Richard Davis, the legendary bass player who became a revered music professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, gets a much-deserved spotlight in this documentary portrait.

11 a.m. April 13, Times; 2:30 p.m. April 15, Oriental; 6 p.m. April 20, Oriental.

If you liked 'Barbie,' 'Oppenheimer' or anything else in the mix at this year's Oscars

“Robot Dreams”: The festival’s closing night film, expected to go into commercial release soon, is this Oscar-nominated animated feature about a dog who, battling loneliness, builds a robot friend.

7:30 p.m. April 25, Oriental.

“Io Capitano”: A nominee for this year’s Oscar for best international feature, this drama follows two Senegalese teenagers who dream of making the dangerous trek to the Mediterranean and a new future in Europe.

6:45 p.m. April 19, Oriental; 4 p.m. April 23, Oriental; 4:30 p.m. April 25, Oriental.

“Four Daughters”: An Academy Award nominee for best documentary feature, this movie mixes performance and interviews to tell the story of a Tunisian woman and her four daughters, two of whom have been radicalized.

11 a.m. April 13, Oriental; 12:30 p.m. April 23, Times; 6:30 p.m. April 25, Oriental.

“Totem”: Mexico's submission for the best international feature Oscar follows a family as they prepare for the patriarch's birthday party, as seen through the eyes of his 7-year-old son.

3:45 p.m. April 23, Avalon; 6 p.m. April 24, Downer.

If you like movies that take you somewhere else (in place or time)

“Evil Does Not Exist”: People in a village outside Tokyo learn that plans to build a glamping site nearby could threaten their water supply in the latest drama by Oscar-nominated director Ryusuke Hamaguchi (“Drive My Car”).

5 p.m. April 22, Oriental; 6 p.m. April 25, Times.

“Ghostlight”: A construction worker joins a local production of “Romeo and Juliet,” and his life begins to imitate art in this Chicago-centric indie drama.

6 p.m. April 16, Oriental; 3:15 p.m. April 17, Downer; 6 p.m. April 25, Oriental.

“All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt”: Writer-director Raven Jackson’s debut feature film follows a woman's life in rural Mississippi and all the things that shaped it, from grief to hope.

3:30 p.m. April 17, Times; 8 p.m. April 20, Times; 3:30 p.m. April 25, Downer.

“The Queen of My Dreams”: After her father dies on a trip home to Pakistan, a young woman goes back and forth between her time growing up in Canada and her mother's coming of age three decades earlier in Pakistan. The movie is the festival’s centerpiece film.

6 p.m. April 19, Oriental; 12:15 p.m. April 21, Downer.

“We Grown Now”: A pair of young best friends find ways to survive while living in 1992 Chicago in this heartfelt drama.

1:15 p.m. April 13, Avalon; 7 p.m. April 23, Oriental.

“Concrete Utopia”: From South Korea, home to some of the world’s best post-apocalypse movies, this sci-fi drama is set in a world all but destroyed by a giant earthquake, where people scramble to get into the only apartment building left standing in Seoul.

8:30 p.m. April 16, Avalon; 9:30 p.m. April 18, Downer; 8:45 p.m. April 23, Avalon.

If you like movies by legendary filmmakers

“Anselm”: To capture the life and work of contemporary artist Anselm Kiefer, German film master Wim Wenders shot this acclaimed documentary in 3-D. The result is an immersive experience of art-making rarely seen on screen.

12:30 p.m. April 13, Oriental*.

“Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros”: The latest documentary by painstakingly detailed director Frederick Wiseman is a deep-dive (four hours!) study of a Michelin-starred restaurant in France and the family that has run it for four generations.

11 a.m. April 14, Downer.

“Monsters”: When her son begins acting strangely, a mother demands answers from his teacher — and it turns out to be pretty complicated in this latest drama by award-winning Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda (“Shoplifters”).

8 p.m. April 16, Downer; 6:45 p.m. April 19, Times; 2 p.m. April 22, Oriental.

If you like movies that capture the good and bad of the 'new normal'

“Another Body”: A college student sets out to find out how deepfake pornography of herself turned up online, and then tries to reclaim her identity from a dark digital underground in this cautionary-tale documentary.

3:30 p.m. April 18, Avalon; 8:45 p.m. April 24, Oriental.

“Out of the Picture”: Former Milwaukee Journal Sentinel art critic Mary Louise Schumacher traveled the country to report on the state of arts criticism and the challenges facing arts writers in this new documentary.

5 p.m. April 12, Oriental; 3:45 p.m. April 13, Avalon; 3:30 p.m. April 24, Avalon.

“Breaking the News”: Frustrated by white-male-dominated newsrooms, a group of women and LGBTQ+ journalists joined forces to launch the 19th* News. This documentary chronicles their journey.

4 p.m. April 13, Downer; 7:15 p.m. April 19, Oriental; 2:45 p.m. April 25, Downer.

If you like movies that give women their voices (and stories) back

“Thelma”: When she’s ripped off by a phone scammer, a 93-year-old grandmother (June Squibb) decides to get revenge in this senior-citizen action movie, a fan favorite at this year's Sundance Film Festival.

4 p.m. April 14, Oriental; noon April 15, Oriental; 7 p.m. April 18, Oriental.

“Copa ’71”: Remember when women’s soccer teams from around the world met in 1971 in what would have been the first Women’s World Cup? No? That’s because the soccer establishment did its best to bury it. This documentary brings it back into the light.

5 p.m. April 16, Times; 1 p.m. April 17, Oriental.

“Shari & Lamb Chop”: This portrait of puppeteer Shari Lewis, who with her sock-puppet alter ego Lamb Chop influenced generations of children, is the festival’s opening-night film. (Opening-night tickets include admission to the festival's opening-night party at Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum, 2220 N. Terrace Ave.)

6 p.m. April 11, Oriental*; 12:30p.m. April 12, Downer.

“The Herricanes”: A documentary filmmaker tells the story of a short-lived 1970s women’s pro football team — the Houston Herricanes, whose roster included the filmmaker's mother — and connects it to present-day efforts to give women equal footing on the gridiron.

8 p.m. April 14, Downer; 6:30 p.m. April 17, Oriental; 1 p.m. April 25, Avalon.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: 28 movies you should check out at the 2024 Milwaukee Film Festival