The San Francisco Comedy Competition is one of the most prestigious comedy events in North America, launching the careers of notable comedians such as Patton Oswalt, Robin Williams, and Ellen DeGeneres. It’s an outrageously funny evening, where you will see the comedy stars of tomorrow competing for their chance at fame and fortune. Hundreds of comedians audition each year to compete, but only 32 are chosen. Performers will be announced September 13 at the Luther Burbank Center in Santa Rosa. 7:30 PM Doors 8:00 PM Show

Spike Einbinder and Honey Pluton hit the west coast from NYC to split an hour of stand up comedy! Expect transsexual musing, tales of lore and hilarity ensuing. 7:30 PM Doors 8:00 PM Show $15 ADV / $20 DOOR

In this musical comedy, Valerie (Geena Davis) is dealing with her philandering fiancé, Ted (Charles Rocket), when she finds that a trio of aliens (Jeff Goldblum, Jim Carrey, Damon Wayans) have crashed their spaceship into her swimming pool. Once the furry beings are shaved at her girlfriend's salon, the women discover three handsome men underneath. After absorbing the culture via television, the spacemen are ready to hit the dating scene in 1980s Los Angeles.

Film By Friends invites you to an evening showcase of local talent featuring 3 short films, the premiere of our new series, and a performance by local band: Elephant Garden. We promise you a night of brawling, surgical procedures, absurdism, and more with films by Devin McKiernan, Eva Mulvihill, Tatiana Alvarez, and Kai Kim! We at Film By Friends are building a community dedicated to supporting Bay Area creatives and purveyors of the arts to foster authentic connection and people-first productions in San Francisco. Come by and make a friend! DOORS at 7:00PM | FILMS at 7:30 PM | LIVE MUSIC to follow the FILMS

A Night of Music, Movies, and Meaning: Finding Lucinda Screening & Live Performance Featuring a cinematic experience about a journey to uncover the early life and creative spark of Lucinda Williams with live music by Lake Charlatans with ISMAY, special guests Steve Earle, Chuck Prophet, Olivia Wolf, Elizabeth Lubin and more. Music lovers and Lucinda Williams fans are invited to an inspiring evening that blends live performance, documentary screening, and conversation as Finding Lucinda comes to San Francisco on Friday, October 3. Presented as an official Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Out of the Park show, this show benefiting Sweet Relief and the Bay Area Musicians Fund celebrates the early life, creative spark, and lasting influence of the legendary singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams. Finding Lucinda follows singer-songwriter ISMAY (Avery Hellman) on a transformative road trip through the American South, exploring the early life and enduring legacy of three-time GRAMMY-winning artist Lucinda Williams. Along the way, the film features never-before-seen footage, rare recordings, and interviews with Charlie Sexton, Buddy Miller, Mary Gauthier, and Lucinda herself. Directed by Joel Fendelman (Man on Fire) and featuring cinematography by Rose Bush (Colette), the film is a soulful meditation on music, identity, and what it means to forge your own creative path. Part memoir, part music history, and part spiritual road trip, Finding Lucinda is ultimately a story about self-discovery, artistic bravery, and learning how to move forward — even when you’re unsure where the road will lead. (FindingLucindaFilm.com) Presented by Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Out of the Park. A portion of every ticket will go to benefit Sweet Relief, Bay Area Musicians Fund. Q&A with ISMAY to follow the film. DOORS at 7:00PM | MUSIC at 8:00 PM

New Yorker Adolpho Rollo is your classic head-movie auteur. In his mind, he's creating deathless classics of the screen. Back in the real world, he can't pay the rent on the downtown flophouse he calls home.

IT’S NEVER OVER: JEFF BUCKLEY, directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Amy Berg (DELIVER US FROM EVIL, JANIS: LITTLE GIRL BLUE, WEST OF MEMPHIS), covers the life of the rising young star with an otherworldly voice and boundary-pushing artistry, who left the '90s music world reeling when he died suddenly, at age 30, after the release of his critically acclaimed debut album “Grace.” Told through never-before-seen footage from Buckley’s archives and intimate accounts from his mother Mary Guibert, former partners Rebecca Moore and Joan Wasser, Jeff’s former bandmates, including Michael Tighe and Parker Kindred, and luminaries like Ben Harper and Aimee Mann, IT’S NEVER OVER, JEFF BUCKLEY illuminates one of modern music’s most influential and enigmatic figures.

Vinelands Live at the 4 Star: KEXP's local music showcase & live radio broadcast series featuring live performances from: Salami Rose Joe Louis Galore Doors at 6:00 PM Live Music at 6:30 PM at the 4 Star Theater & live on 92.7-FM $25 ADV | $30 DOOR

LIVE MUSIC: Canyon Songs (Music Video Premiere) For Your Pleasure Jenny Haniver 7:00 PM Doors 8:00 PM Music $14 ADV / $17 DOOR

LIVE MUSIC: Dad Bod 7:00 PM Doors 8:00 PM Music $12 ADV / $15 DOOR

LIVE MUSIC: Dan English 7:00 PM Doors 8:00 PM Music $20

LIVE MUSIC: Eleni Drake 7:00 PM Doors 8:00 PM Music $20 ADV / $22 DOOR

LIVE MUSIC: Flaco el Jandro Philthy Dronez Tropisphere plus DJ Puto Escobar Presented by Nada Sound & Tunnel Records 7:00 PM Doors 8:00 PM Music $15 ADV / $20 DOOR

LIVE MUSIC: Katie Malco mui zyu 7:00 PM Doors 8:00 PM Music $18 Presented by (((folkYEAH!)))

LIVE MUSIC: Lael Neale Guy Blakeslee Presented by (((folkYEAH!))) 7:00 PM Doors 8:00 PM Music $20

LIVE MUSIC: Maria Chávez (Presented by Cinechamber) 7:00 PM Doors 8:00 PM Music $20

LIVE MUSIC: Roméo Poirier Local support to be announced 7:00 PM Doors 8:00 PM Music $18 ADV / $21 DOOR

LIVE MUSIC: TAKAAT Local Support TBA 7:00 PM Doors 8:00 PM Music $15 ADV / $20 DOOR

VIRGIN BEASTS (1991) An Animated, Agit-Prop, Sci-Fi, Underground Comic, Saturnalia, Punk Opera! Artist Toby Zoates, the film's producer, director, writer, animator, actor, musician, art director, editor and First Aid nurse, described the film as "Beauty Meets the Beast at the Masque of the Red Death on a Quest for the Holy Grail to Win Brand Rights for Gray Males = The Last Wishes of a Dickhead Arms Dealer on His Deathbed = A Journey into the Male Unconscious (using animation transformation juice.)" Exploring themes of the patriarchy and colonization, the film flows between live action and animated sequences, suffusing everything with both queer leftist politics and late-night 90s animated wackiness as we explore a DIY glam-punk post-apocalyptic Sydney. MEDIA MELTDOWN MOVIE MADHOUSE Gender jesters Piranha Psychotronica and Kafka X bring you a new experience in cinematic depravity… Media Meltdown Movie Madhouse! Prepare yourself to enter into a world of face-flaying forgotten and forsaken films… Made-for-TV, Direct-to-Video, VCR games, underground cinema, and more wiley weirdness than your minds can handle! In a world dominated by AI, CGI, mega streaming platforms, and cinematic universes, Media Meltdown celebrates the amateur, the low-budget, the handmade, the experimental, and the weird! Commit yourself every 3rd Sunday to … MEDIA MELTDOWN MOVIE MADHOUSE!

Old friends Wallace (Wallace Shawn) and Andre (Andre Gregory) haven't seen each another in five years and agree to meet for dinner. Andre, a once well-known theater director, dropped out of the New York scene to travel the world, while Wallace stuck around, finding only mixed success as a playwright. As they sit down to eat, Andre launches into a series of fantastic stories from his time away, and Wallace can't help but notice how different their worldviews have become.

Night Flight comes to the 4 Star with a special premieres of the 4K restoration of ‘70s cult comedy Tunnel Vision and an exclusive Night Flight Supercut! TUNNEL VISION “Tunnel Vision” is a riotous satire of TV, packed with outrageous sketches and biting humor that mercilessly skewers the absurdities of TV culture. It’s the year ‘1985’ and the proprietors of new television channel called ‘TunnelVision’, which is notably free of censorship are under a government investigation led by a Senator who wishes to shut down the network due to its widespread negative effects on the population. During the hearing, the committee examines a typical day or programming which includes shows, programs, commercials, news, and much more, and what they discover will surely crack you up in this outrageous and irreverent spoof of 1970’s movies and television. Featuring Chevy Chase, Al Franken, Lorraine Newman, and more. NIGHT FLIGHT SUPERCUT Night Flight compiles a “Best Of” medley of classic segments and iconic moments curated from the Night Flight Plus library. Q&A with Night Flight creator and Tunnel Vision executive producer, Stuart S. Shapiro to follow the screening.

Dog lives in Manhattan and he’s tired of being alone. One day he decides to build himself a robot, a companion. Their friendship blossoms, until they become inseparable, to the rhythm of 80’s NYC. One summer night, DOG, with great sadness, is forced to abandon ROBOT at the beach. Will they ever meet again?

Sonny Rollins Celebration: Live Tribute Set from the Samuél Gonzalez Group & screening of Alfie (1966) MUSIC at 6:30 PM FILM at 7:30 PM

The relationship between an aspiring dancer and a popular songstress provides a retrospective of the great African-American entertainers of the early 1900s.

The Fly, 1986 Directed by David Cronenberg BE AFRAID. BE VERY AFRAID. When Seth Brundle makes a huge scientific and technological breakthrough in teleportation, he decides to test it on himself. Unbeknownst to him, a common housefly manages to get inside the device and the two become one.

A shy, introverted, Chinese-American, straight-A student finds herself helping the school jock woo the girl they both secretly love. In the process, each teaches the other about the nature of love as they find connection in the most unlikely of places. Co-presented by Frameline Pop-up Shop by On Waverly Special pricing for High School Students (with ID)

The Last Class is a nuanced and deeply personal portrait of master educator Robert Reich teaching his final course and reflecting on a period of immense transformation, personally and globally. It is a love letter to education. The former Secretary of Labor might be famous for his public service, best-selling books, and viral social media posts, but he always considered teaching his true calling. Now, after over 40 years and an extraordinary 40,000 students, Reich is preparing for his last class. Over the course of the film, Reich confronts the impending finality, and his own aging, with increasing candor, introspection, and, ultimately, emotion. He displays a rawness of feeling he has never shared publicly before. Drawing on his lifetime in politics, he uses his class, “Wealth and Poverty,” to offer us all a deeper look at why inequalities of income and wealth have widened significantly since the late 1970s, and why this poses dangerous risks to our society. One thousand students fill the biggest lecture hall on the UC Berkeley campus, the last class to receive Reich’s wisdom and exhortations not to accept that the world has to stay the way it is. His belief in the next generation’s ability to take on the fight is inspiring.

A classic fairy tale, with swordplay, giants, an evil prince, a beautiful princess, and yes, some kissing (as read by a kindly grandfather).

Western Neighborhoods Project presents: SURF CITY Join Western Neighborhoods Project (WNP) for Surf City, an evening that offers a window into San Francisco’s unique relationship with the sea, at the 4 Star Theater on Sunday, September 14, 2025 at 7:00 pm as part of the Ocean Beach Surf Film Festival. As a coastal community, we’re indelibly shaped by the presence of the Pacific Ocean and the San Francisco Bay. The city’s “Outside Lands” located near Ocean Beach, around Lands End and along the shores of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area have a particularly strong bond with the water. And nobody knows these tides better than members of our legendary surf and swim communities. We’ll explore exactly what this relationship means to us all by screening short films made by local filmmakers Gaby Scott and Steve Peletz. Gaby Scott is a San Francisco-based filmmaker and editor whose work focuses on the cyclical interactions people have with their shifting landscapes and the philosophies that drive them. She exquisitely captures what it takes to surf big waves at Ocean Beach, highlighting the women who navigate local riptides with courage and grace in A Certain Personality. She also takes us inside one of the most storied clubhouses in San Francisco history, The Dolphin Club–introducing audiences to three inimitable coldwater swimmers, including the first woman to win the Golden Gate Swim, in The Dolphins. Steve Peletz is a research diver, photographer, and filmmaker with a passion for exploring underwater worlds where he finds himself immersed in kelp forests, coral reefs, caves, or shipwrecks, often filming curious marine biologists, sharks, whales, sea lions, dolphins, or huge schools of fish as they hunt, play, or just swim by. In Lands End, he drops us into the Pacific Ocean with swimmers who face wintry 51-degree waters and sometimes pounding surf. Here in their salty backyard at China Beach, the locals discover something healing about swimming through the maze of rocks and untamed waters. Both Peletz and Scott bring us into the water, giving us a rare aquatic viewpoint that captures the power, the tranquility, and therapeutic magic of San Francisco’s seascape. This connection is brought closer into view with a curated presentation of photographs by Rob Brodman and Sachi Cunningham who both capture the Pacific Ocean with an intimate honesty, one that shows us the magnetism of the water and the people who are in regular communion with it. Accompanying this lineup will be an introduction by WNP’s Executive Director Nicole Meldahl that connects the west side’s past to the vibrant present beautifully captured by Surf City’s featured artists. Following the screening, we’ll enjoy a Q&A with our featured creatives. We’ll also have merchandise and prints for sale, as well as a raffle thanks to donations from Rob Brodman and The Great Highway Gallery. You won’t want to miss this evening that brings us all closer to the ocean than ever before. The main program starts at 7:30 pm but doors open at 7:00 pm, giving you time to mingle, peruse the goods at Tunnel Records, and purchase tasty treats (like the best popcorn in the city) from the concession stand. Tickets are $25 for General Admission, $20 for Seniors and Children, and $15 for WNP and Dolphin Club members. Every ticket purchased helps us keep the lights on and the history happening at our friendly community history nonprofit. Proceeds also support the 4 Star Theater and CinemaSF, San Francisco’s newest nonprofit! Thank you for being with us, History Friends.