• Inherit the Wind: dir Stanley Kramer (1960)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    Stanley Kramer wasn't afraid to confront social issues considered too controversial for the major studios. In Inherit the Wind he tackled the creationism v evolution debate. Acting legends Spencer Tracy and Fredric March go toe-to-toe in a titanic courtroom battle, [... more]

    Free, but reservation recommended
  • Star Wars – The Empire Strikes Back: dir Irvin Kershner (1980)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    The second in the original Star Wars trilogy (the third, Return of the Jedi, is coming soon) was directed by Irvin Kershner, who added a bit of depth and emotion to the action in the tragic second act of the [... more]

    Free, but reservation recommended
  • CLOSING TODAY MONOCHROMA 2

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    You don’t see enough ceramic art outside the interiors business, and then it just tends to be bowls; so this show by Double J Collective (“the first project based in Dubai exclusively dedicated to exhibit, promote and sell fine craft [... more]

    Free
  • A Little Prayer: dir Angus MacLachlan (2023)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    A sensitive portrait of an American family and an emotional drama about finding kindred spirits in unexpected places. Bill (David Strathairn, excellent) is a pillar of his Southern community: a business owner, a veteran, and the proud patriarch of an [... more]

    Free, but pre-register
  • Star Wars – A New Hope: dir George Lucas (1977)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    The original, and possibly the best, of the Star Wars mega-franchise. Written and directed by George Lucas, and featuring one of the most dramatic intros ever, this unmissable adventure introduced a galaxy of cleverly drawn characters – Princess Leia (Carrie [... more]

    Free, but pre-register
  • My Father’s Shadow: dir Akinola Davies Jr (2025)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    Another fine Cinema Space choice: winner of a Caméra d’Or Special Mention at Cannes and the 2026 BAFTA award for Outstanding Debut Feature, My Father’s Shadow is a stunning debut for the British-Nigerian filmmaker Akinola Davis Jr. Set in 1993 [... more]

    Free
  • Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory: dir Mel Stuart (1971)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    A beautiful restoration of this family classic for its 55th anniversary, based on the Roald Dahl book and staring Gene Wilder having a lot of fun with his role as the magical maker of scrumptious sweets. Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum), [... more]

    Free
  • Blue Heron (Egy nyár emléke): dir Sophy Romvari (2025)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    A deeply personal portrait of childhood, family fractures, and the fragility of recollection from award-winning filmmaker Sophy Romvari, who drew on her own experiences for her feature debut – a deeply personal portrait of childhood, family fractures, and the fragility [... more]

    Free, but reservation recommended
  • Agatha Gothe-Snape: Network of Answers

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is preparing the local audience for its 11 December opening with a series of events “for the public to engage with artists, ideas and conversations that are shaping the new museum”. This one is an interactive artwork [... more]

    Free
  • Art Appears: Chant Avedissian

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is preparing the local audience for its 11 December opening with a series of events at Manarat al Saadiyat “for the public to engage with artists, ideas and conversations that are shaping the new museum”. This one [... more]

    Free, but pre-register
  • Doors of (Al Sha’biya)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    Through the doors of Al Sha'biya, the traditional neighbourhoods that emerged in the 1970s, this exhibition tells the stories of generations of Emirati families, revealing the quiet ways people leave their mark on the places they call home. Organised by [... more]

    Free
  • MONOCHROMA 2

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    You don’t see enough ceramic art outside the interiors business, and then it just tends to be bowls; so this show by Double J Collective (“the first project based in Dubai exclusively dedicated to exhibit, promote and sell fine craft [... more]

    Free
  • The Village Next To Paradise: dir Mo Harawe (2024)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    The first Somali film to be featured at the Cannes Film Festival (in 2024), The Village Next to Paradise tells the story of Mamargrade who is struggling to raise his son Cigaal in their rural Somali village amidst conflict, natural [... more]

    Free
  • The President’s Cake: dir Hasan Hadi (2025)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    Hasan Hadi's debut feature is a beautiful tale of love, friendship and resilience told from the perspective of a child growing up under Saddam Hussein’s oppressive regime. It was the first Iraqi film to feature at the Cannes Film Festival, [... more]

    Free
  • For A Few Dollars More: dir Sergio Leone (1965)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    The second chapter in Sergio Leone’s epic Dollars Trilogy ups the ante with more tension, more grit, and a bigger budget thanks the success of the first outing for the Man With No Name. This time around two rival bounty [... more]

    Free
  • The Glassworker: dir Usman Riaz (2024)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    First-time director Usman Riaz embraces the old-fashioned star-crossed romance with a beautifully animated film about a young glassblowing artist and his lost love. At the same time it's a truly humanist, demonstrating how art and creativity can provide solace and [... more]

    Free
  • Familiar Touch: dir Sarah Friedland (2024)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    A coming-of-old-age story with real compassion: writer-director Sarah Friedland's story follows the octogenarian Ruth Goldman (noted stage actress Kathleen Chalfant – "an astonishingly nuanced, considered and graceful performance" said the Guardian review) as she copes with dementia and her shifting, [... more]

    Free
  • A Fistful of Dollars: dir Sergio Leone (1964)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    Sergio Leone’s satirical riff on director Akira Kurosawa’s samurai classic Yojimbo launched the Spaghetti Western, Clint Eastwood’s career as a movie star, and Ennio Morricone as a household name thanks to that unforgettable score. An instant international phenomenon, this hard-hitting epic [... more]

    Free
  • Cinderella: dir Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, Clyde Geronimi (1950)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    Walt Disney spent more than a decade developing this animated film version of the fairy tale about a beleaguered girl, tormented by her unsympathetic stepmother and stepsisters, who gets a chance at romance and a better future through the intervention [... more]

    Free
  • Thirteen Lives: dir Ron Howard (2022)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    Ron Howard's dramatisation of the incredible rescue of 12 boys and their football coach from the Tham Luang Nang Non cave system in 2018. Trapped following an unexpected rainstorm, a team of world-class divers navigated through miles of dangerous cave [... more]

    Free
  • City Circles Talk: The Museum as an Urban Anchor

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    Part of Guggenheim Abu Dhabi’s ongoing City Circles programme exploring the connections between architecture, the environment, and urban life, this conversation looks at the ways museums operate within the urban fabric, exploring their role in shaping movement, gathering, and the [... more]

    Free, but pre-register
  • Discesa libera | Free Fall: dir Sandro Torella (2025)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    Manuel Falco is a young actor who, after an early success, finds himself avoided by everyone because of his excessive disrespectfulness. He is forced to start over, taking on modest jobs — among them caring for Vittorio, an elderly man [... more]

    Free
  • Promis le Ciel | Promised Sky: dir Erige Sehiri (2025)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    Sehiri’s intimate drama follows four generations of Ivorian immigrant women as they find solidarity, conflict and sometimes a sense of displacement in one another’s company. We're dropped into the lives of Marie (Aïssa Maïga), Naney (Debora Lobe Naney) and Jolie [... more]

    AED 30
  • The Kid: dir Charlie Chaplin (1921)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    An evening of cinema and live music at the Manarat's restuarant Taparelle, featuring a screening Chaplin's silent masterpiece – comedy, emotion, and unforgettable storytelling – with a DJ gig by Amin Fari. The result "reimagines a timeless cinematic masterpiece through [... more]

    AED 30
  • Sirât: dir Oliver Laxe (2025)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    Luis and his son Esteban travel to a rave held in the deserts of southern Morocco in search of his missing daughter. They hand out her photo again and again; hope is fading, but they hear from a group of [... more]

    AED 30
  • Father Mother Sister Brother: dir Jim Jarmusch (2025)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    Jarmusch's Golden Lion winner is a comedy-drama anthology that follows three estranged family relationships in three different countries around the world, exploring the closeness and awkwardness of parents and their grownup children in US, Dublin and Paris. The stellar ensemble [... more]

    AED 30
  • The Jury Experience – Death by AI: Who Pays the Price?

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    True immersive theatre: the audience is the jury at the heart of a live trial – hear the testimonies, consider the evidence, weigh the arguments ... and deliver a verdict. The case also seems very now: a driverless car is [... more]

    From AED 150
  • Animenia Abu Dhabi

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    Animenia returns to Manarat Al Saadiyat with five days of cosplay, music, food, and J-pop culture – “step inside a world inspired by the hidden corners of Neo-Tokyo, where glowing signs, colourful characters, and offbeat discoveries bring anime culture to [... more]

    AED 95
  • Beauty and the Beast: dir Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise (1991)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    A tale as old as time gets the Disney treatment, with added lustre from a newly restored print of this family-friendly animation: the beast (an enchanted prince, of course) tries to win the love of the young and beautiful Belle [... more]

    Free, but pre-register
  • The Holdovers: dir Alexander Payne (2023)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    A warm-hearted and thoughtful holiday story of three lonely, shipwrecked people who find support in the most unlikely of places. A curmudgeonly teacher (Paul Giamatti) is forced to remain on campus at a New England prep school over Christmas to [... more]

    Free, but pre-register
  • The Muppet Christmas Carol: dir Brian Henson (1992)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    The best film version of Dickens' novel? Ebenezer Scrooge (Michael Caine, obviously having a lot of fun) is visted on Christmas Eve by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. Together with kind, humble Bob Cratchit (Kermit the Frog) [... more]

    Free, but pre-register
  • It’s a Wonderful Life: dir Frank Capra (1946)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    Capra's classic snow-laden tearjerker (five Oscar nominations) has James Stewart as a struggling banker (!) who becomes so disillusioned with his small-town life that he contemplates suicide. Fortunately his trainee guardian angel, Clarence (Henry Travers), is able to intervene and [... more]

    Free, but pre-register
  • Abu Dhabi Art

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    The 16th edition of Abu Dhabi Art will take place from 19 to 23 November, as usual at Manarat al Saadiyat. The fair element has more than 140 galleries from 37 countries, by far the largest number to date – [... more]

    Free, but pre-register
  • The Teachers’ Lounge: dir İlker Çatak (2023)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    Carla Nowak (Leonie Benesch) is an idealistic new high-school teacher. She seems to have connected with her Year 8 students, who are engaged and eager to learn in her maths class. But something is bubbling underneath the surface, and she’s [... more]

    Free, but pre-register