Don’t forget to check out our Best of the Bay 2026 winners for some great suggestions on where to go and what to eat. And grab tickets for our 13th Annual Gala and Best of the Bay Party on October 27!
We’re also stoked about a new feature documentary called Roll Fog, about the oldest supporter-owned soccer club in the US, San Francisco City FC, and its displacement by a new team co-founded by finance executives and supported by Daniel Lurie. Check it out and support local filmmaking here!
GENERAL ARTS
Marke B. keeps an eye and ear and everything else out.
FRI/23-NOVEMBER 20: IN THEIR NAME DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS DISPLAY returns to SOMArts October 23 The fabulously colorful and deeply meaningful display returns to the vast SOMArts space. “Curated by Bridgètt Rex and Rio Yañez, this year’s theme honors the mothers, mother figures, caregivers, and ancestors who have shaped our lives and communities. In Their Name brings together contemporary installations and traditional altars that explore mothering, care, memory, and resistance.” Opening reception Fri/23, 6pm-9pm, SOMArts, SF. More info here.
FRI/23-NOVEMBER 8: 17TH ANNUAL SAN FRANCISCO DANCE FILM FESTIVAL Dance has always looked hella good on the big screen—who hasn’t been ravished by Cyd Charisse? This fantastic fest presents local and international dance companies putting their best film feet forward, kicking off with ballet legend tribute Nureyev and twirling through dozens of shorts in thematic programs that will have you leaping form your seat. Various locations, more info here.
SAT/24: 44TH ANNUAL SANDCASTLE CLASSIC This annual sandcastle-building competition is always a hoot, yields some surprisingly beautiful results, and helps out public schools. Plus you get a day at the beach (grab a yummy sandwich from Java Beach Cafe!) and a life-affirming immersion communal art-makin. Plus performances by DJ Wonway Posibul, Cuicacalli Ballet Folklórico, and LionDanceMe, how cool is that. 11am-3:30pm, Ocean Beach near Balboa, SF. More info here.
SAT/24: LITCRAWL SF’s biggest literary fest Litquake rounds off a month of deep reading with this annual fun-fest that sees dozens of writers pop up in all sorts of unusual locations around Valencia Street all day long. For example! You can catch our video reporter Andrew Brobst at “Kitchen Table Presents: On Poems, Cookbooks, and Flock Cameras” or me, Marke B., at “Journalists With Bite: Local Reporters Share Their Hottest Takes.” Can you guess what mine will be? Come find out. 5pm-10pm, more info here.
SUN/25: PLAYING WITH FIRE: AN ECOSEXUAL EMERGENCY is a joyous ecosexual documentary born from the ashes of California’s devastating fires. When lightning ignites the redwood forest surrounding their home in Boulder Creek, longtime lovers Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle are forced to evacuate—and their lives are forever transformed. They blend loss and grief into ecosexual art, moving through fire as destructive, regenerative, and erotic forces, while fusing humor, community care, social justice and environmental awareness into a lush and fiery journey of transformation. Sprinkle and Stephens will be in attendance at this screening. 1pm, Roxie, SF. More info here.
SUN/25: 125 YEARS OF THE SAN FRANCISCO LAWN BOWLING CLUB The SF Lawn Bowling Club (it’s not bocce ball!) holds the wonderful title being of the oldest lawn bowling club in the United States and one of the nation’s fastest-growing. That’s not a contradiction: With it’s primly appointed greens and smart clubhouse in Golden Gate Park, who wouldn’t want to don some whites, grab a glass of something bubbly, and indulge in a little roly-poly on a Sunday morning? This quasquicentennial celebration includes demos, clubhouse museum tours, music, games, and refreshments. Let’s roll. 10am-2pm, SF Lawn Bowling Club, Golden Gate Park, SF. More info here.
SUN/25: DAYBREAKER’S BOO-TIFUL MORNING RAVE The common narrative is that morning people/older people/sober people need to shift to alcohol-free morning raves for health/sanity/work. But honestly, I just like to hit them up after a night of partying to pick up hot DILFs. Kidding! Maybe! The Daybreaker raves are a longtime phenomenon that truly bring the party vibe to the—ugh, gasp—daylight hours. Of course this one is Halloween-themed but, get this, it’s taking place in the Redwood Grove at the foot of the Transamerica Building. That’s one of the most magical spaces in the city and the thought of music and dancing and spookiness filling the space on a Sunday morning is a great joy. 10am-1:15pm, Transamerica Building Plaza Redwood Groove, SF. More info here.
MUSIC
Hit up John-Paul Shiver’s Under the Stars column for great tunes and shows every week.
FRI/23: NU TEKNO PRESENTS CHINATOWN AFTER DARK HALLOWEEN EDITION Yuka Yu believes people connect through music. This Bay Area maverick, who originally hails from Taipei, Taiwan, and founded the artist exchange program Nu Tekno (女樂), started DJing in London’s Camden Town and trained at the London Sound Academy. A featured player at Noise Pop, the Asian Art Museum here in SF, and at New Orleans Jazz Fest, Yuka Yu dazzles and delights at her residency with guest Hidra. Dancers and shufflers can expect deep house, techno, and Italo-disco for the heads, amidst a community of queers, lovers, misfits, and diasporic dreamers. 10pm, Mr. Mahjong’s, SF. More info here.
THROUGH OCTOBER 31: SHOP FOR A PROPER COSTUME Hate to break it to you, but the stripper-ho outfit era is over. Washed. Culturally inappropriate and just in poor/lazy form. That hoe had a long life; let a hoe die. And dudes, the white guy pimp? Need I say more? You can both do better. Hit up Cliff’s Variety at 479 Castro for some paint, wigs, and props. Be scary with dignity. Roll over to Decades of Fashion at 1653 Haight Street for some 19th-century Abe Lincoln hat and beard, or embrace your inner hippie chick-ness. Just for one night, it can’t hurt. Listen, you can hit any Goodwill location in the Bay Area for crazy ideas, or just put together your own 70s sleaze outfit. It’s fun. But I tell ya, I see any stripper hoes with white dude pimps out there this year? It’s on sight!
FOOD & DRINK
Tamara Palmer’s weekly Good Taste column tells you where to stick your fork.
RIZE UP TEST KITCHEN CAFÉ I dipped into this Best of the Bay winning new cafe from the Rize Up folks a few weeks ago to order a bunch of items to share with my friend Miguel Escobedo at Al Pastor Papi. We loved the grilled cheese sandwiches, one with kimchi, the other with Pepper Jack and peach jam. What I didn’t get to share was the brilliant Aaron De La Cruz mural out front or the time spent silently vibing with different walks of life customers at the communal table, like one fellow who was sketching out incredible designs on a tablet. It’s a place worth lingering over coffee and toast or a sandwich on one of Rize Up’s famously imaginative sourdough bread flavors, like the gochujang-spiked K-Pop or bright purple ube. 1160 Howard Street, SF. More info here.
STAGE
Charles Lewis III checks out theaters and performance spaces every week in the Drama Masks column.
THROUGH NOV/1: SF BATCO’S EVERY SATURDAY NIGHT WORLD PREMIERE One of the Bay Area’s boldest indie theatre’s takes over the satellite stage of SF’s premiere theatre for a time-hopping musical about the Black history of San Francisco. Donte, a Black man in his 70s, is one of the few Black home-owners left in San Francisco. He remembers when his mother’s house was the city’s biggest communal spot for jazz-lovers from across the country. With gentrification breathing down his neck, Donte begins to field buyout offers, but he’s still haunted by memories of his mother and the musical legacy she left the house and the city. ACT Strand, SF. More info here
OPENS SAT/23: RAY OF LIGHT PRESENTS ONCE UPON A ONE MORE TIME A Britney Spears musical was inevitable, wasn’t it? This one isn’t a bio, but rather an Into the Woods-style fairytale deconstruction that finds Cinderella in a meta-contextual state in which she questions what’s she doing in her own story. Perhaps her loneliness will kill her, maybe she’ll feel stronger than yesterday, it’s quite possible she may be driven crazy. The only thing that can be said for sure is that SF’s premiere musical indie theatre will pull out the stops for this meeting of pop princess and regular princess. Isn’t she lucky? The Barbary Stage, SF. More info here.
FILM
Dennis Harvey’s long-running Screen Grabs has tons more flicks to recommend.
OPENING FRI/23: WICKER Olivia Colman plays resident Fisherwoman to a vaguely medieval village in vaguely mittle-Europa, where everyone else is also known solely by their societal role. She’s accustomed to slurs, as an unlovely spinster with an, er, professional odor. But one day something stirs in her, and she commissions the surprised Basket Weaver (Peter Dinklage, seldom better) to “make me a husband.” Even more surprisingly, he delivers. The Wicker Man (Alexander Skarsgard) shortly arriving at her doorstep may not be flesh and blood, but he is handy, devoted, and apparently stellar in the sack. So much so that soon the local “wives are all aflutter,” plainly jealous of a spouse so unlike their boorish own. Wicker makes tart points of a tacitly feminist and/or political nature without belaboring them in the least. It is funny sans cruelty, surprisingly poignant when things turn more serious, and capable of pulling off a complicatedly kinda-sorta happy ending that feels just right. It is one of the year’s most winning unexpected pleasures.
