Sunday, October 5, 2025 at 11:30 AM
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema - Downtown, Los Angeles
Whoo boy, nothing will make you feel better about your relationship (or lack of) like spending a boozy evening with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. The real-life on-again-off-again couple is downright combustible in Mike Nichols’ big-screen directorial debut, an envelope-pushing adaptation of Edward Albee’s play. It will probably come as no surprise to learn that this served as inspiration for *The Office*'s iconic "Dinner Party" episode. George (Burton) is an alcoholic college professor. Martha (Taylor) is his loud and overbearing wife. Together, they know just how to push each other's buttons. Tiring of attacking each other, George and Martha invite newcomers Nick and Honey (George Segal and Sandy Dennis) to join them for drinks one night after a faculty party. During the course of the evening, both marriages are dissected, painful truths are revealed, and long-established ways of coping are destroyed. Besides being a box office success, scoring an Oscar win for Taylor and launching Nichols into hot young Hollywood director status, WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? is, as Stanley Kauffmann of the *New York Times* calls it, “one of the most scathingly honest American films ever made.” Watching with a cocktail in hand isn’t required, but very much advised.