The Big Lebowski Is Coming Back to Theaters

It’s been 20 years since Joel and Ethan Coen first introduced moviegoers to Jeffrey Lebowski—both the millionaire and The Dude (a.k.a. His Dudeness, Duder, or El Duderino … “if you’re not into the whole brevity thing”). To celebrate the box office bomb-turned-cult hit’s anniversary, Fathom Events, Turner Classic Movies, and Universal Pictures are bringing The Big Lebowski back to theaters for two nights only in August.

“Part noir crime drama, part absurdist comedy and utterly, uniquely Coen, The Big Lebowski is almost impossible to define—except as a modern classic, which in 2014 was named to the esteemed National Film Registry of the Library of Congress,” boasts the press release for the film’s comeback, which will happen as part of the TCM Big Screen Classics series.

When The Big Lebowski arrived in theaters in the spring of 1998, Roger Ebert warned his readers that the movie “is a genial, shambling comedy about a human train wreck, and should come with a warning like the one Mark Twain attached to Huckleberry Finn: ‘Persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.’” Though he gave it a solid three-star review, he eventually softened even further on the film—awarding it a perfect four stars in 2010. Audiences, too, took a little while to warm up to the sometimes-psychedelic comedy.

Fans of the film will have four chances to relive all the laughs, bowling, botched kidnappings, White Russians, and soiled rugs when the film makes its 20th anniversary return to more than 600 theaters across the country for two screenings—at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.—on Sunday, August 5 and Wednesday, August 8.

To find out if the film is playing near you, and to purchase tickets (which are on sale now), visit the Fathom Events website.