weekend event planner

Here are the top 14 things to do in Houston this weekend

Celebrate the music of Star Wars and more with the Houston Symphony.

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox

This weekend offers plenty of opportunities to get your drink on, with a cocktail showdown, wine event at the Post Oak Hotel, and a non-alcoholic wine dinner. Work out a brewery, catch the symphony playing greatest movie hits, visit an Asian fest, dive into a Sunday Funday pool party, and pay homage to the great DJ Screw.

Enjoy—here are your best bets for the weekend.

Thursday, May 26

Hotel ZaZa Memorial City presents Cocktail Showdown: Battle of the Brands
Top bartenders from an array of beloved, local hospitality concepts are working to claim the title for best summer cocktail creation, incorporating a curated selection of Beam Suntory products into their recipes. The winning summer cocktail will be determined by event guests, as well as a panel of Houston experts. Tickets are $25 with all proceeds benefiting Candlelighters Childhood Cancer Family Alliance. Attendees must be 21 years or older. 6 pm.

The Post Oak Hotel presents Wines of Rioja
The Post Oak Hotel at Uptown Houston will present a world-class wine experience, featuring live music, curated Spanish cuisine, and over 100 wines to taste from Spain's most iconic region. Attendees will be transported to the sophisticated wine region of northern Spain, with live music and Spanish culinary delights masterfully crafted by the hotel’s esteemed, executive chef Jean-Luc Royere. 6 pm.

Roots x SIPPLE Non-Alcoholic Wine Dinner
Roots Wine Bar will be hosting a one-of-a-kind, six-course dinner with a non-alcoholic wine pairing by Danny Frounfelkner, owner and sommelier of SIPPLE, the only non-alcoholic bottle shop in Texas. This exclusive dinner will feature dishes (like Kosho-cured salmon tiradito and roast squab) from Roots executive chef André Garza, and each of the six courses will feature a non-alcoholic wine pairing from such winemakers as Italy's Prima Pavé and California’s Surely Wines. 7 pm.

Friday, May 27

Houston Center for Contemporary Craft presents Summer Exhibitions opening reception
Houston Center for Contemporary Craft will celebrate the opening of their summer exhibitions: Made to Last: The Legacy of the Jubilee Quilt Circle, a selection of quilts made by current participants and founding members; and A Dressing the Future: The Ecofiction of Nicole Dextras, which explores the craftsmanship of artist Nicole Dextras's set and costume designs from her dystopian film trilogy, A Dressing the Future. The evening will also feature open studios by the current resident artists. 5:30 pm.

Vitacca Dance, Houston presents Soiree 10-Year Anniversary
Vitacca Dance, Houston will celebrate 10 years of strength and beauty through dance. This season's Soirée is a mixed bill of works choreographed and coached by Vitacca faculty and guest artists. The formation of Vitacca Ballet, a creation-based repertoire company based in Houston and The Woodlands, has allowed them to keep talented, home-grown Houston artists employed in the city they love as professional artists. 7 pm (6 pm Saturday).

The Catastrophic Theatre presents Innominate
Dually inspired by Pablo Picasso’s painting Guernica and Iran’s Green Revolution, Afsaneh Aayani's dance-theatre piece combines puppetry, live original music, mixed media, and movement to create a surreal journey through Aayani’s personal experience as an immigrant from war-torn Iran. Caught between a perpetual limbo on her twisted path to American citizenship and unable to return to Iran, she remains a woman without a country. Through Sunday, June 19. 8 pm (2:30 pm Sunday).

Houston Symphony presents The Best of John Williams: Star Wars & More with Chorus
This weekend, audiences will enjoy themes from all their blockbuster favorites — Superman, Star Wars, Harry Potter, nearly every Steven Spielberg movie, and more — as the Houston Symphony and Chorus celebrate the master of film scores, John Williams. We would really like to see the Symphony do selections from 1941 (our favorite Spielberg movie), but that's just us. The Saturday performance will be available to livestream. 8 pm (2:30 pm Sunday).

Saturday, May 28

Dreamland presents DreamFest
Dreamland will host the inaugural DreamFest music and arts festival. Performances will include Bob Schneider, Carolyn Wonderland, Del Castillo, Sir Woman, Gina Chavez, and much more. In addition to the musical performances, DreamFest will host an artisan market,offering a curated selection from dozens of artists of various mediums showcasing their work and offering it for sale. There will also be a beer garden, miniature golf courses, disc golf, pickleball, and more. 11 am.

Asian Night Market
Asian Night Market, where you can sample international street food made by local Houstonians, is coming back to Railway Heights Market. This two-day event will have over 50 vendors, outdoor and indoor. Join them for some great Asian street food, desserts, drinks from two different bars, local retail pop up shops, live music, a lion dance performance, kids entertainment, and so much more. So, head over to Washington Ave. and dive headfirst into the exotic, hipstery fun of it all. 2 pm.

14 Pews presents Bicycle Thieves
Vittorio De Sica's Oscar-winning 1948 film defined an era in cinema. In poverty-stricken postwar Rome, a man, on the first day of a new job that offers hope of salvation for his desperate family, gets his bicycle — which he needs for work — is stolen. With his young son in tow, he sets off to track down the thief. This film embodies the greatest strengths of the Italian neorealist movement: emotional clarity, social rectitude, and brutal honesty. 7 pm.

Rivkah French Choreography presents From the Ground Up: A Visual Wonderland
Produced by Rivkah French Choreography and their team, this event will raise awareness and funds for a new performance space being built in the Fifth Ward: the future Q’astle Theater. The event will feature the talents of Rivkah French and dance collaborators, alternative drag artist Dyna with a D, an immersive projection installation by Jeremy Keas, as well as visual art and a live water feature. Attendees will have the option to bid on auction items. Drinks and light bites will be included. 8 pm.

Sunday, May 29

POUND and Pour at Ingenious Brewing Company
Come join Ingenious Brewing for its first POUND and Pour, hosted by instructor Jenny. This workout is inspired by drumming where you will become the music. It combines cardio, conditioning, and yoga inspired movements to make a lot of noise. $15 includes a one-hour class and one free beer after class. Just make sure to bring your yoga mat and a towel if needed. (Jenny will provide the lightly weighted drumsticks.) 10:30 am.

Memorial Weekend | Sunday Funday | Pool Party Edition
Space Cowboy will be having a Memorial Day pool party edition of its weekly Sunday Funday. Festivities include bottle service, games, live music and a brunch menu that features chicken fried steak and eggs; Bananas Foster French toast; a breakfast burger with chorizo and ground beef patty, cheese, bacon and valentina aioli on a sesame seed bun; and breakfast tacos on flour tortillas with eggs and cheese and a choice of chorizo, bacon, migas or potatoes. Noon.

Lance Scott Walker DJ Screw A Life in Slow Revolution Author Event & Book Signing
This weekend, journalist/author Lance Scott Walker will be all over the Houston-Galveston area promoting his latest book, an oral history of the life and times of DJ Screw, the late, local rap icon. He'll be speaking at Screwed Up Records and Tapes (the record store Screw started) on Friday night. On Saturday night, he'll be at the Galveston Bookshop and the Proletariat Gallery's anniversary party. His final, H-Town stop will be over at Cactus Music. 2 pm.

event-planner

Awards Season

CultureMap critic's guide to the 2026 Oscar Best Picture nominees

Michael B. Jordan and Miles Caton in Sinners

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros.

Sinners leads all films at the 2026 Academy Awards with a stunning 16 nominations.

The nominations for the 2026 Academy Awards have been announced, with 10 films vying for Best Picture. Leading the way is Sinners with an astonishing 16 nominations, the most in Oscars history.

The other top films include One Battle After Another, which earned 13 nominations, and Marty Supreme, Frankenstein, and Sentimental Value, which each got 9 nominations.

As a refresher, below are links to the full reviews for each of the nominees covered by CultureMap in the past year, as well as brief thoughts on the films and their various nominations.

Movie fans will have plenty of time to catch up with each of the nominees, as this year's Oscars ceremony will not take place until Sunday, March 15.

Here's the list of Best Picture nominees, in alphabetical order:

Bugonia
Yet another off-the-wall film from director Yorgos Lanthimos features two great performances by Emma Stone (nominated for Best Actress) and Jesse Plemons at its center. Written by Will Tracy (nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay), the conspiracy theory film is alternately brutal and funny as the characters played by Stone and Plemons use their form of power to try to manipulate the other. With a fair amount of intrigue and two great actors going head-to-head for much of its running time, it gives even more Oscar pedigree to its filmmakers and stars.

F1
The biggest surprise among the Best Picture nominees has to be the racing movie F1. It was a technical marvel, to be sure, as its nominations in Film Editing, Sound, and Visual Affects attest. But the fact that it has no other nominations in any of the above the fold categories indicates that its other qualities are lacking. As a showcase (aka advertisement) for the sport it depicts, the film works relatively well. As a complete movie, though, there’s not much to recommend, to the point that it almost negates any of the positives that come from the racing scenes.

Frankenstein (not reviewed)
Writer/director Guillermo del Toro (nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay) loves himself a monster movie, and he takes on one of the classics with his new version of Frankenstein (now streaming on Netflix). Oscar Isaac plays Victor Frankenstein, who brings to life The Creature, played by Jacob Elordi (nominated for Best Supporting Actor). With a slew of nominations in technical categories, there's a chance this film goes home with a lot of awards at this year's ceremony.

Hamnet (not reviewed)
Writer/director Chloé Zhao (nominated for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay alongside co-writer Maggie O'Farrell) gets back to her Oscar-worthy skills for the first time since 2020's Nomadland (after the unfortunate detour into the MCU with Eternals). A story about love, loss, and grief involving William Shakespeare and his wife, Agnes, the film is most notable for the performances of its two leads, Jessie Buckley (nominated for Best Actress) and Paul Mescal.

Marty Supreme
There was no other movie this year, or maybe even this century, like Marty Supreme. Directed and co-written by Josh Safdie (nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay alongside co-writer Ronald Bronstein), the film is an almost continuous blast of pure energy for 2 ½ hours. So many different things happen over the course of the film that the story defies conventional narratives. At its center is the fast-talking, powerhouse performance by star Timothée Chalamet (nominated for Best Actor), who cements his status as his generation’s movie star one year after playing the polar opposite role of Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown. Look for the film to be a strong contender in the inaugural Best Casting category, as Safdie fills the film with non-actors who are crucial to the film's success.

One Battle After Another
Writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson (nominated for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay) has an acclaimed career going back 30 years, but has yet to actually win an Oscar. That will change this year, as One Battle After Another is one of the favorites to win Best Picture thanks to Anderson's stellar filmmaking, as well as multiple great performances that earned the film four acting nominations (Leonardo DiCaprio for Best Actor, Teyana Taylor for Best Supporting Actress, and Benicio Del Toro and Sean Penn for Best Supporting Actor). Add in a story with a very timely political critique (that's getting more relevant by the day) and you have the recipe for a big winner on Oscar night.

The Secret Agent (not reviewed)
No foreign country has quite the influence on the Oscars as Brazil, which for the second straight year has gotten one of its films nominated for both Best International Feature Film and Best Picture. Written and directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho, the film is anchored by the performance of Wagner Moura (nominated for Best Actor) as a technology expert in the late 1970s who flees from a mysterious past to try to find peace in his hometown.

Sentimental Value (not reviewed)
For the third year in a row, two international films made the cut in the Best Picture race (but whither It Was Just an Accident?). Directed and co-written by Joachim Trier (nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay alongside co-writer Eskil Vogt), the film is tied for the most acting nominations this year, earning nods for Renate Reinsve for Best Actress, Elle Fanning and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas for Best Supporting Actress, and Stellan Skarsgård for Best Supporting Actor.

Sinners
It takes a special kind of filmmaker to make movies that are both popular and Oscar-worthy, and writer/director Ryan Coogler (nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay) has done it again, seven years after helming the Oscar-winning Black Panther. Both a tribute to Black music history and a gnarly vampire movie, the film is led by Michael B. Jordan (nominated for Best Actor) in dual roles as twins Smoke and Stack. With a story infused with all manner of subtext and a bunch of great supporting performances, including Best Supporting Actress nominee Wunmi Mosaku, the film demonstrates Coogler's great filmmaking abilities that should keep him in demand for years to come. Amazingly, there was only one category for which it was eligible in which it did not receive a nomination.

Train Dreams (not reviewed)
The second Netflix movie this year to be nominated, Train Dreams is a contemplative film about a logger (played by Joel Edgerton) in early 20th century America who tries to adapt to a rapidly-changing world. Nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay for the script by director Clint Bentley and co-writer Greg Kwedar, the film is most notable for the work done by Adolpho Veloso (nominated for Best Cinematography), who showcases the Pacific Northwest in all its glory.

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