ESCANABA — The Bay Film Series at Bay College features a full roster of award-winning, critically acclaimed movies.

It opens Thursday, Sept. 12, with “The Last Black Man in San Francisco.” Actor Jimmie Fails plays a character named Jimmie Fails, whose dream is to reclaim the Victorian house his grandfather built decades earlier. Critic James Berardinelli quips, “It’s a rom-com where one of the participants is … a house.” Located in what was San Francisco’s Harlem 75 years ago, the neighborhood was once a community filled with families and small businesses. Now, gentrification and the $4 million asking price makes Jamie’s dream merely a dream. Filled with “rapier-sharp wit” and “absurdist humor,” the film won Joe Talbot the Director’s Award earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival.

The second film Oct. 10 will be “The Souvenir,” which Vanity Fair’s chief film critic Richard Lawson called among the best films released this year. Director Joanna Hogg’s drama follows a young film student who gets drawn into a turbulent romance that forces her to examine herself as an artist and a human being. The film stars Honor Swinton Byrne, the daughter of Tilda, who gives a powerful, “career- launching” performance.

The series continues Nov. 14 with one of this year’s most important documentaries, “Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am.” Linear yet artful, the film examines both the late author and her noted literary works, examining themes of race, history and what it means to be an American.

The 2019 season ends on Dec. 5 with Mexican director Hari Sama’s “This is Not Berlin.” In the mid-80s, misfit Carlos (played by Xabiani Ponce deLeon) finds his métier in nightclubbing, punk music and partying, which leads to self-discovery and a love of art. Says The New York Times, “The movie celebrates the thrill of performance art, the rush of drug trips and the melancholic cacophony of Joy Division.” The movie is about being young and creative — and the pitfalls and glories of both. Spanish with English subtitles.

All Film Series movies are shown at 7 p.m. in Bay College’s Besse Center Theater in Escanaba. General admission is only $5 or $2 for students with valid ID and may be purchased at the box office or at www.baycollege.tix.com. For more information about The Film Series and other events at Bay College, go to www.baycollege.edu/events.