First Kiss Fridays are back at The Franklin Theatre, and the first entry in the series for 2026 is the classic rom-com Sleepless in Seattle. Starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, Sleepless in Seattle was the second film directed by legendary screenwriter Nora Ephron, and she earned her third Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay for it. The story — which is essentially a loose remake of the 1957 romantic drama An Affair to Remember starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr — is very '90s rom-com in its setup. Sam (Hanks), a recently widowed architect in Seattle, calls in to a national radio talk show on Christmas Eve to discuss how much he misses his wife. Annie (Ryan) is a reporter in Baltimore who is so touched by Sam's story that she is willing to go to great lengths to meet up with him. Why is every character in a rom-com either a media member or an architect? I don't know, but this might be the best version of either of those tropes.
7 p.m. Jan. 9 at The Franklin Theatre