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The Jason Reitman-led consortium of filmmakers, the Village Directors Circle (VDC), united to save the historic Westwood Village Theater. Now, they are partnering with the Los Angeles-based non-profit American Cinematheque to operate and program the century-old movie palace. The partnership was announced by Reitman and AC chair Rick Nicita on Tuesday, with a goal to reopen the theater in 2027.

The Jason Reitman-led collective of filmmakers that banded together to save the Westwood Village Theater have partnered with film arts non-profit American Cinematheque in the next stage of the preservation process. The collective, known as the Village Directors Circle, has entered into a partnership agreement with American Cinematheque to operate and program the century-old movie palace, the two organizations jointly announced Tuesday.

American Cinematheque, the Los Angeles-based nonprofit that screens over a thousand films in the city each year, will now operate the historic Westwood Village Theater. American Cinematheque will operate and program in the West Los Angeles-based movie palace, which was first built and established in 1931, under the terms of a partnership agreement with the Village Directors Circle, a collective of 30 filmmakers under the leadership of Jason Reitman, who acquired ownership of the theater last year.

Westwood’s historic Village Theater, which was acquired by the Village Directors Circle, will partner with the American Cinematheque to program and operate the venue. The partnership was announced Tuesday by Cinematheque chair Rick Nicita and Jason Reitman. The theater in Los Angeles’ Westwood Village will continue to host major premieres plus first-run films and retrospective programming, with the goal to open in 2027.

On Tuesday, director Jason Reitman and a coalition of more than 30 filmmakers announced that the American Cinematheque will operate and program the Village Theater in Westwood as it undergoes a $25-million restoration aimed at a 2027 reopening. The directors—who purchased the 94-year-old movie palace in February 2024—have tapped the nonprofit to run the more-than-1,300-seat venue and help shape its future.

The Village Directors Circle, the collective of filmmakers Jason Reitman brought together to save the Westwood Village Theatre, has entered into a partnership agreement with American Cinematheque that will have the L.A.-based non-profit program, manage and be the operating partner for the century-old, 1000+-seat movie palace upon its 2027 reopening.

Chris LeMaire, previously the American Cinematheque’s senior film programmer who has spearheaded the organization’s This Is Not a Fiction and Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair festivals among his duties and who co-programs the Los Angeles-based Beyond Fest, has been promoted to Director of Programming.

It’s aliiiiive, and it just screened at Beyond Fest at American Cinematheque! On Sunday night, Guillermo del Toro‘s “Frankenstein” had a surprise showing at the Egyptian Theater in Los Angeles. Following a marathon screening of his earlier works (“Cronos,” “The Devil’s Backbone,” and “Mimic”), the beloved Mexican filmmaker invited stars Mia Goth and Jacob Elordi to help introduce their new movie to a ravenous genre audience.

“It’s not just all about the films — it’s about the theatrical experience, seeing it all together,” says Grant Moninger, cofounder of Beyond Fest and artistic director of the American Cinematheque. “This does not happen online. You’re not watching a screener with a watermark at your house. You’re all together, you’re just celebrating cinema and going through all the emotions together. We put on a show every year at all these theaters because we’re thankful that everyone’s coming together and we’re going to try to give them as much as we can give them.”

Opening on Tuesday with Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice and wrapping on October 8 with Yorgos Lanthimos’s Bugonia, this year’s Beyond Fest—“the highest-attended genre film festival in the U.S.,” according to the American Cinematheque—will present a total of ninety features. We’re spotlighting just three of them here, but the roster of special guests alone is pretty remarkable.

Part of the reason audiences are choosing smaller theaters over multiplexes is the care and attention staff members put into each showing. The viewing experience at these revival theaters always starts with a crew member reminding the audience to stay away from their phones — they want everyone to enjoy the tiny scratches, dust specks and vibrant colors of the print they are showing.

Beyond Fest, Los Angeles’ biggest film festival and the highest-attended genre fest in the U.S., has unveiled the lineup for its 2025 edition, taking place across Los Angeles from September 23 to October 8. Fest is set to open with Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice and close with Yorgos Lanthimos’ Bugonia. The feature lineup includes 90 titles, with 8 World Premieres, 5 North American Premieres, 9 U.S. Premieres, and 25 West Coast Premieres at venues including the Egyptian Theatre, Aero Theatre, and Los Feliz 3.

The 2025 Beyond Fest Festival will be bookended with Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice as the opener and Yorgos Lanthimos’ Bugonia as the closer for the 13th edition to hit Los Angeles from Sept. 23.

Beyond Fest, Los Angeles’ highly attended genre film festival, is back for 2025. Their slate includes eight world premieres, five North American premieres, nine U.S. premieres, 25 west coast premieres and a screening of “Dick Tracy” where Alphonse “Big Boy” Caprice himself, Al Pacino, will be present for a Q&A.

Beyond Fest will celebrate the career of Guillermo del Toro with a 12 feature retrospective series, Está Vivo: The Gods and Monsters of Guillermo del Toro. This year’s festival runs from Sept. 23 to Oct. 8 at The Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, Calif. In partnership with the American Cinematheque, Está Vivo will include new restorations, special director’s cut and rare 35mm screenings spanning from Del Toro’s debut with “Cronos” to his most recent film, “Nightmare Alley: Vision in Darkness and Light.”

Guillermo del Toro will be attending in-person a 12-film career-spanning retrospective of his work at the American Cinematheque’s Beyond Fest, the nation’s highest attended genre film festival, in Los Angeles later this year. Among the notable offerings in this look at more than 30 years of his filmmaking is the theatrical premiere of the 4K restoration of his debut film, “Cronos.”

Guillermo del Toro is getting the Beyond Fest treatment. The filmmaker, who is coming off the Venice Film Festival premiere of his latest monster fantasy, Frankenstein, will be getting a 12-movie retrospective from the biggest genre film festival in the country that will showcase his three decades of bringing fantasy, dreams and nightmares to the screen.

American Cinematheque announced the dates and programming for its third annual Proof Film Festival on Wednesday. This year’s lineup includes 38 proof-of-concept shorts from new filmmakers around the world. The festival is scheduled to return to the Culver Theater in Downtown Culver City from Nov. 7-9.

The series, which runs August 21-27, will feature 27 exciting events, including a live recording of IndieWire’s Filmmaker Toolkit podcast with “New Jack City” director Mario Van Peebles in person.

IndieWire exclusively announces that the films of John Woo, Ringo Lam, Tsui Hark, and Tony Ching will screen as part of the “Hong Kong Cinema Classics” series, taking place at Los Angeles’ American Cinematheque and New York City’s IFC Center in August 2025.

How film fests came to life in Los Angeles, from the silent era to Gary Essert founding the American Cinematheque in 1985

The festival Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair started three years ago as a primal scream from a little Los Angeles nonprofit organization. What has happened since says a lot about the mood in at least one corner of American culture. The American Cinematheque, a nonprofit that brings classic art films to Los Angeles theaters, was struggling to sell tickets in 2022. Older cinephiles were still spooked by the Covid pandemic; younger ones were glued to Netflix.

More than a hundred films likely to make you feel bad in all the best ways will screen in eight cities this month. The fourth edition of Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair is already underway in Los Angeles and Chicago, where the series will run through Saturday. The baton of despond then passes to Portland and Minneapolis (Friday through June 12) and New York, Boston, and Dallas (Sunday through June 14) before dropping down in London (June 15 through 21).

Film critic Roger Ebert once said that no good movie is truly depressing, a belief that the programmers at the American Cinematheque have taken to heart with “Bleak Week,” an annual celebration of downbeat movies. Since its inception in 2022, the series has become one of Los Angeles’ most eagerly anticipated repertory events with screenings spread across the Cinematheque’s three venues (the Egyptian, Aero, and Los Feliz 3 theaters), and last year the Paris Theater in New York joined the fun with its own Bleak Week programming that featured in person appearances by Ari Aster, Isabella Rossellini and Paul Schrader.

In collaboration with Los Angeles’ American Cinematheque, New York’s Paris Theater will be presenting the second annual “Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair” from June 8 to June 14. This beloved film series embraces the darker side of cinema with empathy, introspection, and unflinching honesty.

The Criterion Mobile Closet is making yet another stop on its nationwide road trip.

The closet will be featured at the Aero Theatre from June 6-7 between 11 a.m.-8 p.m. as part of American Cinematheque’s “Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair” programming.

American Cinematheque’s popular film festival Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair is expanding far beyond its Los Angeles roots this year, with screenings scheduled in seven U.S. cities and for the first time internationally in London.

American Cinematheque’s annual ‘Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair’ festival will expand beyond Los Angeles to seven cities across the United States and internationally to London in June. In addition to continuing operations at the Aero, Egyptian and Los Feliz 3 Theatres across Los Angeles, ‘Bleak Week’ will come to the Portland’s Hollywood Theatre, Chicago’s Music Box Theatre, Dallas’ Texas Theatre, Minneapolis’ Trylon Cinema, New York’s Paris Theater, Boston’s Coolidge Corner Theatre and the Prince Charles Cinema in London.

“American Cinematheque’s This Is Not A Fiction Festival is returning for its second season. The festival launched last year with screenings of Thank You, Good Night: The Bon Jovi Story, featuring a Jon Bon Jovi Q&A and Morgan Neville’s Steve! (Martin) A Documentary in 2 Pieces. It is now returning with a slew of new premieres, screenings and appearances from the likes of Conan O’Brien, Survivor‘s Jeff Probst, Errol Morris and Documentary Now!‘s Bill Hader and Fred Armisen. The second season premiere of Max’s Conan O’Brien Must Go will kick off the event on April 9 with a Q&A with the Oscars host.”

Pacino touched on roles ranging from his most famous dramatic triumphs to his upcoming take on King Lear… to his cult cameo in an Adam Sandler comedy, doing a fake Dunkin Donuts commercial: ‘It’s people’s favorite film of mine!’

The weekend after Lynch died, “Inland Empire” happened to be showing in an American Cinematheque retrospective, and the event became a kind of impromptu memorial. The screening was at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, mere steps away from the spot where Dern’s Nikki staggered, fell, and vomited all that blood, and the place was packed with Lynch buffs. Before the main feature, the Cinematheque screened a short excerpt from a video interview, in which the director talked about his specific love for Los Angeles:

Last night at the iconic Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Blvd., the rescheduled event became the first awards ceremony to return in the city, and it just might serve as a template for upcoming awards fetes in showing how to proceed with honoring the winners and nominees while also not losing sight of the toll these tragic fires have had, with so many in the industry—even among the honorees—still shaken by the events: many losing their homes, or forced to evacuate for days, their lives turned upside down.

American Cinematheque hosted its Tribute to the Crafts celebration on Friday night, marking one of the first events to return to Los Angeles since wildfires broke out in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena on Jan. 7. The night, which celebrated below-the-line craftspeople from Wicked, Dune: Part Two, Emilia Pérez, Challengers and The Substance, had a noticeably different feel, as it featured a casual dress code and encouraged attendees to come as they were (many in jeans and sneakers) without the usual Hollywood glam factor.

With Robert Eggers riding high on the success of Nosferatu, which hits theaters over Christmas, Beyond Fest is partnering with American Cinematheque to bring some of his best films (as well as his newest, of course) back to the big-screen for an in-person tribute. Four films will be screened over the course of the week at American Cinematheque’s partner theaters across Los Angeles, with the director alongside some of his collaborators to look back on his work.

Timothée Chalamet hasn’t even turned 30, but that isn’t stopping the American Cinematheque from embarking on a week-long retrospective of the Oscar-nominated actor’s red-hot career.

“He’s an extraordinary talent,” says Imani Davis, film programmer at the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles. “I can’t think of many other times where we’ve highlighted the work of someone so young, but he’s already done a lot of amazing work and really established himself.”

“Happy New Year. For me, this is a dream come true,” said Frances Ford Coppola, surveying the audience that had come to see his passion project, “Megalopolis,” at an American Cinematheque conversation-and-screening event to kick off 2025. The dream part of it, for him, was the chance to spend 100 minutes talking not very much about his passion project itself, but rather using it as a springboard for an infinitely widespread discussion about about political, economic and social ideals.

Wicked, Dune: Part Two and Emilia Pérez lead the list of honorees for the American Cinematheque’s fourth annual Tribute to the Crafts, which will take place at AC’s Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood on January 9. Tribute to the Crafts honors those who are at the very heart of filmmaking and have exhibited extraordinary work behind the camera over the past year.

The behind-the-scenes artists for movies such as ‘Dune: Part Two,’ ‘Wicked’ and ‘Challengers’ are among the honorees for American Cinematheque’s fourth annual “Tribute to the Crafts.” The event will be held on Jan. 9 in the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. Film producers and American Cinematheque board members Stephanie Allain and Paula Wagner will be co-hosting the event.

Tonight, Turner Classic Movies will celebrate the Cinematheque’s anniversary with a trio of films programmed by the organization’s artistic director Grant Moninger, senior Film programmer Chris LeMaire, film programmer Imani Davis, and chief projectionist Benjamin Tucker. Moninger will also appear in conversation with TCM host Eddie Muller to discuss the films and the Cinematheque’s legacy and history.

The many fans and friends of actress and producer Jessica Chastain, and producer Charles Roven, came out to the 38th Annual American Cinematheque Awards at the Beverly Hilton on Dec. 6 to celebrate — and roast — the honorees.

As I approached her Friday night at her table where well-wishers were congratulating her on being this year’s recipient of the 38th American Cinematheque Award, Jessica Chastain caught my eye and immediately grabbed me and exclaimed, “Can you believe this? Can you believe this?, I am so stressed out tonight. I have never been so stressful…

Jessica Chastain highlighted the importance of female voices while being honored at the 38th Annual American Cinematheque Awards on Friday evening at the Beverly Hilton. In her acceptance speech, Chastain detailed the struggles of her childhood. She was the first woman in her family without a teenage pregnancy as well as the first to graduate high school and attend college. Chastain studied at Julliard thanks to a scholarship funded by Robin Williams, who received the American Cinematheque Award in 1988.

If you’re looking for the ultimate gift for a movie lover who lives in Los Angeles, you can’t beat an American Cinematheque membership. Now utilizing three venues — the iconic Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, the Aero in Santa Monica, and their Eastside location the Los Feliz 3 — the Cinematheque programs over a hundred films a month ranging from restored classics and new Hollywood releases to cutting-edge independent and foreign cinema.

The stars are coming out for this year’s 38th annual American Cinematheque Awards — namely, big-name presenters Robert Downey Jr., Casey Affleck, Guillermo del Toro, Octavia Spencer, Aaron Sorkin and November Los Angeles magazine cover star Sebastian Stan.

Liz Sargent’s “Take Me Home” took home the Grand Jury Award. Her short film follows two sisters, Anna and Emily, as they share a rocky reunion after their mother’s passing. The two navigate Anna’s cognitive disability as they rebuild their relationship. Along with the award, Sargent also received a $60,000 camera package, courtesy of Panavision, to assist her with fleshing out a larger project from their proof-of-concept submission. Giselle Bonilla’s “The Musical” won the Audience Choice Award.

Every year is a good year to admire Kiyoshi Kurosawa, whose filmography runs far and deep enough to essentially guarantee you’ve yet to discover something wondrous. 2024 is of particular note, though: it’s brought Cloud, a thrilling detour into action cinema; the French-language remake of his essential Serpent’s Path; and Chime, which spends its fleet 50 minutes hitting every key note of his greatest projects sans one dull step. Kurosawa appeared at this year’s Beyond Fest, where he took time from presenting 2024’s trio to speak with me, via Zoom, on the subjects of prolificacy, pride, and resurrecting an elder form of filmmaking.

Sandra Bullock’s Hollywood career began, as she says, with “a folding chair and a paper plate.” Before she became an Oscar-winning superstar, Bullock, 60, starred with Keanu Reeves in her 1994 breakout Speed. At the action thriller’s 30th anniversary screening, she recalled her audition for the role of bus passenger Annie Porter with perfect clarity. “I was the new kid on the block and it was nerve-wracking,” Bullock said onstage at Beyond Fest at American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theatre on Oct. 8. “I remember arriving there, I remember the car I drove, I remember what I was thinking.”

A folding chair and a paper plate for a steering wheel. That’s what Sandra Bullock remembered from her audition for 1994’s blockbuster “Speed,” which had a 30th anniversary screening Tuesday evening at the Egyptian Theatre as one of the final events of this year’s Beyond Fest at American Cinematheque. After the screening, during which the sold-out audience burst into cheers throughout, Bullock was joined onstage for an affectionate 50-minute Q&A with her co-star Keanu Reeves and the movie’s director, Jan de Bont. It was the first time the trio had ever talked about the film together in front of a live audience.

Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock reunited to celebrate the 30th anniversary of one of their most famous films together on Tuesday. The pair appeared at a screening of “Speed” at Beyond Fest in Los Angeles at American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theatre, where they were joined onstage by the film’s director, Jan de Bont, to talk about the experience of working on the beloved movie.

Beyond Fest hit overdrive Tuesday night with an electric anniversary screening of Jan de Bont’s iconic blockbuster Speed followed by an epic 50-minute Q&A with the filmmaker and his stars Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock in a reunion 30 years in the making. It was clear long before showtime that the event — part of the American Cinematheque at Egyptian Theatre series — would be special. Reeves, Bullock and de Bont had never previously shared the same stage to discuss their work on the 1994 film, which became a surprise hit after it grossed north of $350 million worldwide on a $30 million budget.

Beyond Fest and the American Cinematheque saluted producer Roger Corman on Saturday with a four-film marathon followed by a conversation with some of the directors who began their careers working for the now-legendary genre icon. Speaking to The Times just moments before he stepped onstage at the Aero Theatre for an extended standing ovation, the 97-year-old Corman looked back on some of the changes to the film industry he‘d seen during a career that stretches back to the mid-1950s.

Sarah Paulson made a cameo on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica on Saturday night to participate in a Q&A following the Beyond Fest premiere of her new Searchlight Pictures thriller Hold Your Breath. And what a lively session it turned out to be inside the Aero Theatre, as the chat not only covered her work in the Karrie Crouse- and Will Joines-directed film (streaming Oct. 3 on Hulu) but also touched on other high-profile performances and a few notable co-stars.

Actress and Executive Producer Sarah Paulson attended the West Coast premiere of her new film ‘Hold Your Breath’ at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica, on Montana Avenue, on Saturday. The film’s premiere was part of the genre festival Beyond Fest’s schedule of events at the venue that will continue until October 9.

The twelfth edition of Beyond Fest, which bills itself as “the biggest and highest-attended genre film festival in the U.S.,” will open in Los Angeles on Wednesday with the world premiere of Gary Dauberman’s Salem’s Lot, a fresh adaptation of the 1975 novel that King himself once described as Peyton Place meets Dracula. On Saturday, King will appear as one of five interviewees in Alexandre O. Philippe’s Chain Reactions, a meditation on the long shadow Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre has cast since its release fifty years ago.