In concert with the the Art House Convergence, the nationwide coalition of independent exhibitors that connects, amplifies, and advocates for its community, Laemmle Theatres is pleased to celebrate Art House Theater Day (AHTD) this July 24 by screening four fabulous films curated by this year's ambassadors, filmmakers Sean Baker and Samantha Quan:Sean Baker's Tangerine (2015) at the NoHo, Lily Tomlin's The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1991) at the Monica Film Center, Céline Sciamma's Tomboy (2011) at the Glendale, and Studio Ghibli's Whisper of the Heart (2006) at the Claremont.Taken together, the four beautifully
We have been playing the Neon-released Stephen King adapatation The Life of Chuck at two of our theaters since mid-June and are expanding it to three more venues this Friday because the film, as they say, has legs. It's a charmer and a sleeper. "Telling the story of Chuck’s life in reverse chronology, the film is a big, bold crowd-pleaser, complete with a showstopping dance number featuring [Tom] Hiddleston and Annalise Basso. But it’s also startlingly personal, as we learn about Chuck’s childhood being raised by his grandparents Albee (Mark Hamill) and Sarah (Mia Sara). The deceptively simple drama takes a look at the unexpected legacy we leave
In August 2017, in the lead-up to national elections, Jacinda Ardern unexpectedly became New Zealand’s opposition party leader. She had just turned 37. Two frenetic months later, she was Prime Minister. Just before the final vote was in, she discovered she was pregnant. She would become only the second head of state in history to give birth while in office.Ardern quickly became one of the most recognizable leaders in the world. She drew global attention from people craving a sensitive and compassionate approach to the critical issues of our time. In private, she struggled with being a mother and proving herself to a public skeptical of women’s
Lions Gate Films and Laemmle Theatres are pleased to present the new comedy-drama from the writer and producer of I, Tonya, Everything's Going to Be Great.In honor of Father's Day, be the first to see Everything's Going to Be Great starring Bryan Cranston and Allison Janney on June 15 at the Monica Film Center and Town Center. The 3:20 P.M. screening in Santa Monica and the 3:00 P.M. screening in Encino are "Buy One, Get One Free" screenings. Offer good online and in person at the box offices.ABOUT THE FILM: There’s no business like show business — for Buddy and Macy Smart (Emmy-winner Bryan Cranston and Oscar-winner Allison Janney) that means an
Thirty years after her mother’s death, photographer Rachel Elizabeth Seed discovers her mother’s work — more than 50 hours of interviews with the greatest photographers of the 20th century, including Henri Cartier-Bresson, Lisette Model, Gordon Parks, Cecil Beaton, William Albert Allard, Brian Lanker, Cornell Capa, Bruce Davidson and Eliot Porter. When Rachel threads in the audio reels and presses play, she hears her mother’s voice for the first time since she was a baby. Sheila Turner-Seed, a daring, world-traveling journalist ahead of her time, died suddenly of a brain aneurysm when Rachel was just 18 months old. Moved to uncover more of what
Laemmle Theatres' weekly series of fresh international films, Worldwide Wednesdays! Most are newer obscure films that we want to bring to a broader L.A. audience, screening in multiple venues all over L.A. County so cinephiles will not have to schlep to a single location. The films, however, come from many thousands of miles away! Screenings are Wednesday evenings with encore showings on Saturday and Sunday mornings.PERFECT ENDINGS June 4, 7 & 8. After a decade-long relationship ends, filmmaker João finds himself at a crossroads in both his personal and professional lives. While trying to break into the film industry, he ends up directing amateur
June 12, 7:30 P.M. at the Laemmle NoHo:This screening of A PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY is co-presented by Video Consortium with a Q&A to follow featuring filmmaker Rachel Elizabeth Seed, co-writer/editor Christopher Stoudt, and special guest, moderated by Video Consortium organizer Lauren Mahoney.*June 14, 10:00 A.M. at the Laemmle Monica Film Center: This screening of A PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY is co-presented by From the Heart Productions and Authentic Global Film Awards, with a Q&A to follow moderated by Variety film critic Carlos Aguilar, featuring director Rachel Elizabeth Seed in conversation with producer Ana Lydia Monaco and additional special guest
Named after the famous New York Daily News headline “Ford to City: Drop Dead,” Drop Dead City is the first documentary to focus on the New York City fiscal crisis of 1975, an overlooked episode in urban American history that saw that city of eight million people come face to face with bankruptcy.The film is an immersive ticking-clock drama built entirely from archival 16mm footage interspersed with present eyewitness interviews, and propelled by a great soundtrack drawn from 1970s radio as it follows a year in the life and near death of this iconic city. Laemmle Theatres opens the film May 22 at the NoHo and May 23 at the Monica Film Center and
There are movies. There is cinema. And then there is auteur cinema. All are best experienced theatrically, but the last category, in particular, necessitates the big screen, the darkness, the audience of strangers. Next week, we are thrilled to once again unveil Ran, the 27th film by legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa (Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Hidden Fortress).In its epic scale, stylistic grandeur and tragic contemplation of human destiny, Ran (literally, “chaos” or “turmoil”) brings together the great themes and gorgeous images of the director’s life work. A brilliantly conceived meditation on Shakespeare’s King Lear crossed with Japan’s
Filmmaker Joel Petrykus on his acclaimed, sui generis fifth feature film, Vulcanizadora, opening May 9 at the Laemmle Monica Film Center and NoHo: "One of my biggest concerns about fatherhood is that I’d soften up and start telling stories of hope and inspiration. Five years after the birth of my one and only son, and I'm mostly consumed with fears of inadequacy, abandonment, and mortality; going to prison by accident, falling off a cliff by accident, jumping off a cliff by accident. Vulcanizadora is my most heartfelt and personal, but not in a good way. It’s my most sincere and emotional, but also my bleakest and most haunting."“There is no film
Words of War Q&A's at the Monica Film Center: Sean Penn and Jason Isaacs will participate in Q&A's following the 7:00 P.M. screening on Friday, May 2; the 4:00 P.M. & 7:00 P.M. screenings on Saturday, May 3; and the 4:00 P.M. screening on Sunday, May 4. U.S. Congressional Rep. Eric Swalwell will join them for the 4:00 P.M. screening on Sunday.
Our long-running Culture Vulture series continues every Saturday and Sunday morning and Monday evening at our Claremont, Glendale, Newhall, Encino, and Santa Monica theaters.April 5-7: Far Out: Life on and After the Commune ~ In 1968, a group of radical journalists leave the city and politics to live communally as organic farmers. The film examines their lives and return to the political world and how the commune became a community.April 12-14: In Search of Beethoven ~ The makers of In Search of Mozart return with a new feature-length bio-doc about Beethoven. Director Phil Grabsky brings together the world’s leading performers and experts on
Tomorrow we'll be opening Janis Ian: Breaking Silence, the new documentary about the singer-songwriter. Filmmaker Varda Bar-Kar will participate in Q&A's after the 7:00 o'clock shows on Thursday, April 3 at the Laemmle NoHo and April 4 and 5 at the Monica Film Center, as well as after the 1:00 o'clock show at the Laemmle Glendale on April 5. Ms. Ian will join her for the NoHo and Santa Monica screenings. The filmmaker is also featured on the latest episode of Raphael Sbarge and Greg Laemmle's video podcast Inside the Arthouse.Director's Statement: "The pandemic began when I finished my music documentary Fandango at the Wall (HBO/MAX), about a
It says a lot that the grandest French movie theaters are designed by famous architects. (Renzo Piano designed the Pathé Palace in Paris.) Over the weekend, the New York Times published a fascinating glimpse into cinema's profound place in French culture and how that strength has led to a renaissance of moviegoing. "France was one of the few countries that saw an increase in movie theater attendance last year over 2023, with more than 181 million attendees, an uptick of nearly a million. Brazil, Britain and Turkey also saw an increase."One reason is the French version of American exceptionalism: The French people believe their culture is superb
Perhaps no other sport lends itself as well to cinema as baseball, and there have been some memorable ones over the years. The Natural, Moneyball, 42, Field of Dreams and Bull Durham spring to mind. Well, we have a funny, soul-soothing treat for you this week at our Glendale and Santa Monica theaters. "Modest and moving, it’s a new sports-movie classic, as sneakily effective as the pitch which gives it its title." ~ Nick Schager, The Daily BeastThe filmmakers will participate in Q&A's in Glendale after the 7:10 PM screenings on 3/13 with writer-director Carson Lund and actor Keith William Richards and moderator Amber A'Lee Frost (Chapo Trap House)
The 2025 Oscars are in the history books. It was a good night, with a funny, skilled host in Conan O'Brien and a fairly equitable distribution of statuettes for some terrific movies. It was also a good night for theatrical exhibition, better known as good, old-fashioned moviegoing. As he did during his speech accepting the Palme d'Or last year in Cannes, Anora filmmaker Sean Baker gave a passionate, trenchant speech in favor of seeing movies as filmmakers have always intended them to be seen, in theaters. After accepting the Oscar for Best Director from filmmaker (and movie theater owner) Quentin Tarantino, Baker said the following to almost 20
If you still haven't seen some of the films honored at the Academy Awards on Sunday, you can still see all of the following this week: Anora (winner for Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Editing, and Actress), The Brutalist (Best Actor, Score, and Cinematography), Flow (Best Animated Feature), I'm Still Here (Best International Film), and No Other Land (Best Feature Documentary). All are fantastic and, as one social media user posted after listening to Sean Baker's speech extolling the virtues of seeing movies in movie theaters, "movies just hit different at the cinema."And if you've already seen these films, check out The Fishing Place
Forty years after starring in Martin Scorsese's After Hours, Griffin Dunne and Rosanna Arquette are back, their days of all-night Manhattan romantic misadventures given way to the sober realities of late middle age. Writer-director Noah Pritzker's dramedy Ex-Husbands beautifully captures the low-key new milieu, in which Dunne plays a father whose faltering marriage coincides with his adult sons' romantic troubles. (Both Pritzker and Dunne speak about the film in a recent episode of Inside the Arthouse.) Richard Benjamin, James Norton, and Miles Heizer, all terrific, costar. We open Ex-Husbands this Friday at the Monica Film Center in Santa Monica
Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 20th anniversary screening of one of the most acclaimed movies of the 21st century: Alexander Payne’s Oscar-winning 'Sideways.' The March 20 screening at the Monica Film Center is held in conjunction with the publication of the new book, 'Sideways Uncorked: The Perfect Pairing of Film and Wine,' written by critic and journalist Kirk Honeycutt and his wife, Mira Advani Honeycutt. Mira comes to the project with 25 years of experience as a wine journalist. They will be joined by the Oscar-nominated producer of 'Sideways,' Michael London.'Sideways,' based on a novel by Rex Pickett, was
The Way, My Way, which we open March 7 at our Claremont, Santa Monica, and Encino theaters, is the charming and captivating true story of a stubborn, self-centered Australian man who decides to walk the 800 kilometer-long Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route through Spain. He doesn’t know why he’s doing it… but one step at a time, it will change him and his outlook on life forever. Based on Bill Bennett’s best-selling memoir of the same name.Bennett penned the following about The Way, My Way:"I really didn't want to make this film. I didn't want to make a film about myself; about my failings and vulnerabilities, and hardships which took me right to