Based on Françoise Sagan's controversial 1954 novel, published when she was only 18 years old, the new adaptation of Bonjour Tristesse follows teenage Cécile (Lily McInerny). Her relaxing summer with her father (Claes Bang) in the south of France is upended by the arrival of the enigmatic Anne (Chloë Sevigny), her late mother's friend.First-time filmmaker Durga Chew-Bose is a writer, editor, and filmmaker living in Montreal. Prior to making Bonjour Tristesse, her film writing and interviews have focused on a range of international directors, from Abbas Kiarostami to Mia Hansen-Løve, Mike Leigh, Olivier Assayas, and many more. She is a devoted
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
Starring Oscar nominee Steve Coogan, The Penguin Lessons is a poignant dramedy inspired by a true story, set against the backdrop of Argentina’s political turmoil in 1976. Tom (Coogan), a disillusioned Englishman, arrives in Buenos Aires to teach at a prestigious boarding school, expecting an easy experience. But as the city spirals into crisis, and his students remain unteachable, Tom’s life takes an unexpected turn when he rescues an oil-slicked penguin from a nearby beach. The bird’s surprising loyalty and unique presence forces Tom to confront his own repressed past and awaken to the responsibilities of both personal and political change
Born in 1994, Louise Courvoisier grew up in the Jura region of France before studying cinema at the Cinéfabrique in Lyon. Her graduation short, Mano a Mano, won first prize at the Cinéfondation at Cannes in 2019. Vingt dieux (Holy Cow) is her first feature film, a sentimental cheese epic set in the village of her childhood. It follows 18-year-old Totone. After the tragic death of his father, he's thrust into the unexpected and very adult role of looking after his younger sister and their failing family farm. He assumes even more responsibility when he enters a cash competition for the best Comté cheese made in this western part of the French Alps
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
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
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
Our movie-loving customers have votes for their favorite films of 2024! The top ten customer-chosen films are, in order from 1 to 10: Anora Conclave The Brutalist Dune: Part Two A Complete Unknown Emilia Pérez Wicked A Real Pain Challengers The SubstanceThe lucky randomly chosen winners for free passes (soon to be mailed) are:1) Jeff W.2) Mia S.3) Riley K.Congratulations to our winners and thanks to everyone for playing!
The Oscar nominations are out and it was another excellent cinematic year. As always, some categories will be more unpredictable than others. Last year, most contestants 59.5% thought Lily Gladstone would win Best Actress for Killers of the Flower Moon, while only 29.7% correctly divined that Emma Stone would win for Poor Things. This year, Best Picture may be the most challenging category; there are at least six real possibilities. That's where you come in because it’s time for our Umpteenth Annual Laemmle Oscar Contest! If you, dear cinephile, can accurately predict how the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences will vote in
Can you name your five favorite films released last year? Enter our contest here, use our handy-dandy drop-down menus to quickly choose five, and you'll automatically be entered into a raffle to win a gift card! Also, we'll create an overall customer top ten list from all the entries. In case you need your memory jogged, Greg Laemmle composed the following:*"I'm actually kind of glad that we are only asking for everyone's five favorite films this year. Yes, we will compile all the submissions and ultimately turn it into a Laemmle Patron Top 10 list, so maybe that's a cheat. But as I sit here looking at my top films from 2024, it's actually kind of
Laemmle Theatres is pleased to announce our new weekly series of fresh international films, Worldwide Wednesdays. See below for the current schedule. Some are older films enjoying new restorations, but most are newer obscure films that we want to bring to a broader L.A. audience. Putting them in a weekly series format will hopefully help with create more awareness and help overcome the absence of what used to be a reliable marketing platform for smaller foreign films like these, critics' reviews in the L.A. Times Calendar section. Also this format allows the films to play in multiple venues all over L.A. County rather than forcing interested
Acclaimed filmmakers Gregory Kershaw and Michael Dweck, three-time Sundance honorees who previously took audiences to the secret corners of the Italian countryside in search of white truffles with The Truffle Hunters, recently sat down with Inside the Arthouse hosts Greg Laemmle and Raphael Sbarge to talk about their latest striking nonfiction work. Gaucho Gaucho paints an Argentinian western with images and sounds of operatic beauty, building on their earlier success with The Last Race, a film that explored the last stock car racetrack on Long Island.Kershaw and Dweck’s focus is now on the vast mountains of Argentina, expressed in stunning black
In Paul Schrader's new film Oh, Canada, which we open Friday at the Monica Film Center, NoHo, and Town Center, Richard Gere and Jacob Elordi play a man at opposite ends of his life, deciding how to live it. Uma Thurman, Michael Imperioli, and Victoria Hill co-star.Schrader said this about his film:"When friend and author Russell Banks (Affliction) took ill I was weighing other story possibilities. I realized that mortality should be the subject. Russell had researched and written a book about dying when he was healthy titled, Foregone. He'd wanted to call it Oh, Canada (there was a conflict with Richard Ford’s Canada), and asked if I would use his
Our eclectic Culture Vulture series returns this weekend. After ten years of screening filmed theater, opera, ballet/dance, gallery/art, and much more at our Town Center/Encino, Glendale, Monica Film Center/Santa Monica, and Claremont 5 theaters, we are now adding our Newhall theater. What's more, we will now show the films on Saturdays and Sundays at 10:00 A.M. and Mondays at 7:00 P.M. Tickets are now on sale for the first nine films of the new year:*February 1-3: Art and Life: The Story of Jim Phillips ~ Embark on the epic ride of Jim Phillips, the genius behind skateboarding and rock culture's electrifying art. Drawing inspiration from his life
Sabbath Queen, the new documentary filmed over two decades, follows Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie's epic journey as the dynastic heir of 38 generations of Orthodox rabbis, including the Chief Rabbis of Israel. He is torn between rejecting and embracing his destiny and becomes a drag queen rebel, a queer bio-dad and the founder of Lab/Shul—an everybody-friendly, God-optional, artist-driven, pop-up experimental congregation.Sabbath Queen followsAmichai on his lifelong quest to creatively and radically reinvent religion and ritual, challenge patriarchy and supremacy, champion interfaith love, and stand up for peace. The film interrogates what Jewish
Sabbath Queen Q&A's:5-Dec 7:00 Royal, Sandi Simcha Dubowski with Amy Ziering, Producer/Director6-Dec 7:10 PM Royal Sandi with Gabe Dunn7-Dec 7:10 PM Royal Sandi with Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie and Jessica Yellin, political journalist8-Dec 1:20 PM Royal Sandi with Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie and Carolline Libresco, film festival curator8-Dec 7:10 PM Royal Sandi with Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie and Rabbi Sharon Brous, Senior & Founding Rabbi, IKAR9-Dec 7:00 PM NoHo Sandi with Joel Goodman, the film's composer10-Dec 7:00 PM Glendale Sandi with Damona Hoffman, Official Love Expert, The Drew Barrymore Show12/11 Town Center 7:00pmSandi Dubowski, DirectorShana
JOIN US on DECEMBER 24th for our umpteenth annual alternative Christmas Eve! That's right, It's time for the return of our Fiddler on the Roof Sing-Along! Screening in five shtetls: Claremont, NoHo, West L.A., Encino, and Newhall.Belt out your holiday spirit … or your holiday frustrations. Either way, you'll feel better as you croon along to all-time favorites like “TRADITION,” “IF I WERE A RICH MAN,” “TO LIFE,” “SUNRISE SUNSET,” “DO YOU LOVE ME?” and “ANATEVKA,” among many others.We encourage you to come in costume! Guaranteed fun for all. Children are welcome (Fiddler is rated "G") though some themes may be challenging for young children.Prices
On December 20th we are opening Pedro Almodóvar's first movie in English, The Room Next Door, at the Royal. We'll bring it to Claremont, Glendale, Newhall, North Hollywood, and Encino in January. Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton star as two friends who reconnect after decades apart and embark on an unusual new phase of their friendship. Writing in Time Magazine, Stephanie Zacharek describes how "the colors of The Room Next Door are its secret message, a language of pleasure and beauty that reminds us how great it is to be alive. If it's possible to make a joyful movie about death, Almodóvar has just done it." "The Room Next Door, as driven by the
Based on Françoise Sagan's controversial 1954 novel, published when she was only 18 years old, the new adaptation of Bonjour Tristesse follows teenage Cécile (Lily McInerny). Her relaxing summer with her father (Claes Bang) in the south of France is upended by the arrival of the enigmatic Anne (Chloë Sevigny), her late mother's friend.First-time filmmaker Durga Chew-Bose is a writer, editor, and filmmaker living in Montreal. Prior to making Bonjour Tristesse, her film writing and interviews have focused on a range of international directors, from Abbas Kiarostami to Mia Hansen-Løve, Mike Leigh, Olivier Assayas, and many more. She is a devoted
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
Starring Oscar nominee Steve Coogan, The Penguin Lessons is a poignant dramedy inspired by a true story, set against the backdrop of Argentina’s political turmoil in 1976. Tom (Coogan), a disillusioned Englishman, arrives in Buenos Aires to teach at a prestigious boarding school, expecting an easy experience. But as the city spirals into crisis, and his students remain unteachable, Tom’s life takes an unexpected turn when he rescues an oil-slicked penguin from a nearby beach. The bird’s surprising loyalty and unique presence forces Tom to confront his own repressed past and awaken to the responsibilities of both personal and political change
Born in 1994, Louise Courvoisier grew up in the Jura region of France before studying cinema at the Cinéfabrique in Lyon. Her graduation short, Mano a Mano, won first prize at the Cinéfondation at Cannes in 2019. Vingt dieux (Holy Cow) is her first feature film, a sentimental cheese epic set in the village of her childhood. It follows 18-year-old Totone. After the tragic death of his father, he's thrust into the unexpected and very adult role of looking after his younger sister and their failing family farm. He assumes even more responsibility when he enters a cash competition for the best Comté cheese made in this western part of the French Alps
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
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
The Oscar nominations are out and it was another excellent cinematic year. As always, some categories will be more unpredictable than others. Last year, most contestants 59.5% thought Lily Gladstone would win Best Actress for Killers of the Flower Moon, while only 29.7% correctly divined that Emma Stone would win for Poor Things. This year, Best Picture may be the most challenging category; there are at least six real possibilities. That's where you come in because it’s time for our Umpteenth Annual Laemmle Oscar Contest! If you, dear cinephile, can accurately predict how the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences will vote in
Laemmle Theatres is pleased to announce our new weekly series of fresh international films, Worldwide Wednesdays. See below for the current schedule. Some are older films enjoying new restorations, but most are newer obscure films that we want to bring to a broader L.A. audience. Putting them in a weekly series format will hopefully help with create more awareness and help overcome the absence of what used to be a reliable marketing platform for smaller foreign films like these, critics' reviews in the L.A. Times Calendar section. Also this format allows the films to play in multiple venues all over L.A. County rather than forcing interested
Acclaimed filmmakers Gregory Kershaw and Michael Dweck, three-time Sundance honorees who previously took audiences to the secret corners of the Italian countryside in search of white truffles with The Truffle Hunters, recently sat down with Inside the Arthouse hosts Greg Laemmle and Raphael Sbarge to talk about their latest striking nonfiction work. Gaucho Gaucho paints an Argentinian western with images and sounds of operatic beauty, building on their earlier success with The Last Race, a film that explored the last stock car racetrack on Long Island.Kershaw and Dweck’s focus is now on the vast mountains of Argentina, expressed in stunning black
In Paul Schrader's new film Oh, Canada, which we open Friday at the Monica Film Center, NoHo, and Town Center, Richard Gere and Jacob Elordi play a man at opposite ends of his life, deciding how to live it. Uma Thurman, Michael Imperioli, and Victoria Hill co-star.Schrader said this about his film:"When friend and author Russell Banks (Affliction) took ill I was weighing other story possibilities. I realized that mortality should be the subject. Russell had researched and written a book about dying when he was healthy titled, Foregone. He'd wanted to call it Oh, Canada (there was a conflict with Richard Ford’s Canada), and asked if I would use his
Our eclectic Culture Vulture series returns this weekend. After ten years of screening filmed theater, opera, ballet/dance, gallery/art, and much more at our Town Center/Encino, Glendale, Monica Film Center/Santa Monica, and Claremont 5 theaters, we are now adding our Newhall theater. What's more, we will now show the films on Saturdays and Sundays at 10:00 A.M. and Mondays at 7:00 P.M. Tickets are now on sale for the first nine films of the new year:*February 1-3: Art and Life: The Story of Jim Phillips ~ Embark on the epic ride of Jim Phillips, the genius behind skateboarding and rock culture's electrifying art. Drawing inspiration from his life
Sabbath Queen, the new documentary filmed over two decades, follows Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie's epic journey as the dynastic heir of 38 generations of Orthodox rabbis, including the Chief Rabbis of Israel. He is torn between rejecting and embracing his destiny and becomes a drag queen rebel, a queer bio-dad and the founder of Lab/Shul—an everybody-friendly, God-optional, artist-driven, pop-up experimental congregation.Sabbath Queen followsAmichai on his lifelong quest to creatively and radically reinvent religion and ritual, challenge patriarchy and supremacy, champion interfaith love, and stand up for peace. The film interrogates what Jewish
JOIN US on DECEMBER 24th for our umpteenth annual alternative Christmas Eve! That's right, It's time for the return of our Fiddler on the Roof Sing-Along! Screening in five shtetls: Claremont, NoHo, West L.A., Encino, and Newhall.Belt out your holiday spirit … or your holiday frustrations. Either way, you'll feel better as you croon along to all-time favorites like “TRADITION,” “IF I WERE A RICH MAN,” “TO LIFE,” “SUNRISE SUNSET,” “DO YOU LOVE ME?” and “ANATEVKA,” among many others.We encourage you to come in costume! Guaranteed fun for all. Children are welcome (Fiddler is rated "G") though some themes may be challenging for young children.Prices
On December 20th we are opening Pedro Almodóvar's first movie in English, The Room Next Door, at the Royal. We'll bring it to Claremont, Glendale, Newhall, North Hollywood, and Encino in January. Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton star as two friends who reconnect after decades apart and embark on an unusual new phase of their friendship. Writing in Time Magazine, Stephanie Zacharek describes how "the colors of The Room Next Door are its secret message, a language of pleasure and beauty that reminds us how great it is to be alive. If it's possible to make a joyful movie about death, Almodóvar has just done it." "The Room Next Door, as driven by the