New York is the cinema capital of the country, especially for cinephiles who are lovers of archival prints, experimental cinema and concession stands that go way beyond the standard offering. Below is a guide to the city’s art houses.
Alamo Drafthouse
Financial District28 Liberty Street, Suite SC301, Manhattan. Downtown Brooklyn445 Albee Square West, Brooklyn. drafthouse.com.
Based in Austin, Texas, this restaurant chain has a hip aesthetic and is known for its brews, queso, and screenings of cult classics, in addition to regular screenings of new releases. A revived version of Kim’s Video is set on the Manhattan location. A theater will open on Staten Island this summer.
Angelika Film Center
Angelika Film Center18 West Houston Street, Manhattan. Cinema 123 by Angelika1001 Third Avenue, Manhattan. Village East by Angelika181-189 Second Avenue, Manhattan. angelikafilmcenter.com.
The original Angelika Film Center is the six-screen theater downtown where you can see arthouse releases such as “Petite Maman” or “Anaïs in Love” as the subway rattles below. The brand name has also been added to the Village East, whose main hall is a beautiful old Yiddish stage theatre. In addition to showing new releases, it hosts “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” and periodic revival screenings, and like its uptown sibling, the Cinema 123, it is equipped to screen 70-millimeter film.
Anthology Film Archive
32 Second Ave, Manhattan; anthologyfilmarchives.org.
The star of avant-garde film (and its preservation) in New York for over 50 years, Anthology was founded by some of the foremost promoters of experimental cinema (Jonas Mekas, P. Adams Sitney) and practitioners (Stan Brakhage , Peter Kubelka). In addition to retrospectives, the theater hosts a rotating series, Essential Cinema, which is free with membership; programming includes groundbreaking narrative works by Alexander Dovzhenko and FW Murnau and medium-expanding non-narrative films by Ken Jacobs and Michael Snow.
Brooklyn Academy of Music
30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn; bam.org.
At any given time in BAM’s main building in Fort Greene, three of the four screens show new releases, while one is retrospective, such as those of films shot in New York City in the 1990s or others featuring David’s work. Lynch is placed next to films he influenced. Occasional screenings take place at the BAM Harvey Theater a few blocks away.
Movie at Lincoln Center
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th Street, and Walter Reade Theater, 165 West 65th Street, Manhattan; movielinc.org.
The film department of Lincoln Center, the host of the New York Film Festival, runs a year-round theater with one of the largest screens in the city: the Walter Reade. There you can see adventurous revivals, such as programs about Hungarian director Marta Meszaros or Japanese actress-director Kinuyo Tanaka, and contemporary series, such as the annual Rendez-Vous With French Cinema. Across the street is the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, which has two screens and a food and wine bar, Indie.
movie forum
209 West Houston Street, Manhattan; movieforum.org.
A New York institution for over 50 years – it’s been in its current location since 1990 and added a fourth screen in 2018 – Film Forum hosts some of the most comprehensive retrospectives in the city, often featuring dozens of films by a director or by stars such as Toshiro Mifune and Sidney Poitier. Regular attendance is a cinematic education in itself, and the popcorn, to which moviegoers apply sea salt themselves, is a delicacy.
French Institute/Française Alliance
Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th Street, Manhattan; fiaf.org.
This stylish venue with excellent sightlines hosts showings on Tuesdays. The programming consists of new and vintage films from France, with English subtitles, naturally. Series is usually themed – it could be Wes Anderson selecting favorites from Ophüls and Truffaut or a program of recent French comedies.
IFC Center
323 Sixth Avenue, Manhattan; ifccenter.com.
This five-screen Greenwich Village theater features four prime auditoriums (and one booth) and typically shows much more than five films in any given week, usually with a short film beforehand. Performances can start as early as 10 or 11 a.m. and until midnight on weekends. The concession stand sells T-shirts that replace the names of the directors with those of heavy metal bands.
Japanese Society
333 East 47th Street, Manhattan; japansociety.org.
This theater’s annual Japan Cuts series is probably the largest single showcase of recent Japanese cinema on the New York cinephile’s calendar. The rest of the year, new movies share screen space with classics, often shown at 35 millimeters.
light industry
361 Stagg Street, Brooklyn; lightindustrie.org.
Specializing in experimental film and usually shown on Tuesday evenings, this micro cinema hosted its final program at its old Greenpoint location in April. It will reopen on Stagg Street in June. Past showings have varied widely; they include early work by William Castle, a four-hour Mexican series from 1919, films by Hollis Frampton and Owen Land at 16 millimeters, and a marathon of “Police Squad!” episodes.
Maysles cinema
343 Lenox Ave, Manhattan; maysles.org.
This small (about 60 seats) Harlem location specializes in documentaries – it was founded by the director Albert Maysles, of “Grey Gardens” fame. The programming often emphasizes social issues and local artistry.
Metrograph
7 Ludlow Street, Manhattan; metrograph.com.
An ever-changing (and expensive!) selection of international sweets, a bookstore corner and a top-notch restaurant, the Commissary, are among the hallmarks of this two-room venue on the Lower East Side, which opened in 2016 (Many brand Don’t list it, but it’s across the street from the neglected Loew’s Canal Theatre.) The retrospectives, like a recurring series of programmers’ favorites, arranged alphabetically, have a correspondingly artisanal feel to them.
Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd Street, Manhattan; moma.org.
MoMA has been showing films since the 1930s, when Iris Barry, the museum’s first film curator, helped promote the idea that films should be collected as art. Today, the institution’s two main theaters screen films from its own collection and archives around the world (the annual series To Save and Project highlights recent conservation work). Access to most screenings is free with membership.
Museum of the Moving Image
36-01 35th Ave, Queens; moving image.us.
The high ceilings and blue wall coverings give a slightly futuristic feel to the 267-seat Redstone Theatre, the main auditorium in this museum in Astoria. That works well as a favorite when “2001: A Space Odyssey” runs at 70 millimeters. More specialized dishes are sometimes displayed in the Bartos Screening Room across the hall.
Nitehawk Cinema
Prospect Park188 Prospect Park West, Brooklyn. Williamsburg136 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn. nitehawkcinema.com.
These stylish dining rooms have several screens showing new releases and perennial favorites (“Carrie”, “Face/Off”) from brunch time to midnight snack time. Both locations have bars.
Theater of Paris
4 West 58th Street, Manhattan; paristheaternyc.com.
Once a destination for French cinema and films of literary origin, Paris briefly closed in 2019 but was then leased by Netflix, which uses it for theatrical runs of its streaming titles (such as Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog”) and older movies meant to complement them.It is one of the few remaining theaters in New York with a balcony.
Four cinema
34 West 13th Street, Manhattan; quadcinema.com.
When this theater in Greenwich Village opened in 1972, it was unusual to have four screens. (“A new way to go to the movies,” boasted a DailyExpertNews ad on its first day.) It reopened in 2017 after a renovation that gave it larger, more comfortable seating for viewing new art-house scenes. releases, such as “A Hero” or “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair.” Plus, there’s an adjacent bar.
Roxy Cinema New York
2 Sixth Ave, Manhattan; roxycinematribeca.com.
Located in the basement of the Roxy Hotel, this plush red cinema room offers a mix of revivals (often on a 35-millimeter film) and a second batch of programming – recent releases that have been in theaters for a while.
Spectacle
124 South Third Street, Brooklyn; spectacletheater.com.
A grungy Williamsburg microscope started in 2010, Spectacle has a calendar that’s as eclectic as it is inscrutable. There are horror and martial arts that tends towards the obscure, along with a ton of international titles that never show up in other New York locations.
United Palace
4140 Broadway, Manhattan; unitedpalace.org.
One of the original Loew’s Wonder Theaters—movie palaces built in the late 1920s, with one in every neighborhood except Staten Island (Jersey City got it instead)—this Washington Heights architectural marvel is an attraction in itself. Now run by an organization that promotes interfaith artistic events, the theater also hosts concerts and, usually once a month, film screenings. Lin-Manuel Miranda, a local resident, provided a new screen and projector.