My favorite is the AFI Silver in Silver Spring, MD. Honorable mention to Action Christine and Action Écoles in Paris (hole-in-the-wall places that show tons of old movies; 3€ per show if you’re under 26).
I’m not a fan of the Film Forum seats, but I like those in theater 1 at the IFC Center even less. You’re practically flat on your back.
You don’t know how lucky you are to have any movie houses at all. I live an hour from any theater. It is rare that any indie films play there and if they do it’s lasts about two days. I’d love to have the chance to see some of my favorite art house and classic movies on the big screen.
The Alamo Drafthouse in Austin Texas. One theater to rule them all.
Keystone Landmark Theater in Indianapolis. Not because it’s so great, but because it is the only theater within 90 minutes that shows limited release films. My opinion of it rose drastically today as I saw it is one of the only theaters in the Mid-West that is showing Ashes of Time Redux. You don’t know how pumped I am.
The Crest Theater in Sacramento, CA. I have to travel a bit to get there but it’s a palace. One stage, three screens, and hundreds of seats.
AFI Silver is pretty cool. I like the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago. The Music Box in Chicago is great as well, although the seats are very uncomfortable. Those are probably the only really good ones I’ve been in. I really need to get to Austin sometime.
I feel you Campbell. You guys have it so good up there. Come eastside – Singapore and India – and all you have are your DVDs, and the rare touring film festivals that make sporadic stops here. I have about five friends who are into arthouse and classics like I am.
the Alamo drafthouse and the paramount theater in Austin, Texas. everyone should go there. now.
The Ambler theater in AMBLER, PA. Got to see DAY OF WRATH there. A classical style theater that was restored. I was Very fortunate to see some Dreyer on the big screen there.
The Landmark Sunshine or the Angelika in NYC.
for you movie palace enthusiasts…
http://www.austintheatre.org/site/PageServer?pagename=paramounttheatre
every summer they do a classics series. each june i know i can go see casablanca in this environment. do you know how much i can’t wait for summer?
i’m not sure if the links to the 360 degree pictures work for everyone, but the video at the bottom works. it’s about six minutes long. cool stuff in it (including a look inside the projection room!).
the new beverly cinema in LA is my favorite, as far as programming style. its a run down lil theater, but its got plenty of charm. you only pay 5 dollars, and you always get a double feature. nothing but classics, auteur works, and other films of interest.
as far as comfort, my favorite theater is norris theater on the campus of USC. perfectly designed. not a bad angle in the house.
i also like the egyptian theater at the american cinematheque in LA, but its got some really bad angles. gotta have a good seat, but its extremely comfortable.
The Neon in Dayton OH is really the only good place in Dayton to see movies. They have the most comfortable chairs of any theater I’ve ever been in and they are often the only place in the city playing foreign or arthouse films.
Mr Wise, I think the New Beverely charges $7 and has an amazingly eclectic sense of programming. Whenever I’m visiting my dad in Pasadena, I make a trip into L.A to visit; a great cinema. I still lament the departed Scala Cinema in London, shut down by Stanley Kubrick in 1993, because of an illegal showing of “A Clockwork Orange”- when he was still alive and when he still kept a ban on it- in the UK only. Yes, the cinema were stupid to screen a film that was banned, but Warners and Kubrick could have come to an agreement out of court. (The film was advertised as a "rare mechanical and fruity treat’). Instead, the Scala had do a “droog in the dock” fundraiser, which didn’t reach its target. Sad days. The venue is now a very successful nightclub and music venue.
The Scala was London’s finest, if down-at-heel rep house in London. It’s where a lot of people got the movie bug and ended up becoming critics, simply because they were weened on such eclectic fare. As an ex-critic, I spent a lot of time in private screening rooms owned by film companies- those were always very comfortable, spacious with proper framing and presentation. Unsurprisingly, given that they were trying to get a good review for their film from the journalists. Fox screeing room in Soho Square, London, had nice seats and a great rake, where the top critics sat at the back like a bunch of elders, even though the best critic in the country (now deceased) sat at the end of the second row. Ahh, the good old days!
However, London’s Renoir and Curzon Soho are nice cinemas, with Odeon West End, despite the cost, has the best sized screen and presentation in the U.K, with the majority of movies for the London Film Festival being screened there.
San Francisco still has lots of single screen theatre, some of them independent, some part of the Landmark cinema chain, that show movies considered in the Art House category – The Lumiere, Bridge, The Clay, Roxie, The Red Vic in Haight St. to name a few.
But the one that really stands out is the CASTRO Theatre in downtown San Francisco. It’s a year-long film fest all around on a grand scale. From classics to the rare and obscure, animation, foreign, silent, indie, musicals – you can watch it there almost on a daily basis! If there are films that you wish you could’ve seen on the big screen, chances are it’s on Castro’s calendar. Yearly highlights include Berlin & Beyond, SF Film Noir Fest, Spike & Mike’s Sick & Twisted Animation, Silent Film Fest and more. There are week-long showings highlighting the films of Fassbinder, Bergman, Sergio Leone, Antonioni, Fellini, Hitchcock, Kurosawa, Welles, Truffaut, Bunuel, Lean, Godard – most directors on the Criterion canon. I’m not just dropping names here – as a long time SF resident I never miss a week without seeing a movie at the Castro especially before the war. Some of my most memorable experience seeing classics on the big, widescreen were at this theatre – Rear Window, Solaris, Giant, Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Fitzcarraldo, 2001, Magnificent Ambersons, Ran, Battle of Algiers, Wages of Fear, High and Low, Le Cercle Rogue, Amarcord, L’Aventura, Manhattan… just to name a few, but the list is endless. I even met Herzog, and the real Mr. Dieter D. when they premiered Little Dieter Wants to Fly. Next time you’re in SF, check this place out!
I live in Toulouse, France and for a medium-sized town we do pretty well with the Cinémathèque: monthly themes, two or three screenings a day, an all-you-can-watch pass available for 80 euros a year, exhibitions and regular interesting events and festivals. I recently got to see “Casablanca” presented by Umberto Eco and “Blow Up” followed by an interview with Jane Birkin. Marlene Dietrich retrospective at the moment!
AFI Silver… I will be living down the street from it soon enough. So excited for random matinées.
In New York, I liked the Angelika and Sunshine theaters- whereever there are midnight shows.
I heard the Music Box is haunted! I want to go.
New York: IFC Center, Angelika, Film Forum
Portland: Cinema 21, Hollywood Theater
Ditto The Castro Theatre, San Francisco. I only went there once, to see ‘Contempt’, in the year and a half I lived there and I regret not having gone on the regular now that I live in a place with nothing even close to its equal. Such a beautiful landmark with wonderful programming.
Most of the people here are from US, but if you’ll once come to Berlin, I would recommend you one of the best movie theater in Berlin – FSK, located in one of the most interesting city part Kreuzberg…
http://home.snafu.de/fsk-kino/fsk/fsk.htm
PFA – Pacific Film Archive! My temple. No food no drink, just old people and great films.
Okay, first of all, for me, a film theatre has to have a large screen, otherwise it defeats the purpose of even going to the cinema. Taking this into regards, my favourite movie/theatre house would have to be Empire Screen 1 in London. That beautiful, wall to wall, floor to roof, curved screen – sensational. I have not been there for a number of years and I think they might have cut the screen back, as it appears to have less seats. I will be pissed off if I find out the screen/theatre have actually decreased in size.
Closer to home, I would have to say I also love The Astor in Melboune. Its one of those old style, single screen movie cinemas, and one of the few remaining cinemas in Australia that still show classic and arthouse movies. It was also the cinema that got me into these kind of films, when I first saw ‘Giant’ there. The cinema still plays a double feature every night – unless it is a lengthy film like Lawrence of Arabia or Gone With the Wind, and they release a poster showing films that will be coming out in the next three months, in advance – just to whet one’s appetite. Definitely recommended if you are ever in Melbourne.
If anyone is ever in Vancouver BC, he/she may want to check out The Pacific Cinematheque. It’s our lovely little art house theatre (one screen), and they’re good at bringing in the important stuff. Apparently, they also have some kind of extensive film/resource archive that is free for anyone to peruse. I’m thinking about checking that out in the near future.
I love the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin; Boston has the Brattle, the Harvard Film Archive, and the Coolidge Corner Theater. The Coolidge is such a beautiful theater; In my mind it’s like a miniature version of New York’s Ziegfeld, to which I’ve never been (!).
In New York I love the BAM Rose Cinemas, but now that Anthology Film Archives has renovated the seats, they are the place to beat.
My favorite theater in town is really the Walter Reade at Lincoln Center, but it’s a bit far from home to be a common stomping-ground. But that screen is so beautiful…
Madrid’s Cinemateca Nacional is really terrific – a few years ago I saw all of Almodóvar’s films there, and they hosted a 48-hour film marathon with a single admission for each entry (sadly, this was the weekend before my final exams, so I couldn’t aim for the stayed-the-whole-time prizes on offer). The programming sets it apart.
In Paris, La Cinémathèque Française is lovely, but I might even prefer the Centre Georges Pompidou Cinemas, whose programming is nearly as good. I’ve heard great things about La Pagode but have never been.
The River Oaks in Houston, TX (at least, if it still exists; I heard much heated talk a few years ago about selling and developing it into shopping or some shit, but I feel like it didn’t happen) and the Burg Kino (I think that’s the name) in Vienna.
In Chicago, we have the Music Box Theatre which puts out.
In Louisville, we have about four major theatres that play the most of the first run features, which I hardly go to. There’s a second run theatre that also brings in a lot of exclusive and independent films and sometimes classics for a film fest or something. There’s a small theatre at UofL that actually has a 35mm projector which shows most independent and limited release films and occasionally some Bergman or Kurosawa. that place is probably my favorite because it’s only two bucks
Ridgeway Four – Memphis
I’m very fond of my local, the Ritz in Worthing (south coast of England) – comfortable seats, nice big screen, excellent sound and very reasonable prices. The only problem is that the programming rarely coincides with my own tastes, so I only go there once or twice a year.
But my favourite all-round cinemas are the Curzon Soho in central London and the Riverside in west London, both of which have superb technical facilities AND intelligent programming. The Riverside in particular is THE place to see Academy ratio films – the screen is enormous, thanks to the ultra-steep seating rake.
Nostalgically, I also have to mention the Everyman and Scala – both still trading under those names, but the Everyman is now an upmarket luxury venue under totally new management and the Scala is a nightclub. But in their heyday (the 1980s/early 1990s) they were wonderfully eclectic repertory houses, showing different double and triple bills every day and programmed by people who were genuinely fanatical about cinema in general and film history’s weirder bywaters in particular.
It’s no exaggeration to say that those two cinemas provided the bulk of my film education, and while I earned an absolute pittance when I actually worked at the Everyman, the value of everything else I got out of the experience was incalculable. (It’s one of the reasons I never bothered studying film academically – when you’ve spent six years sharing an office with one of the best film programmers in the business, you really don’t need much else!)
bookwibble
For those of you who do like to go out and see your movies, what’s your favorite movie theater/house and why? Alternately: where do you frequent?
For me, as a quasi-Bostonian, I go to the Brattle and the Harvard Film Archive, and both please me, although I prefer the lineups at the latter a bit more. Both have student pricing, which is nice. I’ve been to the Kendall Square cinema, but not as much as I go to those other two.
When I’m home (NJ, but I visit NYC frequently), I generally don’t go to the movies, but today I went to Film Forum to see Mishima (excellent film!) and it was a so-so experience. I’ve heard a lot of good things about their lineups, and while I love how they were showing Amarcord also, the seats are too damn small. In the interest of full disclosure, I’m a fairly hippy person, so I have problems with seats sometimes, but this was beyond ridiculous. A quick Google search tells me I’m not the only one who finds it problematic. Also, they don’t have student pricing, but I can kind of understand that. But the seats…the film managed to distract me from them.
So what’s your favorite?