If Hollywood Is Dying, Why Are L.A.’s Cinemas Roaring Back?

Glendale’s historic Alex theater is back in the picture business. For 35 years, since Terminator 2: Judgment Day debuted in 1991, the venue — where Walt Disney liked to test his cartoons — hadn’t screened first-run films. Then the Alex’s artistic director, Miles Williams, invested $500,000 in time for its centennial last year so that it could host state-of-the-art screenings. Now, the 900-seat house has been holding three screenings a day of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey on 70mm, becoming the epic’s highest-grossing venue in the country on the film format.

“This is a reclamation,” says Williams, a veteran live show curator and promoter who programmed the Ace and Orpheum theaters in downtown Los Angeles, collaborating with the L.A. Conservancy on its popular classic film series Last Remaining Seats. He brought in Taylor Umphenour — an in-demand projectionist who has worked with Imax as well as Nolan on his dailies — to help upgrade the Alex, including by guiding the construction of a new ground-floor projection booth that features windows: “You’re looking at the last performer to be part of the making of the film,” he explains.

The Alex’s packed performance calendar will now feature regular film screenings, including special-engagement runs of large-format studio productions. “I have people who are so moved to see a movie in this place again,” says Williams. Adds Umphenour: “Culturally, it’s an incredible thing to see. Somebody came in the other night and she was just crying with happiness.”

What’s happening at the Alex is part of a broader revival of L.A.’s cinema landscape in recent years, encompassing blockbuster altars to art houses. It runs counter to the relentless declinist narrative about the film industry since the pandemic — one that may be outdated anyway, given 2026’s roaring box office run, with the first weekend in August the most commercially successful in history thanks to The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

This renaissance includes, among studios, Sony’s announced restoration of the Cinerama Dome and rehabilitation of the adjacent ArcLight Hollywood with its theatrical exhibition chain Alamo Drafthouse, as well as Amazon’s lease of the Culver Theatre and Netflix’s purchase of the Egyptian in Hollywood and its partnership operation of the Bay in the Pacific Palisades. (The latter is returning this month, after the January 2025 wildfire prompted its closure — and in time for the upcoming Netflix wide release of Greta Gerwig’s Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew.) Then there are the independent efforts, such as the Jason Reitman-led return of the Village in Westwood, Quentin Tarantino’s takeover of the Vista in Los Feliz and Kristen Stewart’s in-progress effort to resuscitate the Highland Theatre and cult rental nonprofit Vidiots’ pivot to exhibition in Eagle Rock.

“Every time a movie theater opens — or reopens — an angel gets its wings,” says Vidiots executive director Maggie Mackay. “Audiences never stopped loving the theatrical experience, an inherently social and fun art form for the masses. The pandemic only amplified their passion and interest.”

Sony Pictures chief Tom Rothman agrees: “It’s a simple thing. It’s fun to be entertained in the company of other people — it’s why Broadway is fun, it’s why Taylor Swift sells out stadiums. Human beings are communal beings.” To him, investing in the resurrection of the Dome (“the Eiffel Tower of movie theaters“) signifies his studio’s sustained commitment to prioritizing theatrical releases.

Escott O. Norton, executive director of the Los Angeles Historic Theatre Foundation, observes that the region’s Hollywood workers provide a core of support for these venues. “What we have here in this part of the country is unique with this audience of cinephiles,” he says.

But the current efflorescence can perhaps most be credited to the zeal of online communities whose social dynamics encourage avid, savvy viewership. “Letterboxd helps a lot,” explains independent exhibitor Rui Pereira, who will soon bring back the Bruin Theater to Westwood.

K.J. Relth-Miller, who heads the 5-year-old David Geffen Theatre as director of film programs at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, notes that “boutique streamers like Criterion and Mubi drive a curiosity to explore,” generating a positive feedback loop for diversified screenings. “We are selling out several times a week, the gamut from classics to underseen gems to brand-new restorations of forgotten movies from 30 years ago,” she says.

At the Alex, too, its stewards are witnessing the boom among their eager new crowd. “People often ask me when they get here, ‘Is it haunted?’ ” muses Williams as he stands at the apron of his theater, gazing up at its classic revival architecture. “I tell them, ‘Well, it’s haunted by the memories of all the people who spent time here.’ ” Beside him, Umphenour gestures out at the rows while the first patrons of the day take their seats for The Odyssey, its overture unfurling from the new sound system: “This is their haunt now. They’re keeping it haunted.”

This story appeared in the Aug. 12 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.