It’s Liam, your friendly producer and movie nerd. The first thing I did when I moved to Seattle was start checking out the movie theaters. Real heads know that Seattle IS a movie town, not only with a great history of movies made here but with some real movie fans and GREAT places to rent and watch movies. As I’ve been visiting as many local theaters here, I thought I’d put a guide together for the un- or under-initiated.
For your cinephiles:
SIFF Downtown, Uptown, Film Center.
SIFF is, in my humble opinion, the crown jewel of Seattle film. They show new releases in 2 venues, Downtown, Uptown, and show cult classics and repertory screenings at both Uptown and The SIFF Film Center near Seattle Center. The popcorn is good, the projection excellent (they even do some 35mm), and you can feel that the audience is full of serious cinephiles watching movies. SIFF is a nonprofit organization, and you can support them, which gives you discount tickets, event invites, and free(!) concessions! On a sad note, SIFF recently announced they were not reopening the famed Egyptian, which suffered damage in the past few years. No word yet on who's taking over, but Seattle has some ideas.
For your format wonks:
I’m going to complain: Seattle doesn’t have a 70mm IMAX. This makes me, a format obsessive, pretty sad. However, we do have one of the best digital IMAX theaters in the country here at the Pacific Science Center, and when it isn’t showing nature documentaries and other awesome museum fair, they’re showing the latest and greatest in large scale projection entertainment. A recent screening of One Battle After Another, shot in VistaVision, looked fantastic.
If you’re in Ballard and don’t wanna leave…
I love hanging out in Ballard. I could walk around there all day, stop at a few spots for drinks and snacks, and then finish up my evening at the Majestic Bay, the cute, classy feeling theater that has both fun retro nights and new releases! If you haven’t filled up on Ballard’s delicious restaurants, they have fun, yummy popcorn. A warning before you go: they only accept cards for concessions unless you have exact change. Don’t love that, but what can you do?
Munching while you watch a cult classic…
Maybe you’re looking for something more substantial than popcorn and soda when you watch a cult classic. In that case, Central Cinema, located in Cherry Hill, has got you covered.
My Advice: Go see a film by Carpenter, Gillian, or Ridley Scott with a tall Pilsner and some fried cheese curds. Heaven.
For fans of cult cinema…
There are cult classics, and then there’s cult cinema. The Beacon Theater, a 48-seater located in Columbia City, is for the latter. Their about page reads ‘We desire to re-see the possibilities of cinema and think again about the relationality of art, life, struggle and pleasure. We call upon our community to gather together, in the real world, and experience cinema collectively. We aim to foster cultural forms that imagine tomorrow as something more than an endless repetition of an infinite now.’ Hell. Yes.
My Advice: This is a great place to see absolute (underseen) classics like Vampire’s Kiss or practically unheard of masterworks like the Kazakh New Wave’s The Fall of Otrar.
For your burgeoning student film lovers…
The only way I could ever become a film fan ranting about the Kazakh New Wave is if I had access to cinema as a student, and that’s what U District’s Varsity Theater provides. Tickets are student-friendly ($9.50 with a student ID!) and you can see all sorts of new releases.
For cinephiles who want to support a locally-focused organization:
Founded 30 years ago, Northwest FIlm Forum seeks ‘incite to public dialogue and creative action through collective cinematic experiences.’ They do this through screenings of resonant political films, festivals, filmmaker workshops, and screenings of classic foreign cinema (some of it unheralded in the USA). They also do cool double features, like one of Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows and its amazing German remake, Ali: Fear Eats The Soul.
Did I miss a spot? Let me know.
