What to Know
- Last Remaining Seats, presented by Los Angeles Conservancy
- "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" opens the series on June 1 at the Orpheum Theatre
- $25 general admission; tickets go on sale to the public on April 17 (a member pre-sale is happening through April 16; tickets are $18)
Our velvety couch, our softest socks, a snuggly pet, our go-to snacks: Plunking down to savor a decades-old film while at home is an act countless cinephiles gladly indulge in daily.
But movies have magic, and there's something a bit ensorcelled about viewing a vintage film in a theater that existed when the film was made, or soon after. Call it the meeting of story and space: The characters on the big screen are occupying a realm that has some commonalities with the place occupied by the film's viewers, at least in terms of era.
The Los Angeles Conservancy has long tapped into this particularly powerful magic, giving lovers of cinema opportunities to call upon some of Southern California's great movie palaces for a memorable movie-viewing experience.
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Last Remaining Seats, the annual late-spring series helmed by the preservation nonprofit, got its starry start in the 1980s. Since then, dozens of films have glittered in grand and gorgeous spaces, including the Orpheum Theatre, the Los Angeles Theatre, and the Palace Theatre, three vibrant DTLA gems.
Those three venues will all headline the 2024 screenings, which will begin on June 1 with the oh-so-chilling and lushly atmospheric "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari."
The member pre-sale has begun; you can buy a general ticket to a film — they're $25 each — beginning April 17.
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On the line-up? The dastardly Dr. Caligari, as mentioned, followed by "The Seven Year Itch," "Bullitt," "Gaslight," "From Russia With Love," and "Mi Vida Loca."
Allison Anders, the writer and director of the Echo Park-set "Mi Vida Loca," will be in attendance to celebrate the acclaimed film's 30th anniversary.
As with bygone Last Remaining Seats events, the screening isn't the sole draw; there are chances to tour the extravagantly imagined venues, too, before each movie begins.
The springtime series concludes just a few days before summer, that time of blockbusters and spectaculars, arrives, but Last Remaining Seats is no mere appetizer to the film industry's main course.
It's Hollywood history brought into the now, a way to travel back in time via some of the most exquisite time machines still in existence: The fabled movie palaces of Los Angeles.
