Where to screen your independent film in Southern California

Most of Southern California's screens belong to chains, and the list of rooms a filmmaker can actually book is short. The pattern repeats from Santa Barbara to San Diego. A nonprofit art house or two. A repertory house that shows only film prints and rents to nobody. A museum or a university with a film program and, sometimes, a rental page. A performing arts center that lists screenings among the things you can rent it for. A festival that fills those rooms for a week a year. The chains own the rest. Los Angeles County holds most of the list. Everything south, east and north of it is thin, and in places a single room is the whole map.

The Palace Theatre on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. Photo: Difference engine, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Hollywood, Mid-City and the Westside have the deepest bench and the most closed doors. The American Cinematheque has screened to the public since 1985 in three historic houses, the Egyptian, the Aero and the Los Feliz 3, with 35mm and DCP in all three and 70mm in two. It publishes no rental page, and it now programs Westwood's Village Theater too. The New Beverly and the Vista show only film prints and publish no way in for a new film. The museums program their own series. The rooms that rent are a different list. The Lumiere Cinema at the Music Hall in Beverly Hills is an independently owned 1937 Art Deco house with three screens of 148, 98 and 248 seats, and it writes its rental page for filmmakers. Laemmle, a family-run circuit since 1938, takes rental bookings at six houses and a 13-seat screening room through one form. Around them sit halls that rent and say less about projection, from Beyond Baroque's 60 seats in Venice to the 930-seat Montalbán, which has a DCP system on its main screen.

Five first calls

• Lumiere Cinema at the Music Hall, Beverly Hills. Independently owned Art Deco cinema, 1937; three screens of 148, 98 and 248 seats

• Laemmle Theatres, West LA, Santa Monica, Glendale, North Hollywood, Encino, Newhall. Family-run circuit since 1938; six houses and a 13-seat screening room on the rental form

• American Cinematheque, Hollywood, Santa Monica, Los Feliz. Nonprofit, screening since 1985; the Egyptian, the Aero and the Los Feliz 3

• The Montalbán, Hollywood. Historic theater, 930 seats; a rooftop movie season

• The Wallis, Beverly Hills. Performing arts center with a 500-seat theater; film in its own season

The American Cinematheque's Egyptian Theatre courtyard on Hollywood Boulevard. Photo: Andreas Praefcke, CC BY 3.0.

What changed

The Vision Theatre in Leimert Park reopened on August 20, 2026 as the Vision Theatre Performing Arts Center, after a city restoration that Pollstar reported at about $40 million. WACO Theater Center is the operating partner.

The full guide

The free guide covers 41 rooms across Southern California, each checked against its own website, with the route in, the formats each room plays, and the festivals that stand in where there is no room. Get it here.