Movie Theaters Around New York City to Beat the Heat that Aren’t AMC or Regal

In Texas, the summers are suffocating.

The only way to escape the sweltering southern heat is to beat it by staying inside with solid air conditioning, and as a child my personal safe haven was my local movie theater.

There was nothing I enjoyed more than catching the latest summer blockbuster with my parents, and then sitting in the back seat of the broiling car telling my dad my favorite parts.

As a superhero-obsessed middle schooler, meeting my best friends on the curb with my mom waving goodbye, saying she’ll be back in a couple of hours to pick me up. Finally getting my driver's license and maximizing my free will to see movies that no one else was interested in alone. 

When I moved to New York City for college, it took me exactly one month to bite the bullet and see a movie alone in a brand new place.

On a Wednesday before my 6 pm lecture, I took myself to Regal Union Square to see Venom 2. And just like all those years prior, everything that made me fall in love with going to the movies as a child was now an even bigger part of what would come of my new adult life in New York City.

Whether it's seeing a cinematic classic that's been on my watchlist for months or catching the latest indie feature debut from a young director, going to the movies is akin to going to church for me. Going at least once a week makes all feel right in the world. 

Cinephiles living in NYC suffer no shortage of great movie theaters in every borough.

From historic one-screen auditoriums to newly-furbished warehouses, there’s no better independent scene than here in the city.

Here are some of the best New York City independent theaters to defend yourself from the stuffy streets. 

Manhattan:

Film Forum

This theater is arguably the most important and deservedly popular independent cinema in New York City. From its opening in 1970, Film Forum has remained a cinematic staple, yielding praise from prolific filmmakers and actors alike, Agnes Varda to Ethan Hawke.

A large part of its praise is due to the programming; Film Forum screens American independent, documentary, and international feature films, as well as impressive and carefully curated repertory series. If the history and everything the Film Forum has to offer still isn’t convincing enough, they also have incredible popcorn. Don’t waste another movie night in the city anywhere else. 

Angelika Film Center

Similar to Film Forum, Angelika Film Center stands as a pillar of New York City, with two locations outside of its original Houston street location. What was originally a … has now become a staple in NYC moviegoing culture. Constantly screening a range of new independent releases and retrospectives, there’s something of interest for everyone.

This summer, Angelika worked alongside the Criterion Collection to run “Lynchian: A David Lynch Retrospective”. Seeing the works of the incomparable late filmmaker on the big screen is an essential for any film lover. 

Metrograph 

Compared to Film Forum or Angelika, Metrograph is a baby independent theater, with its doors having opened just ten years ago. However, within those ten years, Metrograph has solidified itself to be one of the most popular independent theaters in New York City and for good reason.

Their film-only programming is mainly a repertory one, with the occasional new release and Q&A between two screens. Settled inside a refurbished warehouse in the Lower East Side, Metrograph also has an upscale food selection and two bars, inspired by Hollywood's golden age. 

Paris Theater

If you have ever thought to yourself that a Netflix original film would be better to experience in a dark auditorium while sitting in a cushy red velvet chair with a crisp soft drink, then Paris Theater is the place for you.

This single-screen theater is the longest-running arthouse cinema in New York City, and after being bought by Netflix in 2019 screens limited engagements of films made for streaming, as well as running programs curated by filmmakers and other retrospectives. In mid-July, Paris Theater and the Film Noir Foundation are running “Noir City: New York” a traveling celebration of film noir, which includes 32 feature films on 35mm print.

IFC Center 

In the heart of Greenwich Village, IFC Center has been highlighting independent films since 2005. Alongside their usual theatrical distribution of independent, foreign, and documentary features, they also present theatrical productions of National Theatre Live and host DOC NYC every November.

They also feature two series, Waverly Midnights and Short Attention Span Cinema. Waverly Midnights focuses on cult classics, screening at midnight on Fridays and Saturdays, while Short Attention Span Cinema screens short films before features. 

Brooklyn: 

BAM Rose Cinemas 

The Brooklyn Academy of Music hosts art across multiple mediums, spotlighting everything from film to theater to dance and live music.

Their film programming is nothing short of impressive, screening both new releases and carefully curated and niche series that center on various topics. In mid-July, BAM will be presenting "Electronica" a series that features films with electronic-heavy soundtracks, and then following that, they will be screening a series of contemporary Arab cinema. 

Syndicated Bar Theater Kitchen

If the classic popcorn saturated in butter and overpriced fountain drink don’t tickle your fancy, then Syndicated is the perfect cinematic outing for you.

Like chains such as Nitehawk and Alamo Drafthouse, Syndicated has a full drink and dinner menu, and it accompanies their one screening a day. To keep up with their screening schedule and programming, which floats between new releases and repertory, follow them on Instagram for updates! 

Queens:

MoMI

Surrounded by the magical works of Jim Henson and quirky rotating exhibits is a massive screening room that contains some of my personal favorite programming around the city.

With an exciting “De Palma: Summer of Suspense” and “Culture Wars” series running through late July, the Museum of the Moving Image is an absolute essential for any film lover in New York City. Start your day learning about the technical histories of cinema and make your way through the exciting exhibits, such as “Overexposed: Art, Technology, and the Body” and  “Sense of Nowhere,” an interactive VR technology experience, then make your way to the auditorium to catch a film. 

Low Cinema  

Small but mighty, Low Cinema is located in Ridgewood with only 42 seats and features a wide range of programming. Partners John Wilson, Davis Fowlkes, and Cosmo Bjorkenheim are driven by their love of cinema and their neighborhood, and in an effort to keep moviegoing alive and well, they opened Low Cinema in May of 2025.

Their programming contains anything and everything from obscure documentaries to hit romantic comedy blockbusters; this quaint cinema needs to be on everyone’s radar this summer. 

Go to the movies and support arthouse cinemas! Happy watching.

The Drama and the Limits of Movie Marketing

Spoiler alert for "The Drama"

TW: School shootings, gun violence

When A24 released the trailers for The Drama, audiences thought they knew what they were getting; at least I did. 

The marketing promised a tense romantic drama starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson.

Social media immediately began theorizing about the central mystery: what had happened between the couple, and what secret was threatening their marriage?

Like many film fans, I was hooked.

As a film student and longtime A24 viewer, I was excited. The trailers were effective. They created intrigue without revealing too much, which is exactly what good marketing is supposed to do.

Then I got spoiled.

A TikTok video revealed the film's major twist before I had a chance to see it myself. Suddenly, the conversation around The Drama shifted from romance and relationships to something much heavier. The film's central revelation (spoiler alert) that Zendaya's character had planned a school shooting as a teenager.

This sparked immediate backlash and reopened an ongoing debate about audience responsibility, content warnings, and the role of marketing.

The criticism wasn't necessarily about the film itself. It was about the surprise. For many viewers, school shootings aren't simply a plot device. They're lived experiences.

I know this because I was on a college campus during a shooting.

In October 2022, while I was a freshman at the University of Arizona, Professor Thomas Meixner was shot and killed in a building next to where I was attending class at that same time.

Authorities would later determine that the attack was targeted and carried out by a former student. But in the hours immediately following the shooting, nobody knew that.

What I remember most is uncertainty.

I remember being on the phone with my mother asking whether I should go to my next class, stay where I was, or return to my dorm.

I remember emergency alerts appearing across campus. I remember the fear in my classmates' faces. Most vividly, I remember not knowing whether the person responsible was still somewhere nearby.

People often reserve the label "survivor" for those directly involved in a shooting, and I understand why. I wasn't in the room. I wasn't physically harmed. 

Yet trauma doesn't always follow neat definitions. I still remember exactly where I was sitting when I got the alert. I remember the clothes I was wearing. I remember texting my family that I loved them.

Four years later, I still think about it.

That's why The Drama's marketing controversy interested me, not because I was offended by the film, but because it raised a question that filmmakers increasingly have to confront: How do you market a twist built around a collective trauma? There are no easy answers.

Film marketing exists to generate curiosity. Revealing major plot points can weaken a film's impact before audiences ever buy a ticket. At the same time, subjects like school shootings occupy a unique place in American culture. They are not rare tragedies. They are recurring realities.

According to Sandy Hook Promise, more than 390,000 students in the United States have experienced gun violence at school since Columbine, and lockdown drills are now a routine experience for most American students (Sandy Hook Promise; Brady United).  For many viewers, school shootings aren't hypothetical fears; they're memories.

So where does that leave filmmakers?

Should marketing campaigns explicitly warn audiences when a film contains school-shooting or trigger worthy content? If they do, does that effectively spoil the narrative? If they don't, are viewers being denied information that could help them make informed decisions about what they're about to watch? The debate surrounding The Drama suggests there may never be a universally accepted answer.

What the controversy does reveal, however, is how normalized these conversations have become. The fact that audiences immediately questioned whether a school-shooting twist required a warning says something unsettling about contemporary America. An entire generation has grown up measuring films against experiences that previous generations never imagined would become routine.

That reality extends far beyond movie theaters.

Following the University of Arizona shooting, counseling resources became overwhelmed as students attempted to process what had happened. The incident was eventually classified as targeted, but that distinction offered little comfort in the moment.

My fear didn't wait for official reports.

Perhaps that's why the discussion around The Drama resonates with so many people. It isn't really about a single movie. It's about the challenge of telling stories about violence in a country where violence increasingly shapes real lives.

I still haven't seen The Drama… Maybe I eventually will.

But the marketing controversy surrounding it forced me to think about something larger than a plot twist. It made me reflect on how trauma travels beyond the moment it occurs; into classrooms, conversations, films, and marketing campaigns.

The stories we tell are shaped by the world we live in.

For some viewers, a plot twist is just a plot twist. For others, it's a memory.

Read more about the drama, shootings and UofA below:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2026/04/03/drama-movie-controversy-gun-violence-school-shooting/89388141007/\ 

https://www.businessinsider.com/the-drama-movie-twist-spoilers-backlash-columbine-zendaya-robert-pattinson-2026-4 

https://news.arizona.edu/news/what-youre-feeling-after-campus-shooting-normal 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/thomas-meixner-university-of-arizona-professor-killed-by-former-student-identified/ 

https://www.sandyhookpromise.org/

I Love Boosters Film Review: Anti-Capitalism Meets Satire, Crime, and Fashion

Boots Riley’s new film, “I Love Boosters,” was a vibrant, anti-capitalist fever dream. Everything about the movie–even down to its official poster–references the era of 1960s crime films such as “How to Steal A Million,” that blend crime, social criticism, and high fashion. This film does all the same things, but for a modern audience. 

It was as surreal as a Boots Riley film can be. There are stop motion characters in a world of real people, a building that is tilted at an almost 45-degree angle, though no one mentions it, and a demon model who takes the souls of his romantic partners by going down on them. Yes, you read that right.

The lighting and costumes were also colorful and visually pleasing. I was thanking my lucky stars that the main characters didn’t sacrifice being fashionable in their fight against capitalism!

These elements, alongside the writing and direction of Boots Riley, help to serve the film’s purpose. “I Love Boosters” is a satirical criticism of capitalism with plenty to-die-for fashion  moments along the way.

This review will contain spoilers!

The film follows a group of boosters (people that steal and resell clothes) called the Velvet Gang. When one of the boosters, Corvette (Keke Palmer), discovers that CEO and fashion designer, Christie Smith (Demi Moore), stole one of her designs and is selling it at her Metro Designers store, Corvette and her friends plan to steal from as many Metro Designers locations as they can.

Their cover: getting hired to work at the store.

At the same time, executives at the Metro Designers’ factory in China decide to implement teleportation devices to cut shipping costs. The employees also ask for better pay and working conditions, but Christie refuses to meet their demands. One of the employees, Jianhu (Poppy Liu), steals the device and teleports herself to America, where she plans to send all Metro Designers supply back to China until their demands are met. Eventually, she joins the Velvet Gang as they all have a vendetta against Christie. 

The way the employees are treated in this film is one of the most obvious critiques of capitalism.

They have to sprint to their lunch break, which is absurdly thirty seconds long, while the manager, Grayson (Will Poulter), gets a full hour. Corvette’s coworker, Violeta (Eiza González), gets a paycheck that is about $43,000, but after the company deducts money for employee uniforms and other costs, the check is reduced to just over $43. It’s over the top, but it gets the point across! 

Christie Smith is a symbol of capitalism in general and the “one percent.” She was livid that the boosters were stealing from her, meanwhile, she had already taken Corvette’s design and passed it off as her own. Christie also buys into her own self-importance and convinces others to believe her lies too, using propaganda. 

Throughout the film, there are a handful of side characters, such as Dr. Jack (Don Cheadle), who disguises his pyramid scheme as a self-help program, and Crying Black Mother (Kara Young), a woman on the news who says she wouldn’t want people to “bear the burden of free housing.”

She and the others seem unimportant until the final act, where it is revealed they have been working for Christie the entire time, having had their skin surgically removed so they can wear the skin of other people and promote Christie’s ideologies undercover.

They represent people who have bought into capitalist propaganda so much that they will sacrifice their own skin (their wellbeing) to keep the system going.

One of the “skin people” says she once acted as Candace Owens! This could be taken solely as a dig at Candace, but there’s a bigger message behind it. It symbolizes how all media can be a tool to control the narrative. People with platforms, big or small, can influence the public and get them to support things that benefit the system but harm themselves.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Boots Riley movie without LaKeith Stanfield, who plays the demon model, also known as Pinky Ring Guy. His entrance to the film is jarring as he suddenly appears with no warning in an extreme, borderline invasive close-up, while Corvette is stealing from Metro Designers. Though he helps Corvette and her friends infiltrate Christie’s fashion show in the final act, the character’s purpose in the larger message of the film isn’t clear. On the surface he mostly adds to the surrealism, but in retrospect, it’s possible he represents the concept of sacrificing your soul for pleasure.

Most of his rare appearances in the film are when Corvette is in the middle of a plan with the boosters, and he tries to get her to go out with him. He could represent the temptation to give up the fight and give in to pleasure as a means of numbing oneself in the face of uncertainty. Or maybe he just symbolizes the bums we put up with to escape loneliness, who will actually suck the life out of us if we let them. Either way, Corvette rejects him completely, showing that she isn’t willing to give up her soul.

Refreshingly, the film doesn’t just criticize the problems with a capitalistic society; it offers solutions.

One being that we are most effective in fighting the system when we work together. 

Throughout the movie, Corvette hallucinates a giant ball of trash filled with overdue bills and eviction notices coming towards her, representing the dread and isolation of looming societal expectations. She also mentions many times that she feels alone.

As the film goes on, Corvette and the Velvet Gang gradually expand their circle, working with others to achieve a specific goal. By the end, Corvette isn’t alone anymore, and the giant ball of trash becomes small enough to pick up and throw away. It shows that fighting alone can be unbearable, but the way to handle the burden is by uniting.

At the end of the day, we have more in common than we think.

Another interesting detail is that the teleportation device has two other settings: deconstruction mode, which reverts objects into the raw materials that made them, and situational acceleration mode, which accelerates objects into what they will be in the future.

Deconstruction mode represents that the system doesn’t necessarily need to be destroyed. We need to take a closer look at the individual moving parts and understand how it works so we can rebuild it. Situational Acceleration mode represents future possibilities.

In the final act, there is a protest at Christie’s fashion show. On one side are the protestors, on the other, those who were guests invited to the show. When the boosters use acceleration mode on everyone, we see what they will be in the future: both sides are protesting together. When Corvette and her friend Sade (Naomie Ackie) accidentally accelerate a police car, it becomes a futuristic vehicle with all kinds of weaponry and destructive features. But when they accelerate the people, it makes them into a version of themselves that depicts unity.

That is how they win.

The film’s ending leaves us with a sense of hope. The Velvet Gang opens a community center to sell clothes, and Christie has to comply with the demands of the people who work in the Metro Designers factory.

It shows that regardless of how bad the world gets, future generations will still unite and fight for something better. This conveys a future of unity, a future that is hopeful in the face of bleakness, and it's a message the world needs to hear.