Beyond Fest Is Booking Like L.A. Still Loves Movies

Beyond Fest is not acting like a festival that needs to justify its footprint. It operates on a simpler, more potent thesis: Los Angeles will still pack a theater if you give them a legitimate world premiere, a manic repertory pull, and a filmmaker spotlight that feels like an event rather than an obligation. In 2026, if a genre gathering is going to matter, it has to feel slightly unhinged.

Running September 23 to October 6, the 81-film slate—reported Wednesday by Deadline—opens with Lance Oppenheim’s Primetime and wraps with Bassam Tariq’s Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, packing 10 world premieres and four North American bows in between. The surrounding schedule reads like programmers indulging every cinematic impulse: V/H/S/Mixtape, Victorian Psycho, Paper Tiger, 35mm screenings of Ken Russell’s The Devils, early looks at Mike Flanagan’s Carrie, and Alex Gibney’s documentary Musk. Adding weight to the spectacle, Robert Eggers will appear in person to run The Witch, The Lighthouse, The Northman, and Nosferatu before teasing Werwulf. It is deliberate bravado, but it works because Beyond Fest treats moviegoing as an active subculture rather than an archival exercise.

Crucially, the spectacle feeds the ecosystem: ticket proceeds funnel directly back into the American Cinematheque. The programming is not just collecting titles; it is actively underwriting the physical spaces required to project them. At a moment when industry commentary frames theatrical survival entirely as an algorithmic balance sheet, Beyond Fest counters with projection, bodies in seats, and genuine appetite.