Five years after it closed its doors, the Southampton Cinema has reopened on Hill Street as the Southampton Playhouse, with IMAX features, first-run releases, and an inaugural repertory program of films from 1932.
The theater launched Thursday with IMAX screenings at of "Blue Angels," a 45-minute original documentary that chronicles a year with the Navy’s elite Flight Demonstration Squadron, and "Captain America: Brave New World," the newest offering from Marvel. Thursday was also to feature showings of the just-released family-friendly comedy "Paddington in Peru."
Also on tap is the Spirit of 1932, a celebration of the year the Southampton Cinema opened. It was the middle of the Great Depression, and the final year of Prohibition, so audiences found respite from the world's problems at the movies.
The repertory will kick off on Sunday with a screening of Ernst Lubitsch's romantic comedy "Trouble in Paradise." Both Wes Anderson and Roger Ebert have cited the film as one of the greatest ever made. Eric Kohn, the theater's artistic director, will introduce the film.
A subsequent program in the series will feature Howard Hawks's crime saga "Scarface," which starred Paul Muni as a gangster inspired in part by Al Capone.
Purchased in 2022 by Aby Rosen and Charlie Rosen of RFR Holding, in partnership with Alex Black, C.E.O. of Lyrical Media, the Playhouse has three state-of-the-art movie theaters and the only IMAX theater on eastern Long Island. The Playhouse is a nonprofit organization.
The Playhouse's website is the place to go for the complete schedule and to purchase tickets.