The Westwood Village Theatre, the distinctive single-screen cinema that anchored Broxton Avenue for decades before going dark in the summer of 2024, will reopen in 2027 under a partnership between a restoration collective and the American Cinematheque, which will take over programming and management of the space.
The project, which carries a $25 million capital campaign, is led by filmmaker Jason Reitman along with a group of industry supporters who have argued since the theater's closure that Westwood stands to lose a key part of its cultural identity without a functioning movie house of that caliber. The Cinematheque, which already operates the Egyptian and Aero theaters in Hollywood and Santa Monica, called the arrangement a natural extension of its mission to preserve theatrical film culture in Los Angeles.
For UCLA students, the news carries a particular resonance. The Village Theatre was long a destination for awards-season premieres, with directors and actors making the short trip from Hollywood to attend screenings in a neighborhood that offered the unusual combination of a significant film audience and a walkable, low-key setting. Its closure in July 2024, after Regency Theatres' lease expired without renewal, left a conspicuous gap in the Broxton corridor that subsequent business openings and streetscape improvements have not filled.
"There is something about a movie theater in a college neighborhood that serves the culture of that neighborhood in ways that are difficult to replace," Reitman said at a public announcement of the project last November. "Westwood has always been a place where serious audiences gathered. We think it still can be."
The restoration will preserve the theater's classic vertical marquee and much of its exterior character while updating the interior to meet modern projection and sound standards. The Cinematheque plans to program a mix of current releases, retrospectives, and archival screenings, with an emphasis on bringing filmmakers to campus for Q&A events that connect students to the industry directly.
The adjacent Bruin Theatre, which sits across the street, has no announced reopening timeline. For now, the Village Theatre will be the focus, with an opening planned for sometime in 2027.
Student reaction on campus has been broadly positive. Film students at UCLA's School of Theater, Film and Television noted that having a world-class repertory theater within walking distance of campus would change the texture of their academic experience in ways that streaming services and campus screenings alone cannot replicate. "A movie theater teaches you something about how films were meant to be seen," said one third-year student in the film production program. "That's not a small thing."