Museum of the Moving Image

07/15/2026

This Sunday, July 19, strap on your sandals for back-to-back fantasy classics set in the ancient world that both feature stop-motion creature work by the legendary Ray Harryhausen! See JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS (1963) at 12:30, followed by CLASH OF THE TITANS (1981) at 3:00—both presented in 35mm!

Part of our new ongoing series Practical Magic, a salute to the movie alchemy of effects artists.

Get tickets: https://movingimage.org/series/practical-magic/

07/12/2026

In collaboration with Brasil Summerfest and Cinema Tropical, we’re thrilled to present the U.S. premiere of RITAS, Oswaldo Santana and Karen Harley's new documentary portrait of Brazilian music icon Rita Lee (Os Mutantes), told largely in her own words through her final, previously unseen interview.

📆 Saturday, July 12, 3:00 p.m.
📍 Museum of the Moving Image, Astoria, NY
🎟️ Tickets: https://movingimage.org/event/ritas/

Part of our ongoing series, Las Premieres, co-presented by Cinema Tropical

This vibrant, irreverent, and deeply personal portrait of Brazilian music icon Rita Lee (Os Mutantes) is told largely in her own words through her final, previously unseen interview. U.S. premiere co-presented by Brasil Summerfest.

07/11/2026

Outer space and alien blockbusters are back in a big way at the movies this year, so we’re gathering scientists, filmmakers, and cultural theorists for a live variety show on the subject: “First Contact: Alien Encounters in Science and Fiction!”

Join us Saturday, July 18, 1:00 p.m. for this FREE Open Worlds: Science event (RSVP recommended). You can also see Denis Villeneuve’s ARRIVAL, celebrating its 10th anniversary, at 3:00 on our big screen (ticket purchase required).

The live show will feature:
👽 “The Dark Forest Hypothesis” by Tom McNamara
👽 “How an Alien Would Decode the Golden Record” by Cory Zapatka
👽 “Is There Anybody Out There?“ by Carrie Filion
👽 “Alien Bodies” by Jaime Green
👽 “Life on Mars?” by Ana Gonzalez Nayeck
👽 “Our First ‘First Contact’” by Tom McNamara

Following the program, Jaime Green will sign copies of her book “The Possibility of Life” (available in the MoMI Shop).

Learn more and RSVP here: https://movingimage.org/event/first-contact-alien-encounters-in-science-and-fiction/

Open Worlds: Science is supported by the Simons Foundation.

Images: NASA/JP

07/10/2026

Our major exhibition "Overexposed: Art, Technology, and the Body" is one of the highlights of the Museum's summer offerings. Organized by our Curator of Science and Technology Sonia Shechet Epstein, it explores how cinema and X-ray technology radically transformed how we see and understand the human form through the work of 16 artists and decades of research films.

Just yesterday e-flux Critcism published a thoughtful new review of the exhibition by critic Hallie Ayers:

“'Overexposed' takes as its starting point one of modernity’s most auspicious convergences: the first public screening of the cinématographe by the Lumière brothers and, on the same day in 1895, the newspaper announcement of the discovery of X-rays by Wilhelm Röntgen... Whereas the Lumière brothers’ infusion of time into the production of images has long been a touchstone within exhibition histories—to say nothing of the impact of moving images on art history as a whole—'Overexposed' takes a novel tack in hewing more closely to the trajectory forged by Röntgen, showcasing works that celebrate and challenge the uncanny ability to see into the body that medical imaging technology has engendered.”

Read the full article at

“Overexposed” takes as its starting point one of modernity’s most auspicious convergences: the first public screening

07/04/2026

Happy Fourth of July! We’ve been celebrating America 250 since Memorial Day weekend with the film series By the People, For the People: Real American Tales, highlighting films that take on the perspective of the nation’s historically marginalized and less frequently represented on screen. It concludes this Sunday with the rarely shown, critically beloved 1954 film SALT OF THE EARTH.

Made by the blacklisted trio of writer Michael Wilson, producer Paul Jarrico, and director Herbert J. Biberman, SALT OF THE EARTH is a seminal masterpiece of labor solidarity and immigrant uprising.

Using actual miners and their families, many of them Mexican American—including a cadre of inspiring women at the center of it all—the film is a neorealist vision of one strike in one small mining community, the ominously named Zinc Town, New Mexico. A tale of struggle and triumph, SALT OF THE EARTH is at once an essential historical document and a surprisingly relevant political allegory.

See it Sunday, July 5, at 12:30 p.m. Learn more and get tickets: movingimage.org/event/salt-of-the-earth/

Check out the full list of films in the series, which opened with John Sayles’s MATEWAN, another essential work of labor cinema set in 1920s West Virginia coal-mining town.

Please note the Museum is closed today, July 4, for the holiday.

07/02/2026

‼️ Don't be alarmed when you visit our website. Starting today, our homepage is being taken over by artist Steve Pikelny, who draws from the visual language of the early web with pop-up windows, deceptive ads, fake news, and more.

Visitors who choose to “upgrade” the website pass through warnings, games, and prolonged loading bars before arriving at “MoMI 2.0.” An activation code can be generated online, but you can also visit the Museum, to see an accompanying onsite installation, to gain access to the code.

Pikelny's work, on view through October 4, is part of Site Interruptions, a new series of artist commissions unfolding across MoMI’s website and unexpected locations in the Museum’s building that continues through July 2027.

Visit our website at movingimage.org!

06/26/2026

The World Cup has officially taken over our stop-motion animation stations! Head upstairs to the 3rd floor, inside the core exhibition "Behind the Screen," to create your very own animations inspired by the tournament. Make the game-winning goal, a legendary defensive play, or just have some fun bending the rules.

Did you know you can email your soccer animation to keep and share?

On view now through July 19. Included with Museum admission.

06/19/2026

Meet Sesame Street’s iconic Maria aka Sonia Manzano in person for special screenings and Q&As this weekend! On June 20 & 21 at 12:30 p.m. we’ll screen STREET SMART: LESSONS FROM A TV ICON, the new documentary that brings Sonia’s story to the screen featuring interviews (including Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Oscar- and Grammy-winning composer Stephen Schwartz) and archival scenes from Sesame Street and more.

While millions know Sonia as Maria, few know about her remarkable journey from her early years in the South Bronx to the original off-Broadway company of Godspell, to becoming the first Latina to play a regular role on television, and to her creation of the award-winning PBS show Alma’s Way.

Learn more and get tickets: movingimage.org/event/street-smart/2026-06-20/

06/18/2026

In honor of Juneteenth, don't miss these two towering masterpieces screening tomorrow in 35mm: Michael Roemer's NOTHING BUT A MAN (3:00) + Spike Lee's DO THE RIGHT THING (6:00)!

Please note: Museum hours on Juneteenth will be 12:00–6:00 with free Family Day Football, featuring various soccer games, plus a World Cup watch party on our big screen in the Redstone Theater!

See the day's schedule: https://bit.ly/MoMIcalendar