If you asked someone what city comes to mind when you think of film and the culture of moviegoing, very few people would lead with Philadelphia. The city’s film scene doesn’t operate at the scale of New York City or Los Angeles, but it’s far more active and alive than most people would expect. Film consistently shows up across the city in a variety of theaters, festivals, and community spaces across a wide breadth of audiences. There is a resilient and robust ecosystem for film exhibition and filmmaking that is community-driven and thriving at multiple scales across the city.
At the center of that Philadelphia film ecosystem is the Philadelphia Film Society (PFS), a nonprofit organization that manages three theater locations (Film Society Center, Film Society Bourse, and Film Society East) with year-round curated programming. Through the work of their Director of Programming, Trey Shields, and entire creative team, PFS celebrates hallmarks of past cinema through repertory screenings while also spotlighting the best of current cinema.
The strength of PFS’s role in the city, however, is even bigger than its theater programming. The organization’s mission is to “raise awareness of film as an important art form and vital piece of Philadelphia’s arts and culture community.” SpringFest is a great example of this goal. Running April 17-23, 2026 the shorter-form version of their flagship fall film festival has expanded in recent years, now featuring showtimes on two screens at the Film Society East, a larger slate of films including 18 feature premieres and dozens of local shorts, and a diverse slate of social programming to bring in wider audiences and expand the conversation in the city surrounding movies.
The SpringFest lineup features a mix of titles that may have played at national festivals earlier this year, such as Sundance (Leviticus, I Want Your Sex), TIFF 2025 hits from last year’s fall festival cycle (Obsession, Tuner), and new local features (These Are My Friends!).
In addition to the movies themselves, SpringFest offers filmmaker Q&A’s, casual mixers, and community-focused gatherings alongside screenings. A new addition to SpringFest’s programming is a local filmmaker meetup, which gives Philadelphia-based artists a space to connect during the festival week. The events demonstrate the growing desire for younger audiences to connect socially through their shared experiences with film, and PFS is quickly embracing that trend.
There are also signals of organizational and infrastructural investment in how people watch movies in the city. PFS itself acquired the former Ritz East (now Film Society East) in 2022 and has since made it the home for SpringFest on 2nd St. in Old City. Reports in 2025 suggested that the previously closed Riverview Plaza theater in South Philadelphia would be reopening through renovation plans by Apple Cinemas with a restored IMAX screen that would bring back a large-format experience directly in the city, which has been missing since the pandemic. Combined with the existing 70mm IMAX-capable screen in King of Prussia, it shows that premium format viewing is a growing priority that can offer sustainable economic success.
Beyond institutions and theaters, the hidden strength of Philadelphia’s film culture comes from smaller organizations that allow communities of film fans to grow and thrive from the ground up. cinéSPEAK is a Philadelphia-based arthouse cinema and journal that does multidisciplinary work showcasing underrepresented voices in independent film. They host their own annual festival, Under the Stars, that features outdoor screenings in Clark Park in West Philly. Another valuable interest group based in Philly is Girls Like Horror, an inclusive film club that celebrates horror films made by women and featuring multidimensional female protagonists. Christina Acevedo and the rapidly growing club often partner with PFS or the Lightbox Film Center at the Bok Auditorium for screenings and social mixers.
On the horizon is a physical media rental store called Little Movie Store that’s set to open later in 2026. In addition to third spaces and social programming, younger generations have also latched on to the cultural resurgence of owning physical media as streamers continue to raise the prices of subscription services.
None of these attributes makes Philadelphia a major film market in the traditional sense, but it does highlight a steadily growing and layered film culture with a strong central organization in PFS, growing festival programming at SpringFest and beyond, improving theater infrastructure, and a network of interest groups filling in the gaps. The result is something practical and sustainable for audiences to continue showing up.
You can check out the full lineup and schedule for PFS SpringFest here.
Article Courtesy of Danny Jarabek