About Our Programs

BAM Rose Cinemas (BRC) opened in 1998 to offer Brooklyn audiences an alternative to the standard multiplex, screening independent films that might otherwise not play in the borough and making BAM the only performing arts center in the country with two mainstage theaters and a multiplex cinema. In July 1999, beginning with a series celebrating the work of Spike Lee, BAMcinématek was born as Brooklyn's only daily year-round repertory film program. BAMcinématek presents classic films, premieres, festivals, and retrospectives, often with special appearances by filmmakers, actors, and critics.

Over the course of its history, BAMcinématek has presented major retrospectives by such well-known auteurs as Chris Marker, Michelangelo Antonioni, Shohei Imamura, Manoel de Oliveira, Luchino Visconti, Vincente Minnelli, Chantal Akerman, Derek Jarman, and Michael Mann, and has introduced New York audiences to contemporary filmmakers, such as Pedro Costa and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. In addition, BAMcinématek has programmed the first US retrospectives of directors Arnaud Desplechin, Nicolas Winding Refn, and Hong Sang-soo, among others.

BAMcinématek has also featured many exciting guests, including Diane Keaton, Richard Linklater, Chloë Sevigny, Ellen Burstyn, Gena Rowlands, Spike Jonze, Afrika Bambaataa, Herbie Hancock, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, Robert Altman, Jim Jarmusch, Milos Forman, David Byrne, Jonathan Demme, Isabella Rossellini, Paul Thomas Anderson, Peter Bogdanovich, Larry Clark, D.A. Pennebaker, Catherine Deneuve, and many more.