Masks and vaccinations are recommended. Plan your visit
Established in 1983, Cinema Arts at the Exploratorium has defied expectations by focusing on artist-made and independent cinema at the crossroads of art and science.
Throughout 2023, the Exploratorium will present a special series of curated screenings, public events, and immersive filmmaking experiences celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Cinema Arts. The series will acknowledge Cinema Arts’ history, pay tribute to the accomplished filmmakers who over the decades helped ferment the program’s innovative direction, and showcase and amplify the voices and visions of a new generation of curators and emerging interdisciplinary/media artists.
Approaching movies as an active experience, Cinema Arts sees the projection screen as a portal to investigation. We engage with filmmakers who create works that inspire the imagination and instigate conversation. Animation, documentary, poetic observations, and abstract visuals serve a broad spectrum of curious audiences while blending the methods and aesthetics of artists and scientists. Through our programming, we create a space for deep observation and provide an opportunity for visitors to explore compelling people, places, and ideas that extend through the museum and beyond.
Help us celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Exploratorium’s groundbreaking Cinema Arts program.
Our collection of films and events offer a rich resource for public audiences, and also provide an important research collection for both our teaching programs and exhibit development teams.
Thursday, April 6, 2023 • 6:00–10:00 p.m.
Spring is in swing and new life is popping up everywhere. Tonight, be inspired by flora in our ¡Plantásticas! exhibition and enjoy a life-giving cabaret of art and science with the Gold Beams Social Club.
Thursday, April 13, 2023 • 6:00–10:00 p.m.
The Exploratorium is your playground after dark! Tonight, immerse yourself in Drawing Sound, a performance by Fred Frith and Heike Liss that explores the nature of improvisation.
Thursday, April 20, 2023 • 6:00–10:00 p.m.
Celebrate Earth Day as we honor our landscape’s original care keepers and explore the complex bonds that Indigenous communities have with the land that gave birth to them.
Saturday, March 5, 2016 • 2:00 p.m.
Join us for a family-friendly trek through a delightful, but often forgotten, facet of cinema history. Cassie Blake, an Academy film archivist, will present a one-of-a-kind trailer show curated from the world’s largest known collection of coming attractions on film.
Thursday, March 3, 2016 • 6:00–10:00 p.m.
Listen, peer, touch, and interact as Exploratorium Cinema Arts takes over museum spaces to provide experiences—both on and off the screen—created by artists and filmmakers from the Bay Area and beyond.
Saturday, February 27, 2016 • 1:00, 2:00, and 3:00 p.m.
This family-friendly introduction to the mind-expanding potential of alternative cinema features seminal works from the history of avant-garde filmmaking as well as new works highlighting technological and narrative innovations.
Thursday, February 18, 2016 • 6:00–10:00 p.m.
Reinvent your Thursday nights at After Dark. Experience a fascinating array of unique, adult-only programs and events that change each week. Grab dinner by the Bay, play with hundreds of hands-on exhibits, crawl through our pitch-black Tactile Dome, sip cocktails, and explore.
Saturday, February 13, 2016 • 1:00, 2:00, and 3:00 p.m.
Contemplate infatuation and its aftermath in this cinematic celebration of love in all its guises. These family-friendly animations and short films creatively frame the relationships that define our lives, from the familial to the romantic.
Wednesday, February 3, 2016 • 7:30 p.m.
By the time Tom DeWitt graduated from San Francisco State in 1968, two of his short experimental films were in the Museum of Modern Art. He then went on to develop ever-more sophisticated media to express his life story in hallucinatory visions. Join us for a screening of several works he’s selected for this retrospective.
Saturday, January 23, 2016 • 1:00, 2:00, and 3:00 p.m.
This shorts program comprises loving studies of the avian family through animation, observation, and novel tracking techniques. Without narration, these films concentrate on the beauty of the form and movement of various bird species.
Saturday, January 9, 2016 • 1:00, 2:00, and 3:00 p.m.
Making use of stop-motion, pixelation, and other complex animation techniques, these shorts rely on visual prowess to tell simple, jubilant stories of quiet heroism, emotional reactions, and internal conflicts.
Saturday, December 19, 2015 • 2:00 p.m.
Colorful animation and black-and-white photographs transform memories of mid-20th century Wales and Canada into winter wonderlands of youthful surprises, disappointments, and holiday play.
Saturday, November 7, 2015 • 1:00–4:00 p.m.
Join us for inspiring documentaries and live presentations on reclaiming urban rivers and abandoned public spaces. Featuring talks on San Francisco’s hidden waterways and the acclaimed film Lost Rivers by Caroline Bâcle.
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Accordionist Rob Reich plays along with classic animations to set the mood for Halloween mischief.
Saturday, October 24, 2015 • 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.
Join EatDrinkFilms and the Exploratorium for a cornucopia of short documentaries and contemporary animations in celebration of Food Day, a nation-wide series of events "inspiring Americans to change their diets and our food policies."