Not many local movie palaces reopen after decades in the dark. But support among people in El Cerrito led to the theater’s return to life with a showing on November 1, 2006 of Casablanca. Today Rialto Cinemas Cerrito remains the city’s hometown theater. Let’s mark this occasion with our neighbors by learning about how the revival came to be, how the theater was restored and rebuilt, and by enjoying an inspiring new documentary, “The Last Pictures Shows,” by Rustin Thompson, about cinephiles preserving theaters throughout the West.

Filmmaker Rustin Thompson journeys into the American West on a search for traces of what was once a center of small-town life: the movie theater. On the trip, he finds long abandoned and forgotten cinemas; movie houses that have fallen into disrepair; theaters recently closed, theaters struggling to hold on, and theaters that—thanks to their thoughtful caretakers—are not only surviving but thriving. Between the stops along the way, Rustin poetically intersperses excerpts from Peter Bogdanovich’s 1971 classic film The Last Picture Show, as well as reflections on past and present hardships facing the film exhibition industry. The Last Picture Shows is not only a timely portrait of an industry in crisis, one facing the headwinds of consolidation, streaming, and the diminishing theatrical experience, but it also reminds viewers that even in vast cinema deserts, there are oases of community and gathering that remain, where the movie house continues to be a place of wonder, contemplation, and connection.