An autumn tradition at the Dryden Theatre, Silent Tuesdays is a survey of some of the best films in early cinema history, all with live piano accompaniment by Dr. Philip C. Carli.

A venture of Tomohiko Seki of Japanese production house Cogitoworks, these three independently made films are being offered outside the traditional distribution model, directly to cinema venues from the filmmakers. A sampling of the best independent films made in Japan in recent years, each one displays a simple aesthetic that reflects modern life. Each film a Rochester Premiere, Dryden audiences will be among the first in the United States, indeed the world, to view these films on the big screen.

Author, critic, and long-time host of the Fascinatin’ Rhythm radio show Michael Lasser returns for eleven screenings of some of his favorite musicals on the Dryden screen.

With the announcement that the sculpture of Philip Seymour Hoffman will reside permanently outside the Dryden Theatre, we honor his career with a year-long tribute of twenty-four films across his career.

A joint effort of the Dryden Theatre and the Rochester Labor Council, the Labor Film Series presents motion pictures celebrating workers of the world.

On December 1, 2022, the British Film Institute released their once-a-decade survey of international film critics, academics, distributors, writers, curators, archivists, and programmers to determine the 100 best films of all time. When the list was released, the Dryden Theatre had screened sixty-three of them in the preceding decade, and forty-one of them in the previous five years.

When Cinemascope was introduced in 1953, it not only changed the way audiences saw films, but also how filmmakers approached making new films. While Cinemascope and its successors were used primarily to add sweep to spectacles such as epics and musicals, innovative directors were seeking to use this wider aspect ratio to explore other genres.

The cinema community in Western New York is rich and broad, with multiple film festivals and some of the oldest operating theaters in the country. In addition to venues and audiences are the students who are learning about film and the instructors teaching them.