The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is a museum in Los Angeles, California constructed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), which is devoted to the history, science, and cultural impact of the film industry. It is the first large-scale museum of its kind in the United States. The museum is located in the historic May Company Building on the intersection Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue, part of Museum Row on the Miracle Mile. Originally expected to open in 2020, its completion and opening was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The museum eventually opened to selected celebrity guests on September 25, 2021, and to the general public on September 30. On Thursday, July 14, the museum voluntarily recognized Academy Museum Workers United as the bargaining representative for 160 of its employees.
The design of the museum was overseen by Italian architect Renzo Piano. The exterior of the May Company building, dedicated as the Saban Building following a $50 million donation from Cheryl and Haim Saban, was refurbished with new limestone, as well as new gold leaf tiles for its corner “cylinder”. The Saban Building’s lobby includes two exhibit areas, the Spielberg Family Gallery and the Marilyn and Jeffrey Katzenberg Gallery. The Shirley Temple Education Studio will be devoted to workshops on filmmaking, and include a collection of items and memorabilia from Shirley Temple‘s career. A spherical structure was built as an extension of the main Saban Building, connected via skyways, which features the glass-domed Dolby Family Terrace. The museum features two theater halls that will be used for film screenings, programming, and other special events; the 1,000-seat David Geffen Theater in the Sphere, and the smaller, 288-seat Ted Mann Theater in the lower level of the Saban Building.
The Academy holds more than 13 million objects including costumes, costume sketches, film reels, posters, props, and screenplays dating back to 1927. In May 2020, the museum purchased the May Queen dress worn by Florence Pugh in Midsommar (2019) for $65,000, as part of a charity auction held by A24 to benefit COVID-19 relief efforts. Some key objects in the Museum’s collection include:
The second and third floors of the museum will feature the opening exhibition “Stories of Cinema”. The inaugural temporary collection of the Marilyn and Jeffrey Katzenberg Gallery is devoted to Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. Following that will be an exploration of the history of black cinema through 1971. Galleries in the museum will be dedicated to a variety of topics. Inaugural galleries will cover:
An area featuring Oscar statuettes will be dedicated to historic Oscar winners, including Ang Lee, Barry Jenkins, Sidney Poitier, and Buffy Sainte-Marie. A “largely uncritical” exhibit on the history of the film industry, slated to be called “Where Dreams Are Made: A Journey Inside the Movies”, was scrapped by Kramer to be replaced with a more “complex, complete” exhibit. The museum will also be a site for Los Angeles premieres of new films.
The museum has attracted criticism for a perceived lack of focus on Jewish industry pioneers such as Carl Laemmle and Jack Warner first reported by Sharon Rosen Leib in The Forward. ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt expressed his disappointment, stating “I would’ve hoped that any honest historical assessment of the motion picture industry — its origins, its development, its growth — would include the role that Jews played in building the industry from the ground up”. The Forward, Bill Maher and Bari Weiss also raised the issue. In January 2022, The Academy Museum announced plans to create a permanent exhibit showcasing Hollywood’s Jewish pioneers scheduled to open May 2023 (Dw, 29 May 2022: Honoring Hollywood’s Jewish founders).
