Filmmuseum

The Filmmuseum im Stadtmuseum is one of the great movie resources in Munich. It is part of the Munich City Museum. They show different movies every day except Monday, often quite old films, including an annual silent movie festival where many films are accompanied by live music - sometimes the original score, sometimes new compositions by such greats as Aljoscha Zimmermann.

Filmmuseum München
St. Jakobsplatz 1, 80331 Munich
Telephone: 233 241 50
MVV: Marienplatz - S-Bahn, U3, U6
Sendlinger Tor - U1, U2, Tram
artechock.de - Filmmuseumprogram
artechock.de - Filmmuseumverein

The Filmmuseum puts on theme weeks: the 2005-2006 season includes Orson Welles, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Thomas Mann, the first two years of German talkies, Erna Morena, and more. As befits a true art house, movies are always in the original version with subtitles, sometimes without subtitles. However, as also befits an art house, there are sometimes people there who're real film snobs and if you laugh at the funny parts they'll get huffy with you. Unfortunately you can't tell them to just rent the DVD if they want to watch the movie without other people, because the Filmmuseum shows things like the US Library of Congress' copy of "The Patsy" from 1924, starring Marion Davies, the model for Citizen Kane's untalented second wife in Orson Welles' classic. (Marion Davies was actually not a bad actress, and Welles later regretted having been so mean to her.) This info was in part in the annual program (available on paper at the Filmmuseum or they'll send it to you if you send them a postage-paid envelope) and in part from the very nice introduction to the movie that a fellow gives right at the beginning. What a nice change from 20 minutes of commercials like at other theaters. This means of course, that you must show up on time! The complete program is on the website above and included in the local papers and movie websites.

Did I mention Filmmuseum is one of the cheapest theaters in Munich? 4 Euros a show, with 2 Euros extra if it's accompanied by live music. Cannot beat that deal. If you want to reserve tickets, you can call and leave a message with your name and how many tickets you want on the answering machine, and you only have to pick them up 15 minutes before showtime, not 30 minutes like other theaters.

And there's a quite nice cafe attached - the Stadtcafe. Open all afternoon and after films, we've been there as late as 1am. Beer, coffee, dinner on a small scale with various pasta dishes. Street seating on St. Jakobsplatz, where the new Jewish Cultural Center is being built, and seating in the inner courtyard of the Stadtmuseum, as well as indoors. Nice cakes too.

If you want to support art house movies in Munich, you can join the Münchner Filmzentrumsverein for 20 euros a year and get a Euro off every ticket. That makes it 3 Euros per ticket! The Filmzentrum is very active in restoring old movies too - this year they're working on a couple Orson Welles movies, as they were bequeathed his film estate.

Cinema Munich