In the very beginning of American cinema, when motion pictures were still working out their style and the studios which were to shape an entire industry had only just started to be established, the McCutcheon family was one of the most influential. But no episode in that family's history is more tragic—nor does it reveal more plainly the instability of silent-era Hollywood than the short and turbulent life of Wallace McCutcheon Jr. Having once been a well-known figure on Broadway and the husband of the serial queen Pearl White, he died alone in a cheap Hollywood rooming house, all he left behind being a half-full bottle of gin and a moving goodbye: "Have a drink."

The final weekend of September brings an unusually varied group of movies to theaters, ranging from Brad Pitt battling the Alaskan wilderness with a loyal dog to Robert Pattinson taking on one of television’s most controversial personalities. DreamWorks offers an animated adventure steeped in Filipino mythology, Marvel sends Avengers: Endgame back to the big screen, and Jessica Lange and Ed Harris tackle Eugene O’Neill in a prestige drama opening in limited release. Here are the major theatrical choices arriving Friday, September 25.

I really wanted to love Stop! That! Train!. On paper, it sounded like exactly my kind of movie: RuPaul, a train full of drag queens, ridiculous celebrity cameos, an impending disaster, and a spoof sensibility reaching back toward Airplane! and The Naked Gun. There are moments when it works beautifully, when the silliness clicks into place, and the cast seems to be having such a good time that you cannot help smiling along with them. The problem is that those moments never quite come often enough to sustain the entire film.

There are buildings that belong to an administration, buildings that belong to an era, and buildings that eventually come to belong to the country. The Kennedy Center is one of those buildings. For over fifty years, this large expanse of white marble has sat along the Potomac as a unique landmark in Washington, DC. Unlike many of the memorials in our nation's capital, it honors music, drama, and the arts. Whether you like or dislike its architecture, it has become an integral part of our capital's history, and that history may be threatened.

Doris Race did not live until she was thirteen, but by that time she had already experienced more adventure in her brief life than most adults achieve over many decades. She had ridden lively horses in Canada, earned prizes for her horsemanship, received a gold medal from the Governor-General, had appeared before motion-picture cameras, and had become a well-known figure in the Hollywood riding circles. Because she was small in stature, always well balanced, and fearless when riding, she was just as much remembered for her elegance as for her ability. At the time of her sudden death in February 1922, nearly a thousand people came to pay their last respects and her horse, which had never been ridden, went with the coffin to Hollywood Cemetery.

It’s rare to find someone who altered the course of film history but was never fully immersed in the industry he sought to influence. Kevin Brownlow began caring about film history before most people knew there was a history to care about. While he was still a schoolboy he decided that silent film was worth preserving. Where most people saw junk, Brownlow saw sublime art; where most people saw inconsequential relics from cinema’s infancy, Brownlow saw a mature medium in danger of being lost forever. He would go on to spend his life rescuing lost films and documents, leaving an impact on film restoration and historical understanding that will last forever.

For more than a century, Hollywood has been more than a word on a hillside. It has been shorthand for an industry, a workforce, a way of making movies and, perhaps most importantly, a place. Now that identity is being tested in a very public way. Paramount Skydance chief David Ellison has told senior executives that he is prepared to begin moving Paramount out of California—and potentially Warner Bros. as well if their proposed merger goes through—unless state officials enter settlement talks over the antitrust lawsuit challenging the deal. Variety reported that Ellison set October 1 as the point at which that process could begin, while the Los Angeles Times described the threat as part of Paramount’s effort to pressure California Attorney General Rob Bonta and other states to resolve the case. Against that backdrop, an uncomfortable question suddenly feels much less theoretical: what happens if Hollywood remains the symbolic capital of the movies? At the same time, fewer films are made here—and one of its most historic studios decides it no longer needs to call Hollywood home?

The weekend of September 18 brings an unusually varied group of new theatrical releases, ranging from zombies and stop-motion sheep to Depression-era gold smuggling and a very dark classroom comedy. Horror fans have the biggest opening in Zach Cregger’s new Resident Evil, while families get another beautifully handmade adventure from Aardman. Ethan Hawke and Russell Crowe headline The Weight; Saoirse Ronan takes a sharp turn into black comedy with Bad Apples.

Long before Benedict Canyon became one of Los Angeles's most exclusive residential enclaves, its steep hillsides and twisting ravines belonged to a very different Southern California. There were no secluded celebrity estates, no procession of automobiles winding through the canyon, and certainly no paved Benedict Canyon Drive connecting Beverly Hills with the San Fernando Valley. There were oak and chaparral-covered hills, wildlife, streams, scattered homesteads—and a pioneer named Edson Abijah Benedict, whose family settled there in 1868 and gave the canyon the name it still carries more than a century and a half later.

There are those who attempt to escape the shadow of a well-known family name and others who welcome it. Jaafar Jackson has followed a different route. He has striven to honor one of the most well-known figures in modern history at the same time as demonstrating to the world that he is a separate individual.

Bob Mackie, the famous costume designer known for his use of feathers, beads, rhinestones and bold illusion gowns, which played a major role in shaping American show business over more than fifty years, died on September 14, 2026, in Palm Springs, California; he was 87 years old. The news of his death was made public through his official social media account, the account stating that Mackie had lived his life in pursuit of the dream he had had since childhood to become a fashion and costume designer. At this time, no cause of death has been given and no funeral arrangements have been announced.

It's rather fitting that Coyote vs. Acme should have nearly vanished forever. One must remember that Wile E. Coyote has for over seventy years been crushed by boulders, blown up by dynamite, launched into the desert sky and dropped from cliffs, only to shake himself free and try once more. Similarly, the film based on him suffered the same fate. Warner Bros. put it on hold, the public objected, other studios showed an interest, but the deals fell through and for a while it seemed as though it was going to become one of those famous unreleased films about which people would talk about but never get to see. In the end, Coyote vs. Acme did have its premiere in the theatres on August 28, 2026, and the final product is far better than its difficult history had any right to suggest.