The 100-year-old movie theater was one of very few movie theaters in northeast L.A., where movie-goers could still see new movies for $10 or less. It was also a cultural hub for movie lovers and filmmakers, and for the last 10 years was the home of the Highland Park Film Independent Film Festival.
Why now: The theater closed late last month, but the current owner says his priority is to preserve the venue and there are hopes that the theater could reopen.
Dig deeper: Listen to the How To LA podcast episode on the Highland Theatre.
The historic 100-year-old Highland Theatre in Highland Park closed its doors late last month. Many Angelenos are mourning the loss, but still holding out hope for a reopening.
This three-screen theater was one of very few movie theaters in northeast L.A., on a street that’s been gentrifying for years. Tickets used to be $10 or less, and you could regularly catch a movie for only $6 on a Tuesday or Wednesday.
It was also a cultural hub for movie lovers and filmmakers, and for the last 10 years was the home of the Highland Park Independent Film Festival.
Why it closed
Talk about the theater closing goes all the way back to 2022 with a story in The Eastsider LA about a pending sale. The 99-year lease was about to be up last February, but it stayed open.
The theater was reportedly bought by Cyrus Etemad, who also owns Highland Park Bowl and other real estate along the Figueroa Corridor in Highland Park. Etemad let the theater’s operator, Dan Akarakian, stay rent free for another year, and that year is up.
But still the news of the closure caught employees and the neighborhood by surprise.
Denise Hernandez, who works at her father’s restaurant, Antigua Bread, remembers the many times she’d eat at the restaurant before catching a movie with her little brother. “It's a core memory for us ... And I didn't even know it was leaving,” she says.
The Highland Theatre’s history
The Highland Theatre is a proper movie palace with more than 1,400 seats (that’s bigger than the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood). It opened in 1925 and was designed by the same architect who did the Vista in Los Feliz and the Rialto in South Pasadena.
The area used to be a booming theater district, but as historian and film professor Ross Melnick explains, “Today the theater is all that's left of this once booming suburban theater district. By the 1950s, demographic shifts, the rise of television and other factors began impacting local theaters.”
Highland Park's Franklin Theatre closed in 1952, the Park Theatre closed in 1963, and the Highland itself struggled into the mid 1970s.
Like many theaters at the time, in the 70s, a new owner started screening adult films as a way to stay afloat and bring in more money, but that caused protests. According to Melnick, picketers, including local nuns, carried signs reading, "Decent movies for decent people. Shame, shame, what a disgrace. Get this filth out of our face." and the Highland Theatre did close for almost a year.
In 1975, the Akarakian family bought the theater, and a few years later they changed the space from a single screen movie palace to a triplex. To do that, they closed off a vintage balcony space and reduced the capacity to about 500 seats.
In 2022, Etemad bought the theater and according to the L.A. Times, he said his priority is to preserve the venue, and is currently looking at cinema and live music uses.
And the community is hoping that that’s the case.
Listen
Listen to the How to LA podcast: The Highland Theatre says Goodbye
#245: The Highland Theatre in Highland Park was one of the only movie theaters in Northeast LA. Now its closed. A designated historic cultural monument, the exterior will remain intact, but its future is uncertain. In this episode, How To LA producer Victoria Alejandro chats with host Brian De Los Santos about community memories, the history of the theater, and what might be next.
Local filmmaker and actress Marita De La Torre, featured in the 2024 Sundance film Ponyboi, is one of the founders of the Highland Park Independent Film Festival, which has been running for the last 10 years out of the Highland Theatre.
Highland Park Independent Film Festival 2023 poster.
(
Courtesy of HPIFF
)
De La Torre was immediately drawn to the theater. “Give me a grand dame of a theater and I’m there,” she says. The Highland Theatre has been so beloved by the festival organizers that several team members are working on a documentary about its history.
HPIFF’s tagline is “Film For the People,” and their festival’s mission is to bring mentorship to local schools, give independent filmmakers a platform for their work, and facilitate community and networking between creatives in Northeast L.A.
De La Torre says that so many below the line and behind the scenes folks in the film industry live in Highland Park, and the community has rallied around them. Local bars like the Greyhound and the Offbeat have been major supporters. She says “we were able to survive because the community said ‘This is a good thing. This is something we want here.’”
While De La Torre isn’t sure where the fest’s home will be this fall, she’s certain they’ll find a space, and remains hopeful it might even be in the Highland Theatre again. In the meantime, they’ll be hosting free community film screenings in the nearby Tierra De La Culebra park.
Losing local movie houses
Without the Highland Theatre, Northeast L.A. is becoming more of a cinema desert. The closest first-run movie theaters are in Pasadena or Glendale, and while repertory screenings at Vidiots are just around the corner in Eagle Rock, there are no more neighborhood options.
The closure of Highland Theatre comes on the heels of other major movie theater news in the city. The Gardena Cinema’s pivot to a non-profit model and repertory screenings is what’s kept the theater running in the South Bay, and the Fox Village Theatre in Westwood survived due to major celebrity intervention.
Highland Theatre on March 7, 2024.
(
Victoria Alejandro
/
LAist
)
Losing the theater creates a hole in the neighborhood — where once you could have gone to many of the restaurants and bars in the area before or after a movie, there’s one less light on Figueroa now.
A comeback?
In 1991, the theater was designated as a historic cultural monument by the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commision — that protects its exterior from significant changes. And that vintage balcony, original ceiling, murals, and other elements hidden on the second floor during the triplex renovation are still there, and could be part of a future restoration.
Given what the new owner Etemad has said about utilizing the theater for cinema or live music, there’s a high chance that the Highland Theatre won’t go the way of the Tower in DTLA and end up an Apple Store.
A mural on the side of Triumph Optical in Highland Park features the Highland Theatre sign.
(
Victoria Alejandro
/
LAist
)
And with gentrifying going on in the neighborhood for years, there’s still worry that the neighborhood will keep losing cultural hubs. As Marita De La Torre says, “we're hoping that it remains a theater and that, perhaps, it is brought back to its original form.”
The Highland Theatre occupies a central spot on a bustling walkable street, packed with restaurants, bars, and the bowling alley. A movie theater seems primed to do well, with the right programming and ticket price, and if it does reopen as a theater, it’d maintain the experience of a neighborhood night-out that so many indie theaters make possible.
And for now at least, it sounds like this might be more of an intermission than an end for the Highland.
Representatives of Mexico, Jamaica, Costa Rica, and the U.S. Soccer hold up jerseys as they announce the four countries hosting the 2031 FIFA Women's World Cup during the FIFA Women's World Cup 2031 Bid Announcement.
(
Howard Smith/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images
/
Getty Images North America
)
Topline:
Four Los Angeles venues are among those submitted by U.S. Soccer Federation to host the 2031 Women's World Cup.
Which stadiums?: The four proposed stadiums include the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Exposition Park, Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson and SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, which is also being used for the upcoming 2026 Men’s World Cup.
The backstory: The bid was put forward by the U.S. in conjunction with Mexico, Costa Rica and Jamaica. It includes 50 stadiums across the four countries.
What's next: Although it’ll be years before the final venues are selected, FIFA is expected to take up the vote to confirm the joint bid at their next congress scheduled for April 30 in Vancouver.
On Friday, FIFA released the bidbooks for the 2031 Women’s World Cup.
The U.S. Soccer Federation submitted a joint bid with Mexico, Costa Rica and Jamaica. It was the only bid that made the deadline.
If approved, several cities across the four countries would host the global football tournament.
Forty venues have in the U.S. have been proposed as potential sites for 2031 games, with some right here in southern California.
Football’s coming back?
Four Los Angeles stadiums are part of the bid.
Rose Bowl
Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson
SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.
Show me the money
The bid projected that the 2031 tournament would bring in $4 billion in total revenue — four times more than $1 billion projected to be made from the upcoming 2027 Women’s World Cup in Brazil.
Organizers expect to generate revenue from across six main sources including: ticket revenues, hospitality, concessions, fan festivals, broadcast, and marketing opportunities.
Ticket prices are projected to start at $35 for the opening rounds seats, and between $120 and $600 for later matches
Wait and see
FIFA is expected to formally confirm the bid at their next congress on April 30th in Vancouver.
The evaluation process will focus on, according to FIFA, “the event vision and key metrics, infrastructure, services, commercial considerations, and sustainability and human rights.”
The venues where games will be held won't be decided for at least a few more years.
Farmworkers work in a field outside of Fresno on June 16, 2025.
(
Larry Valenzuela
/
CalMatters/CatchLight Local
)
Topline:
The Wonderful Company suffered a setback on Tuesday in its bid to overturn a new farmworker unionization law when an appeals court tossed its lawsuit against state labor regulators.
Why it matters: The decision by a three-judge panel of the 5th District Court of Appeal in Fresno leaves in place a controversial new law backed by the United Farm Workers that was meant to boost organizing in a heavily immigrant workforce.
The backstory: The law allows farmworkers to signal their support for union representation using a signed card, bypassing the traditional in-person, secret-ballot election usually held on the employer’s property.
California ag giant the Wonderful Company suffered a setback on Tuesday in its bid to overturn a new farmworker unionization law when an appeals court tossed its lawsuit against state labor regulators.
The decision by a three-judge panel of the 5th District Court of Appeal in Fresno leaves in place a controversial new law backed by the United Farm Workers that was meant to boost organizing in a heavily immigrant workforce. The law allows farmworkers to signal their support for union representation using a signed card, bypassing the traditional in-person, secret-ballot election usually held on the employer’s property.
The Wonderful Company — owner of the Wonderful Pistachios brand and Fiji Water, Pom pomegranate juices and Halos oranges —filed suit against the state’s Agricultural Labor Relations Board last year trying to overturn the law, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed in 2023.
The suit, alleging the law is unconstitutional, came after the United Farm Workers filed a petition with enough signatures to represent 600-odd workers at the company’s grape nursery in Wasco.
In a contentious public dispute, the company accused union organizers of tricking workers into signing cards supporting unionization and provided over 100 employees’ signatures attesting to being deceived; in turn, the union accused the company of illegally intimidating workers into withdrawing their support. Regulators at the agricultural labor board filed charges against Wonderful after investigating the claims.
All of those allegations were being heard before the labor board last spring when Wonderful took the matter to court, arguing the new law deprived the company of due process. A Kern County judge initially halted the board proceedings, but the appeals court allowed them to continue last fall. After weeks of hearings this year, the labor board has yet to issue a decision on whether UFW can represent Wonderful employees.
In the meantime, the company has shuttered the Wasco nursery and donated it to UC Davis, making the question of an actual union at the worksite moot.
In the new ruling, the appeals court judges issued a sharp rebuke of the company for suing over the unionization instead of waiting for the labor board decision.
“Wonderful filed this petition notwithstanding approximately 50 years of unbroken precedent finding an employer may not directly challenge a union certification decision in court except in extraordinarily and exceedingly rare circumstances, which Wonderful does not meaningfully attempt to show are present here,” wrote Justice Rosendo Peña.
Elizabeth Strater, a United Farm Workers vice president, said the decision affirms that “every farm worker in California has rights under the law, and those rights need to be protected.”
But Wonderful Company General Counsel Craig Cooper dismissed the ruling as only a matter of timing: “the decision explicitly does not address the merits of Wonderful Nurseries’ constitutional challenge.”
After an Afghan national was named as being behind a shooting in Washington, D.C., that left one member of the National Guard dead and another in critical condition, the Trump administration says it is halting all asylum decisions.
Why now: Joseph Edlow, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), said Friday night that the agency is pausing decisions "until we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible."
After an Afghan national was named as being behind a shooting in Washington, D.C., that left one member of the National Guard dead and another in critical condition, the Trump administration says it is halting all asylum decisions.
Joseph Edlow, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), said Friday night that the agency is pausing decisions "until we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible."
"The safety of the American people always comes first," Edlow wrote on X.
The decision follows President Trump's promise of a sharp crackdown on immigration from countries he described as "third world."
Writing on social media on Thursday night, Trump railed against immigrants from impoverished nations, accusing them of being a burden on the nation's welfare system and "preying" on natural-born citizens.
"I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover," he wrote on Truth Social.
"Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation."
The Trump administration is already deporting some immigrants, either to their countries of origin or to third countries, many of which are paid to receive them. Venezuelans were deported from the U.S. to El Salvador, a number of migrants were sent to Eswatini and South Sudan, and Rwanda has agreed to accept deportees.
Edlow wrote on social media Thursday that he had been directed to conduct "a full scale, rigorous reexamination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern."
He did not say which countries this would entail, and the USCIS did not respond to an NPR request for comment. But a June White House proclamation placed a travel ban on 12 countries of concern.
A makeshift memorial of flowers and American flags stands outside the Farragut West Metro station on Nov. 28, 2025 in Washington, DC.
(
Andrew Leyden
/
Getty Images
)
These included many African nations suffering from conflict and terrorism such as Chad, Sudan and Somalia — as well as other countries, such as Afghanistan. Another 7 countries were slapped with partial restrictions.
In a statement to CNN, the Department of Homeland Security said it had already halted all immigration requests stemming from Afghanistan and was in the process of reviewing "all" asylum cases approved under former President Biden.
The department did not respond to an NPR request for comment.
History of anti-immigrant sentiment
The president's latest comments against immigration was sparked by the revelation that the alleged shooter was identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal — a 29-year-old Afghan national who had worked with the CIA to fight the Taliban in his native country and was admitted into the United States in 2021 as a result of his service. In a Thanksgiving Day call with servicemembers, Trump described the shooting as a terrorist attack and the shooter as a "savage monster."
He blamed the Biden administration for Lakanwal's entry to the United States and for a general failure of the immigration system.
"For the most part, we don't want 'em," he said, referring broadly to immigration seekers as gang members, mentally ill and previously incarcerated.
Trump ran both successful White House campaigns on a pledge to crack down on illegal immigration, targeting at various points migrants from countries including Mexico and Somalia.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday after the Thanksgiving call, Trump widened his attack to focus not just on the alleged shooter but to rail against immigration to the U.S. and immigrants in general.
When asked by a reporter about the fact that as a former CIA asset, Lakanwal had been vetted, Trump repeatedly berated the reporter as "stupid."
People detained earlier in the day are taken to a parking lot on the far north side of the city before being transferred to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility on Oct. 31, 2025, in Chicago, Ill.
(
Jamie Kelter Davis
/
Getty Images
)
Asked by another reporter whether he blamed all Afghans for the alleged actions of one, Trump said: "No, but there's a lot of problems with Afghans."
Trump then turned his attention to immigrants from Somalia, who he has repeatedly accused of being gang-affiliated and "taking over"Minnesota — home to the nation's largest Somali community.
Questioned about what Somalis had to do with the D.C. shooting, Trump said: "Nothing." But, he added, "Somalians have caused a lot of trouble." .
Later on social media, he described "Somalian gangs" in Minnesota as "roving the streets looking for 'prey' as our wonderful people stay locked in their apartments and houses hoping against hope that they will be left alone."
Officials for the United Nations on Friday criticized Trump's call for sweeping halts to immigration seekers.
"They are entitled to protection under international law, and that should be given due process," U.N. human rights office spokesperson Jeremy Laurence told reporters in Geneva.
Alex Garcia and Elvia Huerta, the masterminds behind Evil Cooks. (Cesar Hernandez for LAist)
Topline:
Alex and Elvia Huerta of Evil Cooks have released the El Sereno Food Passport, a $10 booklet to promote local restaurants.
What is it: The first edition of the booklet features 18 local restaurants, each offering its own little perk when you visit and get your passport stamped.
Read on ... to find out where you can get the passport and support local eateries in the Eastside community.
Alex and Elvia Huerta of Evil Cooks have released the El Sereno Food Passport, a $10 booklet to promote local restaurants.
The first edition of the booklet features 18 local restaurants, each offering its own little perk when you visit and get your passport stamped. Customers can either get free snacks or drinks or get a discount.
At Tirzah’s Mexi-Terranean, you can either get 15% off your order or a free esquite when you show your passport.
Evil Cooks is so metal, they make black octopus tacos. They have also experimented with gansito tamales. This Halloween, they collaborated with Amiga Amore, a Mexitalian eatery, to create a special “witches menu” that included huitlacoche, aguachile negro and lamb shank in fig mole.
Get the passport
Pick up a passport:
Evil Cooks, 3333 N. Eastern Ave., Los Angeles
Lil East Coffee, 2734 N. Eastern Ave., Los Angeles
