How Vegas’ independent movie theater is leaning into Christmas classics

The Beverly Theater, which opened in March, is offering a blend of familiar favorites such as “Elf” and “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” while continuing to stick to its art-house roots and showing the Finnish-language film “Fallen Leaves,” a romance film set in Helsinki, Finland that matches with the colder and darker aesthetic of winter, said Kip Kelly, chief experience officer for the theater.

“We’re trying to always fill that uncommon void and it starts with the independent films and the things that we know just aren’t getting screen time out here,” Kelly said. “Then it really kind of dovetails into a strong revival repertory program with some of the older stuff and the things that are fun just to watch with friends.”

Beverly Theater is screening a wide variety — more than 30 — of films throughout the month for the 146-seat downtown movie theater. Several of the films aren’t exactly Christmas movies but feature winter backdrops such as “Coming to America” or have darker themes to match the longer winter nights such as “Vertigo,” Kelly said.

“It’s really just about giving Las Vegas some of their favorites on screen, because when was the last time they got to see those with friends?” Kelly said. “Then also trying to just tap into it a dark, kind of cold wintry vibe and what we think is comfort programming for that audience.”

‘Some things you can’t ignore’

The winter holidays isn’t the first time the Beverly Theater has curated its lineup to match with a season as it leaned heavily into Halloween-related films and showcased all different types of movies from horror films such as “Hereditary” and “Midsommar” to more light-hearted offerings for the season such as “Young Frankenstein” and “Beetlejuice.”

The Halloween lineup was very successful for the Beverly Theater as it set records for the theater’s box office, Kelly said. As of now the Beverly Theater is only putting a big holiday focus on Christmas and Halloween.

“There are some things you can’t ignore like October, you can’t ignore that,” Kelly said. “There are people who want to see Christmas movies, we’re all in the Christmas spirit. So those two months you really can’t ignore.”

Creating events

Outside of utilizing the Christmas and Halloween seasons that countless movies use as inspiration for plot points, the Beverly Theater has built events around certain films it runs.

“We knew that we had to event-ize this space as much as possible to get people to come out,” Kelly said. “I wouldn’t say that it’s something we’ve learned. But something that has been confirmed is that we need to event-ize this space as much as possible to get people to come out.”

One big event for the holidays is this New Year’s Eve as the Beverly Theater is screening “When Harry met Sally” at 9 p.m. followed by live jazz and movie-goers can watch the fireworks after the film ends.

Overall, Kelly said creating events like this and the Beverly Theater offering Las Vegans an alternative experience to movie theaters operated by national corporations has made the first year of the Beverly Theater successful — exceeding internal expectations. But he said this first year is really about “collecting data” on what performs well and tweaking the schedule for the future to ensure there is continued interest in seeing films at the Beverly Theater.

“Our program for December, I think we hit what we were going for, but I promise you, it’ll look a little different next year,” Kelly said. “Depending on what’s available. … How early do we start Christmas programming? Should we roll right into it right in November knowing that it is a bit of an off time. Those are all things we asked ourselves, because we’re learning every single day.”

To check out the Beverly Theater’s schedule visit its website.

Contact Sean Hemmersmeier at shemmersmeier@reviewjournal.com. Follow @seanhemmers34 on X.