Pluto TV Brings Back Free Movie Weekend to Support Independent Theaters, With Help From Sean Baker | Exclusive

Adam Chitwood
.May 23, 2025

Pluto TV, the free streaming service, is bringing back its free movie weekend program this summer with help from an Oscar-winning indie filmmaker – Sean Baker.

The initiative supports family-run and independent theaters across the country by offering complimentary movie tickets on select weekends, encouraging local attendance, and this year Baker became the first filmmaker to team with Pluto TV on the initiative.

“Free Movie Weekend is a meaningful initiative that shares a cause close to my heart. Local cinemas are cultural touchstones, they are gathering places where communities come together to experience stories as they were meant to be seen: on the big screen,” Baker said in a statement. “I’m honored to partner with Pluto TV to help spotlight the independent theaters that play such a vital role in sustaining the art of cinema.”

For this year’s “Free Movie Weekend,” Baker nominated Los Angeles local theater Gardena Cinema. Gardena Cinema is the last family-run independent single-screen indoor walk-in movie theater in South Los Angeles that was built in 1946 and has been operated by the Kim family since 1976. Daughter Judy Kim continues to manage the 800 seat cinema after the matriarch, Nancy Soo Myoung Kim died on Mother’s Day in 2022 from complications of uterine cancer.

The list of participating theaters and dates for this year’s “Free Movie Weekend” is as follows:

Gardena Cinema – Los Angeles, CA: June 7-8
Tara Theater- Atlanta, GA: June 14-15
The Music Box Theatre- Chicago, IL: June 21-22
The Redford Theater – Detroit, MI: June 28-29
The Colonial Theatre – Phoenixville, PA: July 5-6

Baker delivered a battle cry for the theatrical experience when he won the Oscar for Best Director and Best Picture for “Anora” earlier this year.

“We’re all here tonight and watching this broadcast because we love movies. Where did we fall in love with the movies? At the movie theater watching a film,” he said. “Watching a film in a theater with an audience is an experience. We can laugh together, cry together, scream and fight together, perhaps sit in devastated silence together. And in a time in which the world can feel very divided, this is more important than ever.”

In addition to Free Movie Weekend in theaters, Pluto TV is celebrating “Summer of Cinema,” a tentpole programming initiative throughout the summer months of June, July, and August on Pluto TV, featuring hundreds of fan-favorite films and franchises like “Mission: Impossible,” “Indiana Jones” and “Star Trek.”