Big Picture: A Century of Stories

Tampa Theatre turns 100 years old in 2026, and we’re throwing ourselves a party. It’s the sort of year-long birthday party that one deserves after having made it through an entire century. It’s part celebration of the present, part ecstatic calling-forth of the future, and part investigative recollection of the past. And for the next few months, Big Picture will be leading the charge on that last part. Because looking back at the last hundred years of Tampa Theatre also means looking back at the last hundred years of cinema history, which is darn close to the entirety of commercial cinema. So, we’re filling our slate with films that have something to say about the past 100 years, but that also played a part in Tampa Theatre’s story.

We’re filing this era of Big Picture under the name A Century of Stories. That’s also the name of another part of our year-long birthday celebration too, a present we’re giving you (though not for free, sorry about that; it’s available for pre-order here): at last, a book recounting the entire history of Tampa Theatre. The point of Tampa Theatre, our reason for being, has always been stories — the stories in the movies and events our audiences come to see, and the stories that the members of our audience bring to us through their visits. The first dates, the fun nights out, the rainy Sundays killing time, your first field trip, your first indie movie, the performance you saw here that changed your life. If you’re reading this, you are part of Tampa Theatre’s story, and Tampa Theatre is part of yours. Ask any of us who work here about the stories we’ve collected from guests, or the stories we’ve experienced here ourselves. The Theatre is a knot tied together from a million different threads over a hundred years of interlocking, interacting people and experiences. Each of the films in this program played here in their first run.

This is your invitation to our party. We hope that you’ll join Tampa Theatre as we walk into our, and your own, unknowable future. But first we hope you’ll join us in a reminiscence of our, and perhaps your own, past.