The screen plays the Internet Archive's own copy, started at the minute the program is at and kept there, so everyone who comes is at the same place in the film. If the browser holds the sound back, tap for sound. Up close, the player has its own controls. This film on the Archive ↗

Coming up

The program is every film from Public Screening's top fifth by IMDb rating (500 votes or more), back to back, with a short before some. Horror takes the slot around midnight in Los Angeles. It never stops, and the posters by the road say what's next.

In your hands

Go to

The lot keeps its own clock. The train runs behind the screen at the top of every hour, fireworks go off at midnight and fireflies come out over the hill from 8 to 10pm. Some nights it drizzles from 10 till 1, and toward 6 the sky goes pale behind the screen. One train a night stops behind the back lot, and about one night a month there are northern lights. The moon keeps its real phase. You can preview them here, but the stubs are for being there when they happen:

Settings

Walking

On a phone, your left thumb walks and anything else drags to look. With a keyboard, WASD or the arrows walk, Shift hurries, and dragging looks round. Tap or click what's near you. E or Enter uses what's in front of you, or plays the game you're standing at. M opens the map.

Finding things

Things only answer when you're close. Ladders climb if you walk into them and keep going. Look for a staff gate, a door in a grandstand, and an employees-only door. Every find is a ticket stub, and stubs unlock reactions.

People

The staff and the regulars at the games will talk if you walk up to them: tap them, or press T (E, when there's no game or ride there). Ask after what's hidden and they'll point you to something you haven't found.

Around the lot

The photo booth in the arcade takes four pictures for you to keep. The snack bar's jukebox plays if you tap it. There are notes on the lost-and-found board under the grandstand, and you can leave one of your own on the board at the ticket booth. Some cars have a free hood to sit on. The lot keeps its own hours: shifts change at midnight, the regulars come and go, and things happen through the night that are worth staying up for.

Your car

Your car is parked on the ramps, in the empty space nearest the way in. Get in to watch through the windshield with the radio on, flash your lights, or honk (once or twice). The lot remembers you, too: come back another night and the staff and the regulars will notice.

Tickets

Every game you play pays out tickets: one for trying, more for a good score, and a bonus for a new high score, which goes on the machine's board under your initials. Vi at the prize counter in the arcade swaps them for prizes.

The rides

Walk up to the Ferris wheel on Starlite Row or the carousel below the hill, and ride. On a ride you can look round but not walk. The carousel lets you off wherever you are; the wheel lets you off the next time your car comes down to the platform.

The games

The games on Starlite Row and in the arcade are played in the lot itself: the regulars crowd round to watch, and take turns when you aren't playing. They play more between features. Everything in the arcade plays: four cabinets, two claws, three pachinko machines, two skee lanes, the air hockey table and Penny Falls.

About flashing

The lot has fireworks, chasing lights and flickering film light, and old films can flicker too. If your device is set to reduce motion, the lot stops flashing. The films themselves don't change.

The schedule runs the lot

During a feature the neon dims, the wheel slows and the Row goes quiet. Between features the screen says what's next, and for a few seconds everything lights up.