Laura's Miscellaneous Musings: The 2025 TCM Classic Film Festival in Review

Friday, May 02, 2025

The 2025 TCM Classic Film Festival in Review

After months of anticipation, it's hard to believe the 2025 TCM Classic Film Festival has now come to a close. I had an absolutely wonderful time!

The 16th edition of the festival opened on Thursday, April 24th, and ended Sunday evening, April 27th.

Festival attendees spent roughly 75 hours choosing from among seemingly countless wonderful viewing options. As I've often remarked in the past, I could choose at least two completely separate "paths" through the festival and still be very happy.

Movies were again screened at five main venues, plus the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel pool and a single screening at Disney's El Capitan Theatre. This year's Disney showing was CINDERELLA (1950).

I loosely followed the tentative schedule I outlined here ahead of the festival, in some cases going with my alternate choices as I found they worked better timewise once I was there "on the ground." In between watching movies, it's all about managing locations, line lengths, and start times!

I saw 16 movies this year, which is one more than I've seen in the last few years. I managed to see a whopping 11 films in 35mm, with the other five films I saw shown using the DCP format.

I saw nine of my 16 films in the smallest and probably most beloved venue, House 4 of the Chinese Multiplex, where some of the rarest and most interesting films are shown.

Four of the films seen at the festival were new to me, and of the dozen repeat watches, I saw five on a big screen for the first time.

As usual I plan to share daily recaps with photos and thoughts on what I saw, and hopefully I'll also have time to write some full-length reviews. Time is at a premium, as I'll be heading to Palm Springs for the Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival next week, but I'm excited to share a great many wonderful TCM Classic Film Festival movie experiences!

Previously reviewed films seen at the 2025 TCM Classic Film Festival, listed in the order viewed at the fest: BLITHE SPIRIT (1945), THE DIVORCEE (1930), THE MARK OF ZORRO (1940), THE PREVIEW MURDER MYSTERY (1936), THE FRESHMAN (1925), TO BE OR NOT TO BE (1942), and TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME (1949).

As usual, I will gather all 2025 festival coverage links in this paragraph, so that this year's festival reports may be easily found in one place: Tonight's Movie: Lili (1953) - A Warner Archive Blu-ray Review. [More links coming soon!]