The Barrymore Film Center in Fort Lee, New Jersey, is a publicly owned nonprofit museum, archive, cinema, and repertory theater devoted to the borough’s central role in early American filmmaking. Fort Lee became the nation’s first motion picture center, with studios active from 1909 and 11 major studios by 1918, before disruptions from the Spanish flu pandemic, wartime coal shortages, and a harsh winter helped shift much of the industry to California. Named for the Barrymore family, whose members lived and worked in Fort Lee, the center also grew from local preservation efforts to safeguard archives, historic sites, and the town’s cinematic legacy.

Palisades Park, New Jersey · USA