October 2021 events calendar for Los Angeles

“Hayao Miyazaki,” which opens with the Academy Museum’s debut, features over 300 storyboards, concept images and backgrounds, many of them on display outside of Studio Ghibli’s Tokyo headquarters for the first time. It pulls from the director’s 11 feature films, with a particularly strong tilt toward My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away as well as his lush, enchanted forest settings. Find out more in our full preview of the exhibit.

Boyle Heights’ Self Help Graphics & Art has presented this Day of the Dead celebration for over four decades. The event begins at Mariachi Plaza, where a handful of theater groups lead an animated procession to the Boyle Heights arts center, where you’ll find local food and craft vendors. In addition to the on-foot walk, you’ll also find a car caravan (plus a bike ride held a week later).

Walk across the grounds of the scenic King Gillette Ranch as the Santa Monica Mountains hideaway is illuminated with thousands of hand-carved jack-o’-lanterns. Nights of the Jack reverts to an on-foot, two-thirds-of-a-mile trail this year (with a “Spookeasy,” too). Timed tickets required each night; expect to spend an hour to an hour and a half there.

See Danny Elfman step back into the role of Jack Skellington for a live performance and screening of The Nightmare Before Christmas at the Banc of California Stadium. Elfman staged similar shows at the Hollywood Bowl in 2015, ’16 and ’18, and now the voice behind the Pumpkin King is set to return to the stage once again for this Halloween tradition.

See installations and sculptures from a group of seven arts who take aim at Western ideas of humanism. This Hammer Museum exhibitions includes works from Eddie Aparicio, Tau Lewis, Las Nietas de Nonó, Sondra Perry, SANGREE, WangShui and Wilmer Wilson IV.

Just weeks before his portrait of Barack Obama goes on display at LACMA, the Huntington will debut artist Kehinde Wiley’s Portrait of a Young Gentleman, his own take on Thomas Gainsborough’s The Blue Boy. That recently-restored 1770 portrait, easily the centerpiece of the museum’s collection, played in key role in Wiley’s stylistic development, and the two works will be on display across the gallery from each other.

Hollywood Forever Cemetery claims to host the largest Day of the Dead celebration in California, and we wouldn’t doubt it: The cemetery grounds are covered with art exhibitions, dance rituals, musical performances, arts and crafts projects and food vendors (and crowds) aplenty. You’ll see altars to the dead created by community artists, and can either watch or participate in the calaca (skeleton) costume contest.

Space: the final frontier. This is the voyage of a traveling pop culture exhibition. Its latest mission: to stop by L.A.’s Skirball Cultural center. After missing its 2020 debut because of, you know, everything happening here on Earth, “Star Trek: Exploring New Worlds” is set to land at the Skirball.

Join Grand Park and Self-Help Graphics & Art—which hosts its own Day of the Dead celebration—for a nearly two-week display of 20 altars erected within the park. The altar displays officially kicks off on October 23 with a traditional Noche de Ofrenda ceremony to pray for and honor the dead, featuring a communal circle and blessing led by the indigenous community.

Simpson’s show at Hauser & Wirth that employs a mix of found photographs, screenprints, paintings, video and sculpture to tackle matters of race, gender and identity—a recurring thread for Simpson, who’s toyed with the trustworthiness of the assumed narratives in art since her work in conceptual photography in the ’80s.

You’ll have to hop between Westwood and the Arts District to catch both parts of this survey of mid-career women artists. The Hammer Museum and ICA LA are teaming up for “Witch Hunt,” a showcase of 16 artists who use feminist, queer and decolonial viewpoints to unpack the sociopolitical world. Participating artists include Leonor Antunes, Yael Bartana, Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz, Candice Breitz, Shu Lea Cheang, Minerva Cuevas, Vaginal Davis, Bouchra Khalili, Every Ocean Hughes (formerly Emily Roysdon), Laura Lima, Teresa Margolles, Otobong Nkanga, Okwui Okpokwasili, Lara Schnitger and Beverly Semmes.

Throughout October, NeueHouse Bradbury, the exclusive co-working space inside of the 1893 building, will debut a collection of contact sheets and portraits from Blade Runner by the late set photographer Stephen Vaughan.

The masters of alfresco rooftop movie viewing have returned, with both a Santa Monica “drive-up,” a new rooftop in El Segundo and its returning location in Downtown L.A.

For dinner and a movie, all in one, just follow the food trucks. During the spring, summer and fall, Street Food Cinema throws together a series of mostly outdoor parties that include screenings of some of our favorite movies, paired with an assortment of gourmet food trucks and even a live music performance from a cool local band.

Watch a slate of recent classics from one of the prettiest rooftops in Hollywood at this outdoor screenings series, all piped in over sets of provided (and sanitized) wireless headphones. Before the showtime, make sure to hit up the bar or the on-site kitchen.

L.A.’s own Moses Sumney is a soul-folk songwriter, armed with a guitar and a loop pedal, who conjures intimate yet powerful vocals.

Stroll through a mile-long trail filled with carved, glowing pumpkins during Descanso Gardens’ annual Carved. For three weeks in October, the event will line a loop of the botanical garden with thousands of professionally-carved pumpkins. You can expect to see a bunch of jack-o’-lanterns—and none of that synthetic stuff; all of them will be carved from real pumpkins.

The car-free bike fest returns with ones of its most popular routes through Downtown L.A.

Each year the Walt Disney Concert Hall adds a little bit of Frank Gehry architecture to Halloween with a silent film screening accompanied by organist Clark Wilson for an extra eerie feel. This year, take a seat for 1920’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, starring John Barrymore.

Roam the handsome Neutra VDL House and look out for these site-specific installations from 32 artists, designers and architects that complement the Modernist home’s features.