October 2025 events calendar for Los Angeles

The masters of alfresco rooftop movie viewing have returned for another season of screenings to LEVEL in Downtown L.A. Known for excellent film choices and a steady supply of snacks and booze, Rooftop Cinema Club is your snazzy, comfortable and less stressful alternative to other outdoor movie screenings. You don’t even need to bring your own camping chair—Rooftop Cinema Club provides you with your very own comfy lawn chair (with optional blankets for purchase to up the coziness). And instead of listening to the movie over loudspeakers, you’ll get a set of wireless headphones so you never have to miss a word. Find the full schedule on their site, or in our outdoor movie calendar.

Every Sunday, you can find dozens of food vendors at this market at ROW DTLA, a Brooklyn import that boasts a mix of much-loved pop-ups and future foodie stars. Over a dozen new vendors joined the lineup this year: Feast on Afro-Caribbean cuisine from withBee, Lebanese street food from Teta, ice cream tacos from Sad Girl Creamery and more. Wash it all down at the family-friendly beer garden. You’ll also find shopping stalls selling everything from framed vintage ads to jewelry made locally with ethically sourced gemstones. Entry and the first two hours of parking are free.

It isn’t summer in L.A. until the first cemetery screening brings hoards of movie-lovers to Hollywood Forever Cemetery, toting folding chairs, picnic blankets, snack spreads and lots of booze. Each year, Cinespia brings classic cult favorites to the hallowed resting place of such Hollywood greats as Rudolph Valentino and Bugsy Siegel. The series typically releases its slate one month at a time, with summertime screenings at the cemetery and a few off-site ones on either end (usually at L.A. State Historic Park). For each evening at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, pack a picnic (yes, booze is allowed), pose in the photo booth and enjoy DJ sets, dance parties and all sorts of other magical mischief that’d otherwise be strictly forbidden behind the cemetery gates. The outdoor screenings are an L.A. rite of passage, a quintessential summer experience and one of the best film venues in the city. Just be sure to get your ticket early, arrive early, pee early… it’s a popular affair, to say the least.

Listen to classical and jazz in a dome more than a mile above L.A. during this mountaintop concert series. The Mount Wilson Observatory is hosting monthly concerts this summer inside the dome of its 100-inch Hooker telescope, which was the largest telescope in the world for much of the first half of the 20th century. Tickets cost $60 (that also includes access to the exhibit at the observatory) and it’s highly recommended that you buy them in advance since seating is limited. You’ll need to be able to climb 53 steps to reach the dome, and children under 12 aren’t permitted. 

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 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. The screenings are held in venues across L.A. into October and alternate from week to week, so make sure to check the schedule. Some of the outdoor venues are dog-friendly, allowing you to bring your four-legged cinema lover along. See more of this season’s outdoor movie screenings in L.A.

For more than 50 years, this venue has drawn theatre aficionados to its storied, open-air stage for engaging productions in a magical setting. The 299-seat amphitheater in Topanga Canyon hosts audiences of all ages for plays from a wide range of genres, from Shakespearean classics to folk tales. This season, whose theme is “A Season of Resilience,” catch highlights such as William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as well as a Malibu-themed retelling of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull and Strife by Nobel Prize-winning writer and activist John Galsworthy.  

Perhaps the Los Angeles area’s most iconic flea market, this event around the exterior of the Rose Bowl is staggeringly colossal—but what else would you expect from a 90,000-seat stadium? The sheer size and scale of this flea market means that it encompasses multitudes: new and old, hand-crafted and salvaged, the cheap and the costly. On the second Sunday of each month, an odd mix of vendors populates the loop around the stadium: for every eye-catching artwork, there’s a ratty $5 T-shirt, and for each elegant craft there’s a competing “as seen on TV” demo. But you may have more luck in the rows and rows of old furniture, albums and vintage clothes and accessories that fill the adjacent parking lot. There are plenty of duds, to be sure, but come out early enough and you may go home with that perfect purchase. This destination flea market attracts bargain hunters, collectors, and antique aficionados from all over the county, so the organizers have instituted an extensive tiered entry/admission system, allowing professional and dedicated shoppers early access at a premium.

The Skirball’s latest pop culture exhibition takes a deep dive into the six-decade career of legendary comic book artist Jack Kirby. You might know him as the co-creator of Captain America, Black Panther, the Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men and some of the Marvel universe’s most cosmic characters. But did you know he was also a first-generation Jewish American born to immigrant parents, World War II veteran and family man who split his time between New York and Los Angeles? The exhibition only occupies a few small galleries, but it’s stuffed with information about Kirby’s life, as well as pristine prints of issues plus his original comic illustrations—many on view for the first time. It’s not just a Marvel showcase, either: You’ll find some of the work Kirby did for DC, plus personal collages, a drawing he gave to Paul and Linda McCartney, and a fantastic reproduction of a costume he designed for a UC Santa Cruz production of Julius Caesar. Though not explicitly framed this way, the exhibition also presents a clear-as-day retort to any contemporary fans who decry comic book stories today as too “political”: Marvel has been political from the very start. Kirby’s cover for the first issue of Captain America features Cap punching Hitler—a full year before America would break its isolationist policies and enter WWII. The fifth issue follows Captain America in a battle against the German American Bund, a domestic Nazi organization that staged an infamous...

The term CicLAvia stems from a similar Spanish word for “bike way,” and in L.A. it’s become a shorthand for the temporary, festival-like closing of L.A.’s streets. The event (inspired by the first Ciclovías in Bogotá, Colombia) welcomes bikes, tricycles, skateboards, strollers and basically anything else without an engine to ride a rotating cast of car-free routes. You’ll inevitably always find a route each year around Downtown, but past events have taken it anywhere from the harbor to the San Gabriel Valley. Expect music, street performances and food trucks, as well as general whimsy and shenanigans along the way. Shop owners and restaurants along the CicLAvia route also tend to host specials. It goes without saying that you should bike or take the Metro to your desired spot along the route.

Culver City’s E Line–adjacent mixed-use development presents this free series of screenings, held on the lawn right next to the Metro stop. This summer’s slate revisits classic high school movies, including Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Clueless, 10 Things I Hate About You and Mean Girls. Tickets are free and include complimentary popcorn and two hours of parking validation.