The 34th Hamptons International Film Festival opened on Friday. By Saturday its screenings were spread across four venues in two villages, and the festival's full schedule uses five venues in three. By tomorrow, the screenings are down to two buildings on the same East Hampton street. The festival runs October 2 through 12 this year. Its venue schedule shows that the first weekend and the second week have very different footprints. Monday through Wednesday, HIFF is a Main Street event in East Hampton Village. It doesn't spread out again until Thursday.
That changes how someone who lives here can use the festival. The opening weekend needs a car, a plan and a tolerance for driving between Sag Harbor and Newtown Lane. Much of week two fits inside a walk from the Hook Mill end of Main Street to Guild Hall.
Five Venues, Two by Monday
The official HIFF34 guide gives each venue its own screening window, and they barely overlap:
- East Hampton Middle School, 76 Newtown Lane: screenings and events October 2 to 4 only. It hosted opening night and the Amanda Seyfried conversation today.
- Sag Harbor Cinema, 90 Main Street, Sag Harbor: October 3 to 4 only.
- Regal UA East Hampton Cinema, 30-38 Main Street: October 2 to 12, the only venue that runs the whole festival.
- Guild Hall, 158 Main Street: October 5 to 11.
- Southampton Playhouse, 43 Hill Street, Southampton: October 8 to 11.
Once today's screenings end, the middle school and Sag Harbor Cinema are done. From Monday, October 5, through Wednesday, October 7, every HIFF screening happens either at the Regal UA or at Guild Hall. Both are on Main Street in East Hampton Village, at opposite ends of the commercial stretch.
The East Hampton Star counts more than 150 films and events in this year's program. For three days, all of the screenings are concentrated in a few blocks of a single village.
The Weekday Stretch Has Its Own Rhythm
The rest of the festival schedule thins out on those weekdays too. The box office at the White Room Gallery, 3 Railroad Avenue, opens at 10 a.m. on the weekends but keeps shorter noon-to-6 p.m. hours from October 5 through 8. The Shadowbox Studios Filmmaker Lounge in the same space is open October 3 to 4 and October 9 to 11. It's closed Monday through Thursday. The festival's Morning Talks and its free shuttle loop run only on the two weekends.
So the weekdays are mostly screenings, with little else layered on top. The weekday schedule also puts Guild Hall back in the middle of things. When Guild Hall's festival programming starts Monday, its regular galleries stay open. The Ross Bleckner and Eric Freeman exhibitions run through October 25, so a screening there can share an afternoon with the shows upstairs.
Both organizations behind the week have new leadership. Guild Hall's executive director, Andrea Grover, stepped down on August 31. Chief operating officer Jeannine Dyner became interim executive director on September 1, and the board has begun searching for a permanent successor. Grover stays on as director of the Centennial Campaign. On the festival side, Bob Feinberg was appointed executive director of HamptonsFilm in December 2025. He works alongside chief creative officer David Nugent. This is Feinberg's first HIFF in charge.
How Seating Actually Works
Every seat at the festival is general admission, and the line matters more than the ticket. The guide spells it out:
"To guarantee admission, all pass-, badge-, and ticket holders must be present in line at the venue at least 30 minutes prior to the scheduled start time. We reserve the right to allow Rush access to any empty seats after that time."
You can't save space in line or seats in the theater. No one is seated more than 30 minutes after a screening starts. The festival asks everyone to arrive 30 to 45 minutes early. If advance tickets are gone, a rush line usually forms 30 minutes before showtime and seats are sold first-come, first-served. Rush tickets cost standard prices. Packages, membership discounts and senior discounts don't apply. The box offices won't print tickets, so bring a PDF on your phone or print one at home.
Some second-weekend screenings have already sold out in advance. The online film guide lists a Friday, October 9, 2:30 p.m. screening and a Sunday, October 11, 2 p.m. screening at the Regal UA as rush-only. A Saturday, October 10, 8:30 p.m. screening at the Southampton Playhouse is rush-only too. The weekday screenings on Main Street are where a ticket is most likely to still be available.
Thursday, the Map Widens Again
On October 8 the festival spreads out again. The Southampton Playhouse starts screening that day and runs through the 11th. The guide notes "ample parking at the playhouse," which isn't something it says about any East Hampton venue. The building is the former Southampton Cinema. It reopened in February 2025 as the nonprofit Southampton Playhouse after an extensive renovation. Its Theater 1 houses what Southforker described as the East End's only IMAX screen.
That IMAX connection shows up in the program. At 10 a.m. on Saturday, October 10, the playhouse hosts a Morning Talk with Rich Gelfond, the longtime CEO of IMAX and a Southampton resident, in conversation with Jack Heller of Assemble Media.
Amagansett gets an event too. On Friday, October 9, Chaparelle, the band led by Zella Day and Jesse Woods, plays the Stephen Talkhouse. The two are the subjects of the documentary Bleeding Hearts.
Getting between villages is easier than the map suggests. Anyone with a HIFF badge or film ticket can ride any regularly scheduled Hampton Jitney between Southampton and Montauk for free during the festival. So a Southampton screening and an East Hampton screening on the same day don't have to mean two rounds of looking for parking.
The Second Weekend, Address by Address
On Saturday and Sunday, October 10 and 11, the festival comes back to Main Street with its biggest names. Here's how the weekend lines up:
- 10 a.m. both days, Lion's Nook, 10 Main Street. HIFF's Morning Talks come with complimentary breakfast pastries, coffee and tea. They're the first thing on the calendar each festival weekend day.
- Saturday, Guild Hall. Jesse Eisenberg and Ron Howard each appear for separate Conversations With sessions. Eisenberg wrote and directed The Debut, starring Julianne Moore and Paul Giamatti. Howard's Avedon, an East Coast premiere, draws on Richard Avedon's personal archives.
- Sunday, Guild Hall. John Turturro is interviewed onstage. He stars in the Centerpiece film The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, directed by Noah Segan.
- 10:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. both days. The free East Hampton Jitney shuttle loop runs again, with stops that include the White Room Gallery box office.
Parking follows the same Main Street layout. The Reutershan lot, between Herrick Park and the Main Street stores, gives two free hours from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., and a third hour is paid. The Lumber Lane long-term lot at Lumber Lane and the Gingerbread Lane extension offers unlimited free daily parking year-round. Two hours in Reutershan doesn't cover a feature film plus the 30-minute line-up rule. For a full screening, Lumber Lane plus the shuttle is the guide's own answer.
The Regal UA is the only venue still screening once the weekend is over. Its box office is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on October 12. The festival closes with Wicker, a romantic fantasy comedy from Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson. It stars Olivia Colman as an outcast fisherwoman who commissions a husband made of wicker, along with Alexander Skarsgard, Elizabeth Debicki and Peter Dinklage.
Films With a Local Address
The Views From Long Island section is the part of the program most tied to where it's shown. HIFF and the Suffolk County Film Commission started it in 2002. This year it includes two world premieres set in the Hamptons. One is Jake Silbermann's Barbizon, starring Erica Pappas as a sculptor on the verge of giving up art to study law. Lindsey Ryan's Capsized, with Rhys Ifans and Lily Rabe, is having its North American premiere in the same section. Barbizon is one of seven world premieres in the festival, according to the catalog. The program also includes a shorts block called 2026 Views From Long Island Shorts.
Showtimes for these titles and the rest of the program are in the festival's online film guide. The East Hampton Star's lineup coverage is a good short summary of the major titles. Individual tickets start at $20, according to Southforker's preview. Check the guide for availability before heading out. With the middle school and Sag Harbor Cinema done after today, a weekday seat on Main Street is the easiest version of HIFF to get into all week.
Bill Williams has spent more than 25 years watching East Hampton's Main Street fill up and empty out through each festival season. If the village's year-round calendar is part of how you think about owning, renting or managing a property here, schedule a market consultation with Bill.
