The Portal, a 45-Seat Nonprofit Arthouse, Is Opening on Mission Street in October

A new nonprofit movie theater called The Portal is finishing construction at 3293 Mission Street, at 29th, and says on its own site that it opens in October 2026. It is a single screen in a converted storefront, programmed by Nellie Killian, who has built film series for the Criterion Channel, the British Film Institute and the Museum of the Moving Image.

What it is

The Portal occupies a 1,300-square-foot former real estate office with an Art Deco frontage. The theater’s build-out page says converting it took three years of building-code work, city approvals and construction. The finished room seats 45, according to the theater. The San Francisco Chronicle, which reported the project on August 25, described it as a 49-seat venue; we have used the figure the theater publishes itself.

The projection booth is set up for DCP, 35mm and 16mm, which means the schedule can include archive prints that only exist on film. The theater says it plans 11 or more screenings a week, drawn from new releases, repertory, contemporary work from outside the United States, and artists’ moving-image work. A lobby cafe will serve beer and wine, soft drinks, snacks and popcorn.

Who is behind it

Killian is the founder and programmer. Her biography on the theater’s site lists curatorial roles at the Brooklyn Academy of Music from 2011 to 2017 and at Metrograph in New York from 2021 to 2022, work with the film marketing firm High Council, a contributing editor role at Film Comment, and board seats at Light Industry, Screen Slate and San Francisco Cinematheque. She shared the National Society of Film Critics’ Film Heritage Award in 2017 with Michelle Materre.

The board includes Ed Halter, a critic and a founder of the New York venue Light Industry, and Casey Moore, who runs the film marketing agency High Council, co-founded Seattle’s Beacon Cinema and helped start the film magazine Bombast. The Portal is a nonprofit and is taking donations toward the build-out through its donate page.

Where it sits

3293 Mission Street is on the block where the Mission meets Bernal Heights, which is why coverage has placed it in both neighborhoods. The 14 Mission and 14R Mission Rapid run along Mission Street past the door. The 24th Street Mission BART station is about half a mile north, at 24th and Mission.

The other screens on the Mission Street corridor are further north: the Alamo Drafthouse in the New Mission Theater at Mission and 22nd, about seven blocks up, and the Roxie on 16th Street, roughly a mile away.

What is not settled yet

The theater has not published an opening date inside October, a ticket price, or a first program. Its screenings page is where that will appear. The Chronicle reported the opening as late October or November, so the month itself may still move.

For the rest of what is opening around the city this autumn, see our September guide.

Image: exterior of The Portal, via The Portal Cinema.