Description
Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is a museum in Los Angeles, California constructed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), which is devoted to the history, science, and cultural impact of the film industry. It is the first large-scale museum of its kind in the United States. The museum is located in the historic May Company Building on the intersection Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue, part of Museum Row on the Miracle Mile.
Originally expected to open in 2020, its completion and opening was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The museum eventually opened to selected celebrity guests on September 25, 2021, and to the general public on September 30.
On Thursday, July 14, the museum voluntarily recognized Academy Museum Workers United as the bargaining representative for 160 of its employees.
Collections
The Academy holds more than 13 million objects including costumes, costume sketches, film reels, posters, props, and screenplays dating back to 1927. In May 2020, the museum purchased the May Queen dress worn by Florence Pugh in Midsommar (2019) for $65,000, as part of a charity auction held by A24 to benefit COVID-19 relief efforts.
Some key objects in the Museum's collection include:
- Dorothy's ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz (1939)
- Shirley Temple's tap shoes from The Little Colonel (1935)
- Typewriter used to write the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960)
- The only surviving shark mold from Jaws (1975)
- Tablets from The Ten Commandments (1956)
- The Aries 1B spaceship model and a space suit worn by Keir Dullea from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
- The costume of the amphibian man from the Guillermo del Toro’s’The Shape of Water (2017)’’
- From the 1982 film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial an E.T. Prop is displayed.
- A cape used by Bela Lugosi in Dracula (1931)
- The yellow dress worn by Emma Stone in La La Land (2016)
- Pillars named for historical significance in motion picture history including Rita Moreno, Cher, Barbra Streisand, and Hattie McDaniel.
