Upstate Films

Upstate Films started in May 1972 when DeDe Leiber, her then-husband Steve, and their friend Susan Goldman borrowed money from their parents to open a nonprofit movie theater in Rhinebeck. They ran their first film, Duck Soup on 16mm, for $1.50 a ticket, and kept that same mission alive for the next 48 years. When DeDe and Steve stepped down in 2021, Jason Silverman and Paul Sturtz took over as co-executive directors.

For more than five decades, Upstate Films has shown documentaries, foreign films, restored classics, and festival breakouts that multiplexes don't touch. The collection has grown to something like 7,000 titles. This is a carefully curated space, programmed by people who watch a lot of movies and want to talk about them afterward. The mission hasn't changed: a nonprofit built on the conviction that Rhinebeck deserves to see films that corporate chains wouldn't book.

The Starr Theatre

The building itself dates to 1927, when it opened as the Starr Theatre. It's named for the Starr Institute, a library that has served Rhinebeck since 1862. In 2021, Upstate Films renamed the space Upstate Films Starr Cinema. A 2025 refurbishment brought the house down to 200 comfortable seats across two screens. The redesign was intentional: to make the room feel less like a converted movie palace and more like a place you'd want to settle in for two hours.

Upstate Films is now the flagship of a small nonprofit network that also runs Upstate Midtown in Kingston and the Orpheum in Saugerties. But this remains the original room, on the original site, doing the original job.

Showtimes shift with the calendar rather than running a fixed weekly schedule, so check the site before you head over. Don't expect a full concession stand loaded with candy; this is a theater built around the movie, not the popcorn.