At 6 p.m. on Thursday, October 1, Wild Horse Nine started in two towns at once. One screening was at the Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael. The other was at the Sequoia Cinema, 25 Throckmorton Avenue, in downtown Mill Valley. Martin McDonagh's film opened the 49th Mill Valley Film Festival, with Sam Rockwell and John Malkovich in the leads, and the San Francisco Chronicle's festival preview lists both rooms for that first 6 p.m. slot.
That pairing is the best clue to how the festival works. A festival named for Mill Valley has a working front door in Mill Valley again, and the useful planning question for the week is which screenings are a short trip into town and which ones justify the drive to San Rafael.
How the Sequoia got its front door back
The Sequoia opened in 1929 and was twinned in 1975. It went dark in October 2023, when the lease held by Cinemark ran out. On Monday, May 20, 2024, the California Film Institute reopened it as the Sequoia Cinema. The nonprofit runs the festival and also operates the Smith Rafael Film Center.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the reopening followed seven months of upgrades. Those included a Dolby sound system, new restrooms, fresh paint in the lobby and a deep clean. Mayor Urban Carmel presided at the ribbon-cutting, and the first days of programming were classics such as Vertigo, The Wizard of Oz and Back to the Future at $1 admission, according to KQED.
KQED also noted that the reopening arrived in a stretch when chain-run theaters around the Bay Area kept closing, including the Century Cinema in Corte Madera and two San Rafael multiplexes. The Sequoia is a two-screen room, and CAFILM has said a fuller renovation is planned without giving a date. For this festival, it is a two-screen room with a festival badge line outside.
What the week actually contains
The 2026 program runs October 1 through 11. According to the Chronicle, it includes 94 features and 80 shorts from 45 countries, with tickets priced from $12 to $20 per program and higher prices for special events. It is Artistic Director Rose Kuo's first year as the festival's top programmer, and it introduces a New Directors section of 26 films. Beth de Araújo's Josephine, shot in San Francisco, is part of it.
A handful of dates anchor everything else.
| Date | Event | What the reporting says |
|---|---|---|
| Thursday, October 1 | Opening Night, Wild Horse Nine | 6 p.m. at both the Rafael and the Sequoia |
| Friday, October 2 | Tribute to Sam Rockwell | Timed to Wild Horse Nine; Rockwell is a Daly City native |
| Wednesday, October 7 | Centerpiece, I Play Rocky | Peter Farrelly's film about the making of the original Rocky |
| Sunday, October 11 | Closing Night, The Debut | Jesse Eisenberg's community-theater comedy with Julianne Moore and Paul Giamatti |
A tribute to songwriter and producer Linda Perry, with a live performance, is also on the program. Venues and times for the tributes and the later dates can shift, so confirm each one at mvff.com before you commit an evening.
Tickets, standby and the noon drop
Three mechanics from the festival's own ticket page shape a week better than any single film pick.
- Standard pricing is $20. CAFILM members pay $16, students and seniors $18, and youth 12 and under and shorts programs $12.
- Tickets are released daily at noon during the festival. A screening that shows as "Standby" in the morning can open up at 12:00.
- Standby tickets go on sale 15 minutes before showtime. They are for sold-out screenings only, first come, first served, and only in person at the venue.
The third rule matters most for the Sequoia. A standby line is a physical place, and the festival's badge caravans sit outside the Outdoor Art Club, across the street from the Sequoia. Anyone picking up a badge, checking a noon release and joining a 6:45 standby line for a 7:00 show is working within a block or two of the same corner. The same sold-out screening at the Rafael asks for a trip to San Rafael before the line even forms.
The Outdoor Art Club between screenings
The festival hub is the Outdoor Art Club at 1 West Blithedale Avenue, the clubhouse Bernard Maybeck designed in 1904. Its patio is open to everyone, with or without a badge. According to the festival, Mill Valley Market will sell sandwiches there from noon to 2 p.m. on October 2 through 9, and a daily happy hour runs from 4 to 6 p.m. on October 2 through 10. The sunroom and deck lounges are reserved for badge holders with lounge access, so the patio is the room for everyone else.
Dinner before a 7 p.m. show has an obvious address. Playa, the Mexican restaurant and bar a couple of doors down from the Sequoia, describes itself as a place for a drink or dinner before a movie. Its site encourages reservations and includes one detail worth knowing before festival week. If an online booking shows only "Patio," the indoor tables are already taken, and a patio reservation cannot be switched to indoor once you arrive. In October evenings, that is a decision to make before you book. Playa is one of several Mill Valley restaurants from restaurateur Bill Higgins, alongside Buckeye Roadhouse, Bungalow 44 and Corner Bar.
Two meals outside the downtown grid
Not every festival meal has to sit within a block of Lytton Square, and this fall two spots give the week a second and third stop.
Tartine Bakery opened its first Marin location at Strawberry Village on Wednesday, August 19, 2026, after a soft open on August 13. The bakery sits at 800 Redwood Highway Frontage Road, Suite 125, in about 3,000 square feet designed by Studio BBA. The Chronicle counts seating for 120 people indoors and out, and the menu includes beer and wine alongside the loaves and morning buns. The opening was first announced for 2025, and the date slipped repeatedly, as the Southern Marin Ledger reported.
The address carries a small piece of local history. Tartine's founders, Chad Robertson and Liz Prueitt, ran Bay Village Bread at 17 Madrona Street in Mill Valley from roughly 1999 to 2002 before opening the flagship bakery on Guerrero Street in San Francisco. A bakery that started on Madrona Street now has a Marin storefront, in a community the Chronicle says had been asking for a Tartine for years. For a festival week with long gaps between an afternoon documentary and an evening premiere, that gives Strawberry Village a reason to be on the map.
Tam Tavern, at 152 Shoreline Highway, is the evening option. It is a collaboration between Bill Higgins and East Brother Beer Co., with chef Michael Siegel running a menu of pretzels, schnitzel, fish and chips and wood-fired pizzas. Between 10 and 15 rotating taps, a beer garden with fire pits and a game room with shuffleboard and darts round it out, according to Visit Marin. It has been open since at least last fall, so it is a recent addition to the town rather than a 2026 opening, and it suits a post-screening drink better than a pre-show sprint.
How to build the week
The two fixed points were Opening Night on October 1 and the Rockwell tribute on October 2; mvff.com lists the venue and time of each. For the remaining screenings, look at which films you want to see and where each one is screening. A screening at the Sequoia can hold a 6:45 standby line and a Playa dinner in the same block. A screening at the Rafael can pair with the Mark Fishkin Room box office, which the festival's ticket page lists at the Smith Rafael Film Center. The Downtown San Rafael business association reports that the festival brings thousands of moviegoers to its restaurants and shops each year, so the San Rafael half of the festival has its own evenings to plan around.
The festival's geography put one of opening night's screenings in Mill Valley, and gives the town the badge caravan, the patio and a two-screen theater on Throckmorton Avenue. The schedule at mvff.com shows which nights each one is in use.
Have a festival-week pick you are saving the drive for, or a favorite pre-show table? Alexandra Cowley would like to hear it, so let's connect.
