[I wrote this article months ago for a magazine that failed to make it off the ground.]

THE CITY’S FIVE BEST PLACES TO WATCH FOREIGN FILM
When you’ve tired of Hollywood’s headache-inducing 3D blockbusters and films of budgets trumped only by their exorbitant price of entry, seek solace in the beauty of foreign and independent film. Here are the five best places to do so:

Paris Theatre
This stately 586 seat single screen art house theater has maintained a policy of showing just one film per week since opening in 1948, when Marlene Dietrich cut the ribbon with the French ambassador. A microscopic lobby opens to a cavernous, plushly-appointed interior with balcony intact. A substantial portion of the film schedule is fittingly French, enjoyed by the loyal graying clientele minus any onscreen advertising. The Paris has enjoyed a recent surge in patronage thanks to Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw, who lovingly lilted, “Any time you can go to Paris.”
4 West 58th Street, 212-688-3800, www.theparistheatre.com

Anthology Film Archives
Looking more like a decrepit gymnasium from the outside, this unassuming East Village courthouse-turned-theater is a relic of all but forgotten cinephilia, and one of the largest archives of experimental and avante-garde film in the world, boasting a collection of over 11,000 titles, from which over nine hundred titles are selected and shown annually. Aside from their ongoing Essential Cinema series, a must for film aficionados, and festivals like The New York Underground Film Festival, Anthology has been known to host live musical performances, including Sonic Youth performing to the films of Stan Brakhage.
32 Second Avenue, 212-505-5181, www.anthologyfilmarchives.org

Film Forum
The oversized thick-rimmed glasses-wearing youthful dilettantes smoking cigarettes in front of the box office, which opens directly onto the south side of Houston Street, speak of the seriousness of this theater; renowned for tiny screens, cool staff, first-come seating and reliably superb selections of foreign and indie/artsy films, Film Forum is the real deal, with 4,500 members and a quarter of a million annual admissions.
143 East Houston Street, 209 West Houston St.,212-727-8110, www.filmforum.org

IFC Center
Opened in 2005 after a four year renovation in the former Waverly Theatre by Rainbow Media as an extension of its popular cable channel, IFC Center is a passionate and accommodating state-of-the-art five screen facility. Loved by its patrons for quirks like the Short Attention Span Cinema, often bizarre short films preceding the previews on all screenings, and Friday and Saturday midnight screenings of films such as Lars von Trier’s Antichrist, IFC also boasts an exhibition of vintage movie posters, and exclusively serves David Lynch’s organic coffee roast.
323 Sixth Avenue at West Third Street, 212-924-7771, www.ifccenter.com

Sunshine Cinema
This Lower East Side former Yiddish vaudeville house, dating back to 1898, was shuttered and left to serve as a hardware warehouse for over fifty years. Now, under the operation of the preeminent Landmark Cinemas circuit, Sunshine displays often rare independent and foreign films on five large screens in a clean, subtle space. Widely regarded as serving the city’s best theater popcorn (waiting to be spruced up by thirteen different flavor shakers), this theater also houses a Japanese rock garden and a glass annex offering views of Lower Manhattan possibly as inspiring as the esoteric indie films on rotation underneath.
143 East Houston Street, 212-330-8182, www.landmarktheatres.com/market/newyork/sunshinecinema.htm