The IFC Center is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a retrospective series showcasing two decades of independent cinema in New York.

Beginning this week, the Greenwich Village theater is screening “20 Films for 20 Years,” a lineup of one movie from each year since its opening in 2005.

What You Need To Know

  • The IFC Center is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a retrospective series showcasing two decades of independent cinema in New York

  • Beginning this week, the Greenwich Village theater is screening “20 Films for 20 Years,” a lineup of one movie from each year since its opening in 2005

  • In an interview with “Mornings On 1,” IFC Center senior vice president and general manager Harris Dew said the curators set out to capture the diversity of the last two decades

Selections include “Me and You and Everyone We Know,” “Boyhood” and “Parasite” — films that helped defined the center’s place in New York’s film culture.

“It’s a real honor to have been around for so long,” IFC Center senior vice president and general manager Harris Dew said in an interview with “Mornings On 1.” “We’re all living in a time where things change so rapidly, especially in New York. And to think that people have been supporting us for 20 years, been coming to see films there, having a great time, it’s really special.”

The curators set out to capture the diversity of the last two decades. 

“We definitely wanted to strike a real balance,” Dew said. “We wanted to have films from all over the world. We wanted to have films that represented filmmakers that we’d worked with a lot, but also filmmakers who maybe it was their first film. We wanted to have documentaries. We wanted to have dramas. We wanted to have comedies.”

Some films have left a lasting mark on the center. “Boyhood,” Richard Linklater’s coming-of-age drama, became IFC’s longest-running title, playing for more than nine months, Dew said.

“It kind of was fitting,” he said. “It was a film that was shot over 12 years, so it felt appropriate to hold onto it that long. But it’s such a great movie. It’s such a really special movie.”

Other moments carried the thrill of discovery. When IFC opened Bong Joon-ho’s “Parasite,” the buzz was already strong. 

“Every screening was sold out the opening weekend, from, you know, 10:30 in the morning all the way to midnight. It packed houses,” Dew said. “We had the filmmaker and the cast there for some shows, and it was just really electric in the room. And, you know, from there it just sort of built and built.”

The film would later sweep the Oscars.

Over the years, the center has also welcomed some of cinema’s most idiosyncratic figures. Dew recalled David Lynch presenting “Inland Empire” at IFC. The theater honored the director with a marquee tribute after his death. 

“Justin Theroux, who’s an actor who has been in his films and lives nearby, walked by and asked if he could come introduce a film,” Dew said. “And we were like, yeah, sure, come on in. We’d love to have you introduce a film. So he surprised the audience, and it was an amazing thing. And he ended up bringing Naomi Watts and Scott Coffey.”

Dew says the audience’s appetite for the unexpected has kept the IFC Center thriving.

“New Yorkers have always been known for being really adventurous and always seeking out something new and something to surprise them,” he said. “I think we’ve been a part of that process, or we’ve tried to be a part of that process.”

The anniversary, Dew added, is less about looking back than about showing what’s next. 

“I think people get excited when they see something they love and they want to tell their friends, and that’s what we’re there for.”