Labyrinth: 40th Anniversary

Labyrinth returns to the big screen at the Paramount and Stateside Theatres on Sunday, August 23, as a 40th anniversary screening. The film is Jim Henson's 1986 fantasy about a young girl who sets out to rescue her infant brother from the Goblin King, played by a glam-wigged David Bowie who turned the character into the stuff of legend. Jennifer Connelly stars alongside him, and the whole thing runs 101 minutes. This screening is presented in DCP format, so it's the digital cinema version of the original.

Seeing it in a theater is a different experience than watching it at home. The movie is built on Henson's puppets and elaborate sets, and those details have a way of filling up a big screen that a living room just can't match. It's a 1986 classic, and this particular showing marks 40 years since it first came out.

The venue is the Paramount Theatre at 713 Congress in downtown Austin. It's been on Congress Avenue for more than a century, built in 1915 as a vaudeville and variety house, and it's the city's oldest surviving theater. It's a City of Austin Landmark and a State Landmark listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and it's one of the few remaining 'hemp houses' in America, still rigged with ropes and sandbags. It welcomes more than 200,000 patrons each year and is run alongside the State Theatre by The Austin Theatre Alliance, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

Doors open at 2:30 PM on Sunday, August 23, at the Paramount and Stateside Theatres. The screening is Labyrinth (1986, 101 min, DCP), directed by Jim Henson and starring David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly.