“There’s no place like home.” – Dorothy, The Wizard of Oz

The idea of what makes a house a home, and explorations of how and where Americans live, have powerfully informed many significant films over the years, in ways both subtly thought-provoking and farcically over-the-top. The National Building Museum is proud to partner with the American Film Institute (AFI) Silver Theatre and Cultural Center to present a film series associated with the Museum’s exhibition House & Home. "Reel Estate: The American Home on Film" presents a wide-ranging series of films focusing on the American home, from nostalgic classics like Gone With the Wind, to post-WWII suburban melodramas like No Down Payment, and to subversive comedies like Hal Ashby’s The Landlord.

Poltergeist
"They're heeere." Directed by The Texas Chansaw Massacre's Tobe Hooper, but overwhelmingly bearing the stylistic fingerprints of writer/producer Steven Spielberg, Poltergeist represents an unholy marriage of family film and intense horror cinema. The haunted house genre moves to the suburbs, as a family discovers that the mysterious occurrences in their new tract home-at first amusing bits of mischievous telekinesis, later more terrifying acts of deadly violence-may have something to do with the Native American burial ground underneath their southern California subdivision. DIR Tobe Hooper; SCR Steven Spielberg, Michael Grais and Mark Victor; PROD Frank Marshall and Steven Spielberg. US, 1982, color, 114 min. RATED PG

Ticket Information:
BUY TICKETS THROUGH AFI.com/Silver. $8.50 AFI and NBM members | $11.50 General Admission | $9 Seniors (65+), Students (with valid ID), and Military | $7 Children (12 and under).  Tickets may also be purchased at the box office (opens 30 minutes before the first show of the day).  Please note that tickets are not available for purchase through the National Building Museum.

The AFI Silver Theatre is located at 8633 Colesville Road in Silver Spring, Maryland, Silver Spring Metro, Red Line. 

Support for House & Home and related education programming is provided by The Home Depot Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Hanley Wood, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Andersen Corporate Foundation, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, MASCO Corporation Foundation, and AARP, among others.