The 14,000 square foot Billy Wilder Theater is the first phase of a larger transformation of the Hammer Museum, establishing a new point of connection between the museum’s central courtyard and Lindbrook Avenue to the north. The theater serves both the museum and the UCLA Film and Television Archive, accommodating film and video projection to archival standards—including the capacity to project historic nitrate cellulose films—alongside a wider range of programming that includes performance art, readings, and lectures. A green room, back-of-house support spaces, a deep flexible stage, and adaptable lighting infrastructure allow the facility to shift between these varied uses.

The theater lobby operates as a primary route of movement through the museum, linking the central courtyard to the northern entry and extending the path from the city into the institution. A fifty-foot panoramic image referencing Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard lines one wall of the lobby, its lenticular surface producing shifting patterns of color and image as visitors move along its length. Near the theater entrance, the mural slips through an adjacent wall, creating a recessed alcove where audiences gather before and after performances. Large-scale photographs of Billy and Audrey Wilder anchor the lobby to the north and west, their surfaces shifting in resolution as visitors approach.

The theater itself is linked visually to the lobby through a series of full-height glass partitions that maintain spatial continuity between the two. Long LED light strips trace the path toward the stage, defining a zone of movement that envelops the audience. Beneath the suspended light array, raspberry-pink seats and flooring establish a saturated interior environment. A single silver seat—Billy’s Chair—marks the place Billy Wilder traditionally sat during screenings. As visitors exit the theater, the Sunset Boulevard mural opens before them in its entirety, drawing them back into the lobby and onward into the museum or out to the city beyond.