Free New York Screenings of Documentary "Once Upon a Time in Harlem" Set for This Weekend

New Yorkers can see Once Upon a Time in Harlem for free this weekend. Distributor Neon has partnered with the office of Mayor Zohran Mamdani to host four screenings across the city on Saturday, October 24 and Sunday, October 25, according to Deadline.

The screenings take place at three venues. AMC Magic Johnson Harlem hosts two, at 1:00 PM on Saturday and 1:00 PM on Sunday. Film Forum has a 4:45 PM show on Saturday, and Film at Lincoln Center's Howard Gilman Theater has a 3:45 PM show on Sunday. Each one is free, so anyone who can get to one of the rooms can walk in.

The film is a documentary. It has five nominations at the Critics Choice Documentary Awards, including Best Documentary, and it won the 2026 Library of Congress Lavine / Ken Burns Film Prize. Those are the honours reported by Deadline.

Neon's route to New York screens began at the Sundance Film Festival in January, the event in Utah where distributors go shopping for films. Neon bought the film after its Sundance screening, beating out Netflix and Mubi, according to Deadline. Distributors pay for the right to put a film in cinemas and on other platforms, and the bidding at a festival like Sundance can decide where a film ends up.

The film centres on a 1972 cocktail party hosted by the filmmaker William Greaves, as Neon's trailer describes it. Greaves was a New York film-maker, and the party is the thread the trailer pulls on.

Free screenings in a public-facing city partnership are unusual for a film in its theatrical run, and the event is a rare case of a city government and a distributor sharing the bill. The screenings give people who might not buy a cinema ticket a way to see the film on a big screen. Anyone planning to go should check the venue listings for seating, since free shows tend to fill quickly.