NEWSLETTER
Attendance grew 105% in a year, and opening day of Stories and Set Designs for the Sopranos on February 14, 2026, marked highest single-day attendance in the Museum’s history
Astoria, New York, April 23, 2026 — Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI) announces record attendance, with a total of 311,000 visitors in 2025. Not only does that figure exceed pre-pandemic numbers, but it also reflects a 105% increase from 2024 and a 147% increase from 2023. Based on a visitor experience analysis conducted by Coda Societies in conjunction with MoMI, New York City residents make up 61.4% of general admission, 89.6% of film program attendees, 89.5% of Museum members, and 78.9% of family visitors. Repeat visits contributed significantly to the attendance growth, with nearly half of the general admission attendees visiting the Museum for at least the third time. MoMI also tracked its highest single-day attendance on February 14, 2026, recording 3,600 visitors on the opening day of Stories and Set Design for the Sopranos, also the first day of the screening series 2001: The Year, Not the Movie, and Valentine’s Day.
“These record numbers are a testament to what happens when a museum opens itself fully to its community,” said Aziz Isham, Executive Director of Museum of the Moving Image. “I’m incredibly proud of our team and grateful for their work, as well as for the partnership of our collaborators and supporters, who all contributed to bringing this success to our institution. Over the past two years, we’ve focused on making MoMI a gathering place, a space where New Yorkers can see themselves reflected in the stories we tell, and where media and technology become tools for connection, creativity, and civic conversation. The response has been extraordinary, and it’s only the beginning.”
The Museum’s attendance growth is largely attributable to special programs and events, including the success of Open Worlds, an initiative launched in 2023 that expanded the number of community-focused programs and free access to the public. Events such as the recent Lunar New Year and Iftar celebrations attended by community members, elected officials, and artists alike continue to highlight the Museum’s role as the cultural anchor of western Queens. In 2025 alone, MoMI hosted more than 500 screenings presented as part of major series such as First Look, See It Big: 70mm, See It Big: Stunts, a complete Terence Davies retrospective, as well as ongoing series organized around themes such as World of Animation, Science on Screen, Las Premieres, and more. Most screenings were hosted in the Museum’s Sumner M. Redstone Theater, a 267-seat venue fitted with a Dolby Atmos sound system and a new laser projector in 2025, and supporting 70mm prints and 3D, making it one of New York City’s best-equipped movie theaters; many of MoMI’s screenings are followed by a Q&A with a lead actor or filmmakers.
In addition to events and programs, exhibitions were a key driver of museum attendance in 2025, with The Jim Henson Exhibition continuing to attract very strong engagement. The temporary exhibition Mission: Impossible—Story and Spectacle, celebrating how the action franchise combines technical ingenuity, personal discipline, and artistic commitment in service of storytelling, welcomed more than 81,500 guests to the Museum. These combined efforts have drawn younger audiences who view the Museum, located in the country’s most diverse county, as a space to explore how technology, film, and media shape our understanding of society, especially in the age of AI and algorithms. Among the exhibits that attract younger audiences is the Video Flipbook in the Museum’s core exhibition Behind the Screen, allowing visitors to “star” in their own flipbook, which can be printed and purchased in the Museum shop—a popular experience for couples on dates.
Current and upcoming at Museum of the Moving Image
In collaboration with The Working Assembly, MoMI introduces a refreshed graphic identity this Spring, encompassing a look and feel that reflects its role as an interactive, forward-facing institution where the public doesn’t just observe the moving image, but create it and build community through it.
Promising to be another thrilling year of engaging programs at MoMI, 2026 kicks off with Open Worlds extending to year-round weekend events. Upcoming programs include family-friendly events, workshops, performances, and thought-provoking conversations that amplify MoMI’s exhibitions and film series. A science-focused channel of programs, Open Worlds: Science, supported by the Simons Foundation, will run from April through October. Sparking curiosity with explorations of the moving image across platforms, Open Worlds activates the museum’s ground floor into a free, accessible, climate-controlled, WiFi-enabled resource for visitors of all ages; one of the largest free community spaces in Queens. For a calendar of events, please visit movingimage.org.
The Museum has also expanded its Accessibility programs. In addition to its seasonal free Access Mornings (Saturdays at 10:00 a.m. through April 25), a dedicated sensory-friendly session for families with children on the autism spectrum, the Museum has started a regular Touch Object Experience for visitors to engage with select objects, including a projector, 8mm camera, textiles, and face molds, to learn about the story of the moving image in a new way (the last Saturday of each month).
From April 23 through May 3, First Look, MoMI’s annual festival for adventurous new cinema, introduces New York audiences to 40 new works, encompassing feature and short films; fiction and nonfiction; all New York premieres; experiments with—and exemplary expressions of—form. Since its inception in 2012, the guiding ethos of First Look is discovery, aiming to introduce audiences to new films, filmmakers to new audiences, and everyone to different methods, perspectives, interrogations, and encounters. The 15th edition of the festival takes place over two weekends and features new genre sections, events, and panels.
Accessible with general admission, Overexposed: Art, Technology, and the Body is a major group exhibition organized by Sonia Shechet Epstein on view until January 3, 2027. Taking its title from a Sylvia Plath poem, Overexposed interrogates the implications of being able to see inside the body. From X-rays and ultrasounds to MRI, CT scans, and endoscopy, the exhibition examines how medical imaging technologies have reshaped how we look at, understand, and control the human body. Featuring work by 16 artists from 13 countries including Barbara Hammer, Ana Mendieta, Liz Magic Laser, and Donald Rodney, the exhibition invites visitors to reconsider visibility, vulnerability, and what it means to be “overexposed” in an era of advancing imaging and AI. Accompanying the exhibition is a catalog published by Marquand Books (distributed by ARTBOOK | D.A.P.) and edited by Elisabeth Sherman and Sonia Shechet Epstein.
Simultaneously, Stories and Set Design for the Sopranos is on view at the Museum through May 31, 2026, and explores how the HBO series The Sopranos (1999–2007) reshaped American television, setting a new standard for long-form storytelling and character-driven drama. Drawing from showrunner and series creator David Chase’s personal archive, Stories and Set Designs for The Sopranos presents scripts, notes, and research material that document the development of the celebrated series’ story arcs and character trajectories as it moved from a pilot into the first season. It also examines the design of the four principal sites where the series’ central action unfolds—Dr. Melfi’s office, the Soprano home, the Bada Bing strip club, and Satriale’s Pork Store—revealing how these environments were created through a mix of on-location filming in New Jersey and constructed sets at Silvercup Studios in Queens. Concept art, design drawings, and ground plans show how practical decisions translated ideas into physical space, guiding the look, layout, and workflow of each set.
About Aziz Isham
Aziz Isham is the Executive Director of MoMI, where he has transformed the museum’s fundraising profile and centered the institution as the cultural anchor of Astoria, Queens. Isham has championed community-driven programming, public artist residencies, and digital literacy initiatives across the US. He is the former Executive Director of Twenty Summers, an international festival of arts and social justice, and an award-winning producer and nonprofit executive with over twenty years of experience in the field. He was the founding Executive Producer of BRIC TV and produced or commissioned dozens of productions that premiered at many of the country’s top film festivals. He developed programs for HBO, Apple TV, Discovery and the New York Times, and has won six NY Emmy awards.
About Museum of the Moving Image
MoMI celebrates the history, art, technology, and future of the moving image in all of its forms. Located in Astoria, New York, the Museum presents exhibitions; screenings; discussion programs featuring actors, directors, and creative leaders; and education programs. It houses the nation’s most comprehensive collection of moving image artifacts and screens over 500 films annually. Its exhibitions—including the core exhibition Behind the Screen and The Jim Henson Exhibition—are noted for their integration of material objects, interactive experiences, and audiovisual presentations. For more information about MoMI, visit movingimage.org.
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