Coolidge and Sloan Foundation Award $225,000 in Science on Screen Grants to 40 Cinemas

Coolidge Corner Theatre and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation named the 2026–27 recipients of their nationwide Science on Screen® grant program this week, awarding $225,000 in grants to 40 independent cinemas, museums, and community groups with film programs. Each organization will receive up to $9,000 to create and present three or more Science on Screen events, pairing expert-led discussions of scientific topics with screenings of feature and documentary films. At least one film shown by each grantee must be a past recipient of the annual Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Feature Film Prize or a Sloan Development Grant.

Since partnering with Sloan in 2011, the Coolidge has awarded more than $3 million in grants to 140 film and science-focused organizations in 46 states, plus Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico. Over the past 13 seasons, grantees have sold more than 188,000 tickets to over 1,870 Science on Screen events, featuring presentations by hundreds of scientists, doctors, teachers and professors, farmers, journalists, and more — including at least five Nobel laureates, three Pulitzer Prize winners, ten astronauts, autism activist Temple Grandin, surgeon and writer Dr. Atul Gawande, environmentalist Bill McKibben, geneticist George Church, and molecular biologist Dr. Nancy Hopkins.

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Highlights from the 2025 season show the range: at Frida Cinema in Santa Ana, California, Harvard physicist Dr. Jacob Barandes introduced Oppenheimer and explored quantum theory, relativity, and the scientific history of the atom bomb; at the Avalon Theatre in Washington, D.C., Politico's Brendan Bordelon and CQ Roll Call's Jason Dick introduced BlackBerry and traced how a quirky Canadian start-up ushered in the attention economy; at Enzian Theatre in Maitland, Florida, paleontologist Jimmy Waldron introduced The Land Before Time; at the Coolidge itself, transplant surgeon Dr. Stefan G. Tullius introduced Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein; and at County Theater in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, Drexel physicist Dave Goldberg introduced Primer and explored whether time travel could ever work.

Seven organizations are first-time grantees this season: the Barrymore Film Center in Fort Lee, New Jersey; the Buffalo International Film Festival; Centro Criollo de Ciencia y Tecnología del Caribe in Caguas, Puerto Rico; Desert Hearts Film Society and The Discovery Museum in Reno, Nevada; East End Seaport Museum & Marine Foundation in Greenport, New York; Gardena Cinema in California; and The Independent Picture House in Charlotte, North Carolina. Among the 33 returning grantees is Amherst Cinema in Amherst, Massachusetts. "We are delighted to continue our pioneering partnership with the Coolidge Corner Theatre to support the nationwide Science on Screen program," said Doron Weber, Vice President and Program Director at the Sloan Foundation. "These events, which pair expert speakers in over 46 states with popular titles such as Sloan-winning films Project Hail Mary, Frankenstein, Oppenheimer, Twisters and Hidden Figures, demonstrate that science can illuminate films just as films can illuminate science."

Science on Screen was conceived in 2005 for Coolidge audiences in greater Boston and went nationwide with the Sloan Foundation in 2011. To date, Sloan has awarded the Coolidge more than $4.5 million to support the program, including scienceonscreen.org, where information on the programs and archived videos of speakers' presentations are available to the public.

Story written and reviewed by Mark Allen Wood.