The Beverly Theater brings a screening of "Leaving Las Vegas," the 1995 drama that put a spotlight on the city's darker undercurrents. Nicolas Cage delivers an Oscar-winning performance as a self-destructive Hollywood screenwriter who arrives in Vegas with a plan to drink himself to death, while Elisabeth Shue plays the sex worker who forms an unlikely bond with him. It's a raw, unflinching look at addiction and connection that uses the neon-soaked backdrop of Las Vegas in a way few films have—not as a playground, but as a place where people go to escape or disappear.

Watching this film at The Beverly Theater adds an interesting layer to the experience. Here's a movie about Las Vegas being shown in Las Vegas, in an intimate 150-seat theater in the Arts District, far from the Strip where much of the film's bleakest moments unfold. The venue's excellent acoustics and modern yet classic atmosphere provide the right setting for a film this intense and emotionally charged. Director Mike Figgis shot much of it on location around the city, capturing a side of Vegas that exists alongside the casinos and shows—the dive bars, rundown motels, and lonely stretches of pavement that feel worlds away from the tourist corridors.