.jpeg?ssl=1 "Film Forum Is Selling Baseball Caps for the First Time Since 1991")
Film Forum Is Selling Baseball Caps for the First Time Since 1991
In 2025, movie merch is inescapable. Every A24 project hits theaters with a robust line of apparel. Obscure vintage production paraphernalia given as wrap gifts to cast and crew now fetch hundreds on eBay, while a cottage industry of bootleggers who lovingly recreate rare ’90s film festival hats and sweatshirts has sprouted up online. Even new films by singular auteurs like Kelly Reichardt now do merch giveaways to drum up publicity. But until now, the venerated New York independent cinema Film Forum has largely steered clear of the merch boom.
Rather than make a shameless bid to cater to a new breed of young, terminally-online, Letterboxd-obsessed cinephiles, Film Forum has largely kept their souvenir output quirky and minimal. They’ve collaborated with artists like George Griffin and Maira Kalman on some excellent T-shirts, and also sell a fridge magnet that pays tribute to their Jacques Derrida-approved banana bread.
This week, though, the theater is tapping directly into the movie merch hype cycle with a limited-edition run of their signature baseball caps, which were last issued in 1991. Out of circulation for over three decades, the caps have taken on a mythic quality over the years—at least among the most hardcore of New York cinephiles.
“In the early ’90s, baseball caps were all the rage,” Karen Cooper, the director of Film Forum from 1972 to 2023, tells GQ via email. Cooper “wanted to do one with a difference,” so she opted to leave the front of the hat plain, and instead embroidered the theater’s logo on the back above the strap.
Photo by Tim Loftus / Courtesy of Film Forum
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The caps were an immediate hit—and even got a celebrity endorsement from David Byrne, the iconic musician and longtime Film Forum patron, who modeled the cap for the company’s 1991 holiday merch mailer. “Asking David Byrne to model was a no-brainer,” Cooper says. “He was simply the coolest guy in town—and still is. That he was a FF board member just made it better.”
Thirty years later, in 2021, several Film Forum employees stumbled upon the photos of Byrne in an old manila folder in the office. “The [Film Forum] offices have over five decades of film history tucked away,” says Stephanie Gross, the company’s repertory program manager. “You never know what kind of gem you’ll find when you open the next drawer.” The photos were quickly shared around the office, and soon there was an internal clamor to reissue the caps, especially among Film Forum’s tapped-in younger staff. Now, four years later, it’s finally happening.
Similar to the original release, the new caps are embroidered with the Film Forum logo on the back, but with the addition of the phrase “Now Playing”—in Film Forum’s signature font—on the front panel. Starting today, they’re available for $30 at the Film Forum lobby concession stand and online at FilmForum.org. “The new cap carries forward a piece of the cinema’s story,” says Sarah Modo, the company’s director of operations. “It’s part of an ongoing legacy that evolves with every film ‘now playing.’”
