Lumiere Theatre, indie showcase, closing S.F. NEIGHBORHOODS

One of the biggest hits to play at the Lumiere was 1996's "Leaving Las Vegas," where Elisabeth Shue and Nicolas Cage are a hooker and hard-core drunk who fall in love. One of the biggest hits to play at the Lumiere was 1996's "Leaving Las Vegas," where Elisabeth Shue and Nicolas Cage are a hooker and hard-core drunk who fall in love. Photo: Courtesy Photo Photo: Courtesy Photo Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Lumiere Theatre, indie showcase, closing 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

The Lumiere Theatre, a central venue for independent film in San Francisco, will close Sunday evening.

Landmark Theatres, the Los Angeles chain that has operated the Lumiere since 1991, has lost its lease and could not come to terms with the landlord, according to Steve Indig, senior regional publicist for Landmark.

Located on the California Street cable car line at Polk Street, the Lumiere is broken into screening rooms of between 100 and 250 seats and earned the nickname "the Gloomier," for both its interior ambience and the type of film it showcased.

One of the first movies shown under the Landmark ownership, "My Own Private Idaho" (1991), set the tone, with the late River Phoenix as a street hustler. With no parking and not much of a lobby, the Lumiere's relevance was undercut when Landmark opened the Embarcadero Center Cinema in 1995. Like the Lumiere, the Embarcadero Center shows independent offerings, but it also offers free parking and has five screens. The Embarcadero seats were plush compared to the seats at the Lumiere, which felt like they'd been remaindered from retired commercial jets.

But the crumbly old house hung in there and was still thriving in 1996, the peak year of the indies. "Palookaville," "Leaving Las Vegas" and "Basquiat" all opened at the Lumiere that year.

The last Lumiere booking to really get legs on was the unintentionally funny documentary, "American Movie" (1999), about a Packers fan in Green Bay, Wis., trying to make a horror movie on the cheap, with a lovable cast of stoned losers.

In its later years the fare got even darker, with documentaries such as "American Mullet" (2001) and "Jesus Camp (2006)." But the seats were upgraded within the past 10 years, and the popcorn was always fresh.

It has been a movie theater since 1967, and now the last picture show at the Lumiere will be "The Intouchables" at 8:30 p.m. Sunday. Its closure will leave the Embarcadero, Bridge, Clay and Opera Plaza Cinemas as San Francisco houses operated by Landmark.