The Movie That Reopened Bernardsville Cinema Is Back on Its Screen This Month
October 22, 2026
October 22, 2026
The marquee on Mine Brook Road on Friday night, November 3, 2023, listed three films. "Killers of the Flower Moon" was at 6:15 p.m. and "Five Nights at Freddy's" at 6:45 p.m. At 7 p.m. came a 30-year-old dinosaur movie.
New Jersey Hills reported that this was the first regular screening at the Bernardsville Cinema 3 since the pandemic shut it more than three years before. There was no line outside, but people kept walking through the red doors for popcorn.
This Friday night, October 23, the Friends of the Bernardsville Library are screening "Jurassic Park" there again. It's the same film on the same screens, and the theater has spent the three years since that reopening becoming a room that local groups book for themselves.
According to the library's event page, the screening runs from 7:00 to 9:30 p.m. at Bernardsville Cinema. The Friends of the Bernardsville Library are hosting it. The basics:
The event page doesn't list a ticket link, so check with the library before you go if you'd like to buy in advance. Other calendars show the film at Cinema 3 on more than one date this month. NJArts lists screenings on October 15 and October 25. The Friends of the Library are hosting the Friday, October 23 show, so if that's the night you're after, check the date when you buy.
At the 2023 reopening, the residents New Jersey Hills talked to kept describing the theater as something the town as a whole should have. One resident said her college-age children had enjoyed the theater when they were younger. Another said that with a theater in town, "you can have a date night without having to travel very far."
A third Bernardsville resident put it this way:
"I hope people support it. You can't just say, 'Oh, I want it' and not come."
She said a movie theater is something every small town should have, alongside a train station and a good library. Friday's screening puts two of those three in the same building for one evening.
The theater's next chapter grew out of that idea. In August 2025, MyCentralJersey profiled owner Christopher Dunn-Meynell, who grew up in Warren. At the time he had owned the three-screen theater for about a year and a half, and he described its relationship with the community as "symbiotic." "One of our big things is that we want to be a big part of our community," he told the paper. "I get a lot of requests for different events and so we provide a lot of really good service to the community."
The scale in that 2025 report is what matters. Dunn-Meynell said the theater had hosted about 80 fundraisers between January and late August 2025, including the annual Boy Scout popcorn program each September. That's roughly one community booking every three days on top of the regular schedule. The same story described a monthly free movie outing for veterans run with the local VA hospital, theater space for the YMCA summer camp, and free video game tournaments on the big screen for kids. All of those details describe the theater as of summer 2025. Check the theater's own calendar for what's running now.
The pattern has carried into this year. In April, TAPinto reported on a $5 fundraiser screening of "Boys of Summer: Short Stop" at the cinema on Thursday, April 9, 2026, with proceeds going to Yes, And…eXercise!
The film festival the theater hosts has kept going too. On its FilmFreeway page, the Bernardsville / FenceSitter Film Festival lists its 2026 award winners and advertises a fifth annual edition for April 23 to 26, 2027.
Regular showings continue alongside the special events. In mid-October, Fandango's theater page carried showtimes and ticket links at Bernardsville Cinema for several titles. Community nights like Friday's library screening run on the same screens as those first-run films.
The library has a second Bernardsville program on Friday, earlier in the day. "A Bit of Bernardsville: Stories and Songs" runs from 1:00 to 2:30 p.m. with Gordon Thomas Ward, a Bernardsville native who is returning to present anecdotes, local history, images, folklore and original songs drawn from his book "A Bit of Earth." His official bio describes more than 40 years of performing, four GRAMMY-balloted albums and four #1 songs. The event page asks for registration and says the online link is emailed after you sign up. It also names the Community Room as the location, so confirm with the library which format you're registering for.
On Saturday, the Halloween events move outdoors. Bernardsville Recreation's free Trunk or Treat runs Saturday, October 24, from noon to 3 p.m. in the Bernardsville Municipal Pool parking lot. Kids trick-or-treat from decorated cars, and there's also a hay maze, petting zoo, face painting, pumpkin decorating, a costume contest, awards for decorated cars and music from DJ Doctor D. TAPinto's announcement said local businesses and others who want to bring a decorated vehicle could register through Community Pass.
Here's the full stretch in order:
All three are put on by local organizations: the library, its Friends group and the borough's recreation department.
The theater's own history is unsettled. The borough's 2017 downtown walking tour says Frank Allen built it in 1910, that it became the Columbus Theater in 1913 and the Liberty Theater in 1918. A New Jersey Hills history piece gives an opening date of August 21, 1915, as the Columbus Theatre. The same outlet's reopening coverage calls the 1915 name the Columbia Theater.
Whichever date is right, the building has been showing films for more than a century. In 2025, MyCentralJersey called it one of the rare surviving downtown movie theaters. On Friday, an evening there with the library's Friends group costs $10.
Long before I talk with anyone about a house, I find myself talking with them about places like the cinema on Mine Brook Road. If you go Friday and want to compare notes on Bernardsville's downtown, or what's coming up on its calendar this fall, Karen Gray would love to hear from you. Let's Connect.
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