MoMA Film Benefit 2026: An Evening for Steven Spielberg, and for the Films That Outlast Us

On November 12, the Museum of Modern Art and CHANEL honor Steven Spielberg at the 18th annual Film Benefit, a night whose proceeds keep the museum's film collection alive on the screen.

By The Circuit Report · Published October 12, 2026

Few institutions take the moving image as seriously as the Museum of Modern Art, and few filmmakers have shaped the way the world watches movies as thoroughly as Steven Spielberg. On Thursday, November 12, the two meet on West 53rd Street when MoMA's Film Benefit, presented together with CHANEL, honors the director of Jaws, E.T., Schindler's List and a half-century of films that moved easily between blockbuster and serious art. The museum describes the evening as a red carpet, cocktails, a seated dinner and an award program, and it is one of the autumn's clearest intersections of Hollywood, fashion and New York philanthropy.

It is also, at heart, a working fundraiser. According to the museum, all proceeds from the evening benefit the Debra and Leon Black Family Film Center within MoMA's Department of Film, supporting the acquisition and preservation of key film works and the exhibitions that put them in front of audiences. The glamour, in other words, is in service of something patient and unglamorous: keeping celluloid and digital masters alive for the next century of viewers.

The work behind the evening

MoMA’s Film Benefit supports the work that keeps film history available to future audiences. Collecting, preserving and exhibiting moving images gives cinema a life beyond its initial release, allowing old and new work to be seen, studied and reconsidered.

MoMA states that all proceeds from the evening benefit the Debra and Leon Black Family Film Center within its Department of Film. The benefit raises funds for acquiring and preserving important films and for film exhibitions. This is a specific departmental purpose, rather than an unspecified general museum fundraiser. Explore the official work.

The 2026 evening, presented with CHANEL, honors Steven Spielberg. Rajendra Roy, MoMA’s Celeste Bartos Chief Curator of Film, connects that recognition with the museum’s long relationship with the filmmaker and its commitment to preserving cinema. Curators and preservation specialists carry the work forward. Meet the organization.

Watch official films and programs. These resources introduce the organization’s work and may include earlier events.

What the evening supports

MoMA's Department of Film holds one of the most important moving-image collections anywhere, and the benefit is explicitly tied to its upkeep. The museum states that proceeds go to the Debra and Leon Black Family Film Center and that the benefit raises money for the acquisition and preservation of key film works and for film exhibitions. Press coverage of the announcement adds that the funds support the collection's maintenance and growth along with film series, premieres, festivals, retrospectives and virtual programming. MoMA has not published a fundraising target or figures for this year's evening.

Preservation is the part of film culture that rarely makes headlines. Prints decay, formats become obsolete, and restoration is slow and expensive. A night like this one converts the cachet of a celebrated name into resources for that quieter, essential work, and it does so at an institution that has been collecting film since long before most museums considered it an art form.

At a glance

Date: Thursday, November 12, 2026
Time: 7:00 p.m. cocktails; 8:00 p.m. dinner and program
Venue: The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53 Street, Manhattan
Dress code: Not announced; confirm with MoMA
Tickets: Not publicly listed; inquiries via MoMA's Department of Special Programming and Events

Chairs and committee

MoMA's event page does not list gala chairs, co-chairs or a host committee for the 2026 benefit, and we have not found them in the museum's published materials. What is on the record is the partnership at the center of the night. CHANEL presents the evening, a relationship that, according to fashion trade coverage, dates to the house's sponsorship of the Film Benefit in 2011 and deepened when it became MoMA's lead film sponsor in 2021. That continuity is part of why the benefit has become such a dependable fixture: it carries the assurance of a long-standing patron and the institutional weight of one of the world's great film departments. Should MoMA announce a committee before the evening, we will update this preview.

The honoree and the program

The program centers on a single tribute. Spielberg joins a roster of past Film Benefit honorees that, as reported in the press, includes Martin Scorsese, Tom Hanks, Cate Blanchett, Alfonso Cuarón, Quentin Tarantino, Pedro Almodóvar, Tilda Swinton and Baz Luhrmann. That list tells you something about the museum's taste: it honors filmmakers and performers whose work is both widely loved and formally ambitious, people for whom popularity and artistry are not in conflict.

Spielberg may be the purest example of that idea. Rajendra Roy, MoMA's Celeste Bartos Chief Curator of Film, has been quoted in announcement coverage observing that being an artist and an entertainer "can be simultaneous aspirations," and calling the director's global influence "unparalleled." It is hard to argue. From the summer-movie template of the 1970s to the late-career meditations on history and memory, his films have been both a mass experience and a subject of serious study, which makes a museum tribute feel less like a lifetime-achievement formality than a recognition of how cinema itself changed on his watch.

The museum has not published a list of presenters, speakers or performers for the evening. The format, as announced, is cocktails at seven and dinner with the award program at eight.

Why it's on our calendar

The Circuit Report watches for evenings where the social occasion and the cause are genuinely aligned, and the MoMA Film Benefit is one of the best examples in the city. The honoree is a filmmaker whose work nearly everyone has a personal relationship with; the presenting partner is a fashion house with a long, visible commitment to the museum's film program; and the money goes directly to the preservation and screening of movies. It is a gala that celebrates cinema in a building that treats cinema as part of the permanent record. For anyone who cares about how films survive, and not just how they premiere, it is one of November's essential nights. The Circuit Report plans to follow up with coverage of the evening.

How to attend

MoMA has not posted public ticket or table pricing for the 2026 Film Benefit, and its event page does not include a purchase link. Those interested in tickets, tables or underwriting should contact the museum's Department of Special Programming and Events directly at specialevents@moma.org, the address listed on the official event page. As with any benefit of this kind, we recommend booking only through the museum itself.

Official links and further reading

Official event information · Our event guide

Details may change; confirm the current program, availability and giving arrangements with the organizer.