AUSTIN, Texas — Actor Matthew McConaughey has left a Texas-sized mark on the City of Austin. He’s a professor of practice and minister of culture at the University of Texas at Austin, owner and minister of culture for Austin FC and even lobbied in the Texas Capitol for Senate Bill 22, a bill that would create an incentive program intended to draw film projects to the Lone Star State and create more jobs.
Now, his name will appear at another iconic Austin establishment: Alamo Drafthouse Cinema.
Alamo Drafthouse announced Monday that it will rename its Mueller location the Matthew McConaughey Cinema with a dedication event on Aug. 10. The theater will unveil a plaque with the new name before showing an early screening of “The Rivals of Amziah King,” in which McConaughey stars.
The famous actor will attend alongside cocktails from his tequila brand, Pantalones, and participate in a post-screening Q&A with director Andrew Patterson and co-star Angelina LookingGlass. The event will end with McConaughey and others performing songs from the film.
“More than just what’s on the screen, movies have always been about who you watch them with and the memories you take home,” McConaughey said in a statement from the theater chain. “Alamo Drafthouse has championed that kind of moviegoing from the very beginning, and to have a theater dedicated in my name in the city that’s shaped so much of who I am means a great deal to me.”
The Matthew McConaughey Cinema at Alamo Drafthouse Mueller joins a select group of other previously renamed theaters, one of which is also in Austin. Bong Joon Ho, director of “Parasite,” became the first person to receive the honor in September 2019 at the South Lamar location.
In May, an Alamo Drafthouse location in Littleton, Colorado, became the Pam Grier Cinema. A downtown Brooklyn location became the Spike Lee Cinema in January 2025.
John Hughes, Christopher Nolan and Ivan Reitman also have Alamo Drafthouse locations in their name.