The Port Jefferson Documentary Series opens its Fall 2026 season on Thursday, October 29, with four films screening on consecutive Thursday evenings at the First United Methodist Church, 603 Main Street in Port Jefferson. Every screening starts at 7 p.m. and is followed by a question and answer session with the film's director or an expert panel.

Tickets are $10 per film, and a season pass covering all four runs $28. The series is a program of the Greater Port Jefferson-Northern Brookhaven Arts Council, with public funding from Suffolk County, and its website notes the series took first place in the Best of Long Island film festival category for eight consecutive years starting in 2017.

The four films

The season opens October 29 with Virulent: The Vaccine War, directed by Tjardus Greidanus, an 87-minute documentary about the public fight over vaccines in post-pandemic America, from the doctors struggling to communicate science to the resurgence of childhood diseases such as measles and pertussis.

On November 5 comes Old Man Walking Club, directed by Michael Connelly, a 72-minute film that follows six lifelong friends from Boston, kindergarten classmates who drifted apart over careers and mortgages, as a weekly walking ritual started during COVID becomes a lifeline into retirement age. Bestselling author Daniel Pink and Harvard relationship researcher Dr. Robert Waldinger appear with insight on friendship and loneliness.

November 12 brings Carl Sagan: We Are Made of Star Stuff, a 98-minute portrait of the astronomer from Academy Award nominated director Nanette Burstein and producer Seth MacFarlane. Built on access to Sagan's personal archive, it follows his partnership with Ann Druyan, the Voyager Golden Record, and his years defending science in public.

The season closes November 19 with The Space Architect, directed by Rebecca Carpenter, a 42-minute film built around the final interview of Constance Adams, the architect who designed habitat concepts for NASA missions to Mars. Facing terminal cancer, Adams turns lessons from space exploration toward climate change on Earth, and the film animates the notebooks and sketches from her archive at Yale University.

If you go

All four screenings are Thursdays at 7 p.m. at the First United Methodist Church, 603 Main Street, Port Jefferson: October 29, November 5, November 12 and November 19. Tickets are $10 per film through the series website, and the $28 season pass covers the full season.

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