OutfestNEXT Los Angeles

OutfestNEXT is the smaller festival that Outfest, Los Angeles's LGBTQ film organisation, set up after its own collapse. UCLA students founded Outfest in 1982, and for four decades its summer festival showed films to audiences that it puts at nearly a million people in total. In 2023 management problems and financial setbacks forced it to stop programming. It laid off about 20 staff and postponed its Legacy Awards gala.

OutfestNEXT launched in November 2025, presented by HBO Max. It showed about 20 films over four days at the LA LGBT Center's Renberg Theatre and LOOK Cinema in Glendale. The 2026 edition, 23 to 26 July, was based at the Center's Village at Ed Gould Plaza in Hollywood. Films screened in the Renberg Theatre and Outfest's Microcinema, alongside workshops and panels for filmmakers. Gregg Araki's I Want Your Sex, starring Olivia Wilde and Margaret Cho, was the headline film. ABC7 counted 18 other features and more than 30 shorts. Members got tickets first, and Outfest warned that demand would be higher than the number of seats.

Outfest has said it plans to bring back the full Outfest Los Angeles festival. When we checked, it hadn't said when, and no 2027 dates had been announced.