Star Trek turns 60 with a four-block theatre marathon on the day The Man Trap aired

On 8 September 1966 NBC broadcast The Man Trap, the first episode of Star Trek. Sixty years later to the day, AMC and Cinemark are running an all-day theatrical marathon of digitally restored films paired with original-series episodes that had not been shown in cinemas. Cinemark’s published Eastern slots are 10:30 a.m., 2:40 p.m., 6:30 p.m. and 10:05 p.m. The run began on 4 September in more than 750 U.S. theatres and is built to peak on the anniversary Tuesday.

The pairings are the point of the exercise. The Motion Picture sits with The Changeling. The Wrath of Khan sits with Space Seed, the episode that introduced Khan Noonien Singh. The Voyage Home sits with The City on the Edge of Forever, the Harlan Ellison time-travel script. Each film is a new 4K restoration. Each companion episode is making its theatrical debut.

What else is on the date

The Autry Museum in Los Angeles is holding a free lawn screening of The Man Trap and an advance look at the Strange New Worlds episode Orders of Magnitude, with food trucks and unnamed talent. London’s Science Museum is running an adults-only evening built around a Guinness attempt for the most people performing the Vulcan salute at once. Entertainment Tonight aired an archive special on 7 September with Gene Roddenberry and franchise cast. The Price Is Right and Let’s Make a Deal scheduled Trek-themed episodes for the 8th. Nick at Nite put on a Big Bang Theory marathon of the show’s Trek-heavy episodes.

Regal sat out the September screenings. Its contribution is The Sixty-Year Mission: How Star Trek Changed Television and the World, a documentary written and directed by Mark A. Altman, executive produced by William Shatner, booked into Regal sites from 9 October with live question sessions at some locations.

Why the date still organises the calendar

The original series lasted three seasons and was cancelled. The films, the spin-offs and the current television line all treat 8 September 1966 as the founding stamp. The 2026 package is a distribution plan more than a museum show: put the first episode and the films that grew out of specific hours of that series into the same auditorium, on the anniversary, in 4K. The London salute attempt and the Autry lawn screening are the public rituals around that plan.

Anyone who wants the historical object rather than the argument can start at 10:30 a.m. Eastern with The Motion Picture and The Changeling, or at the Autry after dark with the episode that started the clock.