🍿 Weekend Special: Free Willy at the Bay Theatre

Free Willy makes a splash at a Bay Theatre Saturday matinee

In downtown Morro Bay. The Bay Theatre’s Weekend Specials series screens Free Willy on Saturday, August 29 at 1:00 PM, one showing only. The 1993 family classic about a boy and a captive orca remains the gateway ocean movie for generations of kids, and a Saturday matinee four blocks from an actual working harbor, where real whales pass offshore all year, is the right room for it.

Weekend Specials are the daytime sibling of the theatre’s Monday Specials, single showings of family classics and crowd-pleasers slotted around the main feature’s run. A 1 PM matinee splits a summer Saturday neatly: beach in the morning, movie through the early afternoon, and the whole evening still open. The film’s message about wild animals belonging in the wild plays even better here, in a town whose whole identity is built around a living bay.

The Bay Theatre is Morro Bay’s single-screen downtown movie house at 464 Morro Bay Blvd, a block off the Embarcadero, where a night at the movies still comes with a real marquee and walkable dinner options on either side of the show. The theatre is closed Thursdays. Check the show page for admission details before heading down.

For more family matinees and film nights around the bay, see what is coming up on the event calendar.