You are here: Home 
Visit Giant-Screen Theater
Giant-Screen Theater
Charmaine and Maurice Kaplan Theater
Welcome to The Downing 3D Experience, the largest Dolby® 3D theater for a museum in California! Visitors to the San Diego Natural History Museum will be dazzled by the latest in digital 3D technology that delivers a premium viewing experience from anywhere in the 300-seat, stadium-style theater.
All film times subject to change daily. Assistive Listening Devices for films and lectures in the Charmaine and Maurice Kaplan Theater are available at the Visitor Services Desk.
Giant-screen theater included with paid admission. The 3D theater is included with Passports to Balboa Park, Go San Diego Cards and for members of the San Diego Natural History Museum. Tickets are available at the Visitor Services Desks at the Museum.
The Downing 3D Experience in the Charmaine and Maurice Kaplan Theater is sponsored by John and Tracy Downing, the Downing Family Foundation, the Eleanor and Jerry Navarra Family, Jerome’s Furniture, and Stephen Cohen, President, Private Asset Management, Inc.
Theater Schedule
Movie Trailers
Sea Rex 3D
Visitors will experience a wondrous adventure as they join Julie, an imaginative young woman, as she takes a unique voyage through time and space. The film explores an amazing underwater universe inhabited by larger-than-life creatures which ruled the seas millennia before dinosaurs conquered the Earth and even includes a face-to-face encounter with the "T. rex of the sea!"
Sharks 3D
Presented by Jean-Michel Cousteau, Sharks 3D offers audiences an astonishing up-close encounter with the lions and tigers of the ocean. Visitors will come face-to-face with a multitude of shark species, including the Great White, Hammerhead, and the Whale Shark. The film depicts sharks as they really are; not malicious man-eating creatures, but wild, fascinating and endangered animals that have been in existence millions of years before dinosaurs roamed the Earth.
Ocean Oasis
Take a fascinating journey into two remarkably different, but inextricably linked worlds—Mexico’s Sea of Cortés and the Baja California desert. Ocean Oasis , a giant-screen film, mesmerizes audiences as they witness the beauty of life in Baja California's rich waters and seemingly barren land. Note: Ocean Oasis is a 2D film.Produced by the San Diego Natural History Museum, Summerhays Films, and PRONATURA A.C., with sponsorship from Sempra Energy. Winner of the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival and the International Wildscreen Film Festival.
