In the Holiday Movie Crush, a Few Twists Gregg Vigliotti for The New York Times Clockwise from top left: The vintage Picture House in Pelham and the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville have special events; the Alamo Drafthouse in Yonkers serves bar drinks and food seat-side. The Fourth of July it's fireworks. Thanksgiving Day it's turkey. Christmas week, it's movies, and lots of them. Schools release their students, studios release their awards contenders and the box office totals swell. In Westchester, movie lovers can join the throngs catching up with Middle Earth, Madea and Justin Bieber. But it's also possible to avoid the standardized multiplex experience in favor of something more unusual: Michael Caine and Miss Piggy squaring off in "The Muppet Christmas Carol" (1992) at the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville; last month's highly praised AIDS drama, "Dallas Buyers Club," at the vintage 1921 theater in Pelham, the Picture House; or Martin Scorsese's "Wolf of Wall Street" accompanied by a local craft beer at the county's newest specialty cinema, the Alamo Drafthouse in Yonkers. Unlike the nonprofit Burns and Picture House, the Alamo is a commercial enterprise, part of a raffish Texas-based chain. But its six-screen theater resembles none other in the area, and it's not just the ominous "Dr. Strangelove" mural in the lobby or the giveaway stacks of the eye-catching in-house magazine called Birth. Movies. Death. What most startles first-timers is the box office, a fully stocked bar with rows of gleaming bottles, an impressive array of beer taps and a blackboard listing of specials. The only thing you can buy there, however, is your ticket. The drinks, not to mention the burgers, salads and pizzas also on offer, can be bought only at your seat - by writing your order on a sheet of paper, not by touching a screen. In fact, small screens are frowned upon. Texting during a movie can result in expulsion. So can talking. Repeat offenders are barred, as are children under 3 (except at designated baby-friendly screenings). And no one under 18 gets in without a parent. Tim League, who opened the first Alamo Drafthouse in 1997 in Austin, Tex., wrote in an email, "The reason my wife, Karrie, and I got into the business in the first place was to create a fun theater where we would want to watch movies." The operative word is "fun." Mr. League has an enthusiast's appetite for movies high and low, and it's reflected in the programming. A recent week featured standard mall fare like "Thor: The Dark World," a showing of "Citizen Kane" (part of a series about journalists) and a sold-out "Home Alone" celebration with all-you-can-eat pizza and karaoke-style subtitles to encourage "quote-along" audience participation. Installed this summer in a 1977 complex that was most recently a Regal cinema, the Yonkers Alamo is the first step in the company's expansion into the New York area. Another specialty theater chain, Sundance Cinemas, is also headed east, with eight screens scheduled to open in the spring at the Rivertowns Square development in Dobbs Ferry. In keeping with its ritzy surroundings, it will have an art gallery and a restaurant on the premises. But patrons wanting to eat while watching indies, classics, foreign movies, documentaries and high-end commercial releases will be toting their own trays into the theater. In catering to audiences with a taste for such niche fare and adding post-film discussions with pertinent guests, Alamo and Sundance are following the lead of Westchester's 22-year-old art film hub, the Jacob Burns Film Center. Housed in a refurbished 1925 theater, it has attracted 6,000 members, who receive discounted admission to its 400 films a year and its popular special events. This month's selection included a live feed of the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of "Richard II," a screening of the Romanian film "Closer to the Moon" followed by a Q. and A. and reception with the director and a discussion of the science of "Gravity." The vibe is part cinematheque, part celebrity roadshow, epitomized by the classy yet entertaining kinetic sculpture in the lobby, a George Rhoads contraption that burbles and pings away as movie fans line up for the next show. Pelham's Picture House could be the Burns's younger sibling, although it lives in an older structure. Built as a movie theater in 1921, the Picture House was saved from demolition by a community group in 2005, and it ultimately reopened as a renovated nonprofit theater in 2011. With a motto that conveys some of its homespun charm - "Life Art Popcorn" - it is essentially a one-screen operation. But an unused office space off the lobby, outfitted with a screen and 14 faux-leather recliners, provides a micro-theater. In the main hall, Picture House programs mostly first-rank serious movies with a bit of delay - "All Is Lost," which played at Jacob Burns in October, arrived in Pelham this month. "People will wait if we let them know," said the executive director, Barbara Bratone. Seniors have a particular reason for waiting: Tuesday matinees are free. And here, too, there are special events, like filmmaker talks and the annual Westchester Italian Film Festival, available to the 600 members at a discount. Ms. Bratone said she welcomed the competition from Alamo and Sundance. "The more destinations there are," she said, "the more people will come." Especially this week. The Picture House, 175 Wolfs Lane, Pelham, (914) 738-7337, thepicturehouse.org. Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, 2548 Central Park Avenue, Yonkers, (914) 226-3082, drafthouse.com/nyc_area/yonkers. Jacob Burns Film Center, 364 Manville Road, Pleasantville, (914) 747-5555, burnsfilmcenter.org.