Opens the museum's own website. Book on the official site; nothing is charged on this page.
Area
Hollywood
Theme
Film, music & cars
The Hollywood Museum sits inside the 1935 Max Factor Building on North Highland Avenue, the Art Deco landmark where the makeup legend once matched actresses to their "color seasons" on the ground floor. Four floors of the building now hold one of the largest collections of Hollywood memorabilia anywhere: costumes, props, photographs, personal effects and set pieces spanning more than a century of the movies. It sits steps from the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the Hollywood & Highland intersection, which makes it one of the easiest museums in Los Angeles to fold into a day of sightseeing. Admission is $15 at the door, the museum is closed Monday and Tuesday, and the whole visit fits comfortably inside a couple of hours.
What Is The Hollywood Museum?
The Hollywood Museum is a four-floor memorabilia museum inside the historic Max Factor Building at 1660 North Highland Avenue in Hollywood, dedicated to the history of American film and its stars. Its collection spans costumes, props, photographs, scripts and personal items from more than a century of movie-making, and it is one of the few museums in Los Angeles devoted entirely to show business history rather than art or science.
The building itself is half the story. Max Factor, the cosmetics impresario whose name still sits on makeup counters worldwide, opened his salon here in 1935, and the ground floor has been restored to its golden-age appearance, complete with the four famous makeup rooms once assigned by hair color. Above it, three more floors of galleries carry the collection chronologically and thematically, from silent-era photographs to television and more recent cinema.
Unlike the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on Wilshire Boulevard, which approaches film as an art form through immersive installations, The Hollywood Museum is closer to a walkable archive of the stars themselves. Expect glass cases of gowns, personal letters, awards, props and publicity stills, densely displayed and labelled. Visitors who like their museum-going curated and minimal may find it old-fashioned; visitors who want to stand inches from a costume worn by a screen legend tend to love it.
The museum's location is a genuine asset. It sits at the eastern end of the Hollywood Boulevard tourist strip, a short walk from the Walk of Fame, the TCL Chinese Theatre and the El Capitan. That makes it a natural pairing with Madame Tussauds Hollywood a few blocks west on Hollywood Boulevard, though the two are very different experiences: one is wax figures, the other is authentic screen-worn material.
The museum's ground floor preserves the restored Max Factor salon, where studio stars had their makeup done from 1935 onward.
How Much Are The Hollywood Museum Tickets?
General admission to The Hollywood Museum is $15 at the door, and tickets are bought through the museum's own site or in person. There is no third-party ticket product for this museum, so the official hours and admission page is the place to confirm current prices and any concession rates before you go. The museum is not free.
At $15, The Hollywood Museum sits at the affordable end of Los Angeles museum admissions. For comparison, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures charges $25, the Petersen Automotive Museum charges $22, and Madame Tussauds Hollywood charges $29 at the door. The Hollywood Museum is one of the cheapest paid museums in the city, and for a four-floor collection in a landmark building it represents solid value for a film fan.
Ticket
Price
General admission
$15
Concessions (seniors, students, children)
on the official site
Special events or tours
on the official site
A note on where to buy: The Hollywood Museum sells its own tickets, and no major reseller carries a Los Angeles museum product that includes it. Do not look for this ticket on Tiqets, Klook or Trip.com; none of those platforms sells any Los Angeles museum. The Go City Los Angeles pass is the city's real attraction pass, but check its current attraction list on the official site before assuming this museum is included.
Because the museum is closed two days a week and has a modest footprint, tickets rarely sell out the way timed-entry museums downtown do. Buying at the door is normal here. The one thing worth doing in advance is checking the official hours page for holiday closures or special-event days, which can shift the schedule around premieres and award-season activity in the neighbourhood.
Where Do You Park At The Hollywood Museum?
Parking near The Hollywood Museum is paid and comes from the commercial lots and garages around the Hollywood and Highland corridor, not from the museum itself. No verified parking price for this museum exists, so treat any figure a lot attendant quotes as the current rate and check the museum's own visit page for any validated or recommended lot before you drive.
Hollywood is one of the hardest parking districts in Los Angeles, and the blocks around North Highland Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard are a mix of city meters, surface lots and multi-storey garages. Rates vary by lot and by day, and they climb sharply on event nights at the nearby theatres and on weekends. The practical advice is to decide your parking strategy before you arrive rather than circling.
Three options, in order of convenience. First, the large commercial garages around the Hollywood & Highland area are the closest structured parking, typically a five-minute walk to the museum, but they price for tourists and events. Second, street meters on the side streets off Hollywood Boulevard run cheaper but are time-limited, and a museum visit plus lunch will usually outlast the maximum. Third, arriving by rideshare or transit avoids the problem entirely, which is worth taking seriously here.
If you are doing a Hollywood museum day, one parking decision can cover two museums. The museum is a short walk from Madame Tussauds Hollywood on Hollywood Boulevard, so a single garage spot can serve both. Compare that with the Miracle Mile cluster, where the Petersen Automotive Museum has its own paid structure and the Academy Museum sits in an Exposition Park-adjacent lot district. In Hollywood, plan on paying for parking and budget your time around it.
How Do You Get To The Hollywood Museum By Transit?
The Hollywood Museum at 1660 North Highland Avenue is a short walk from the Hollywood/Highland station on the Metro B Line, making it one of the most transit-accessible museums in Los Angeles. Riders can plan the trip on metro.net; the museum sits two blocks from the station exit, and the walk passes along the Walk of Fame.
The B Line, the red heavy-rail subway, runs from Downtown Los Angeles through Hollywood and on into the San Fernando Valley. Hollywood/Highland is the station for the museum, and the walk from the station is flat and along the tourist strip. Union Station connects the B Line to the rest of the Metro system, so a visitor staying downtown can reach the museum without a car in roughly twenty minutes of riding plus the walk.
Transit is worth considering seriously here, more than at almost any other museum on this site. Hollywood parking is paid, event-driven and congested, and the subway bypasses all of it. A car-free visit also pairs naturally with the rest of the Hollywood Boulevard strip: the Walk of Fame, the TCL Chinese Theatre forecourt and Madame Tussauds Hollywood are all within a few blocks of the same station.
For visitors combining museums across the city, the B Line also links Hollywood to Downtown Los Angeles, where The Broad, MOCA Grand Avenue and the GRAMMY Museum sit in or near the B Line's corridor. The reverse trip works too: a Downtown morning at a free museum followed by a Hollywood afternoon here is a realistic one-day itinerary by rail.
What Are The Hours And How Long Should You Allow?
The Hollywood Museum is closed Monday and Tuesday, and open the rest of the week; current opening hours are stated on the museum's official hours page. Most visitors allow one to two hours for the full four floors, which makes it a short visit by museum standards and easy to combine with other Hollywood sights in the same afternoon.
Fact
Detail
Address
1660 North Highland Avenue, Hollywood, CA 90028
Area
Hollywood
Hours
on the official site
Closed
Monday and Tuesday
Admission
$15
Parking
paid, on the official site
Time to allow
1 to 2 hours
The two-day closure matters more here than at most museums, because Hollywood itself is a seven-day-a-week destination. A visitor who plans a Monday or Tuesday around the Walk of Fame will find the museum doors shut, so check the closed days first and build the itinerary around them. The rest of the strip, including Madame Tussauds Hollywood, keeps its own schedule, so the museum is the fixed point to plan around.
One to two hours is the honest window. The building is four floors, but the galleries are densely packed rather than sprawling, and there is no cafe or sculpture garden to linger in. Film buffs who read every label can stretch toward two hours; a brisk walk-through takes closer to one. Either way, this is not an all-day museum, and the neighbourhood supplies the rest of the day.
Dense display cases of screen-worn costumes and props fill the upper floors of the Max Factor Building.
Is The Hollywood Museum Worth Visiting?
The Hollywood Museum is worth visiting for anyone with a genuine interest in classic Hollywood and its stars, and at $15 it is one of the cheapest paid museum tickets in Los Angeles. It is not worth the trip for a visitor with only a passing interest in film history, who would get more from the Walk of Fame outside or from the more interpretive Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.
The case for it rests on density and authenticity. The collection is large, the displays are close and unpretentious, and the Max Factor Building gives the visit a real sense of place that a purpose-built museum cannot manufacture. Standing in the restored salon where studio-era actresses had their makeup done is a tangible piece of industry history, and the upper floors deliver the costume-and-prop encounter that most visitors come for.
The case against it is the flip side. The presentation is traditional rather than interactive, the building is not large, and a visitor expecting the production values of a major institution may find it modest. Families with young children, in particular, may find the glass-case format less engaging than the Petersen Automotive Museum's cars or Madame Tussauds Hollywood's photo-op wax figures.
The sensible framing is as part of a Hollywood day rather than a destination on its own. Pair it with the Walk of Fame and the Chinese Theatre forecourt, both free and both outside the door, and the $15 admission becomes the indoor anchor of a cheap afternoon. Arrive Wednesday through Sunday, take the B Line if you can, and check the official hours page the day before for any schedule changes.
Questions People Ask
How much are tickets to The Hollywood Museum?
General admission is $15 at the door. Concession prices, if offered, are listed on the museum's official hours and admission page, which is also where tickets are bought. There is no third-party ticket seller for this museum.
What days is The Hollywood Museum closed?
The museum is closed Monday and Tuesday. It is open the rest of the week, though exact opening hours should be confirmed on the official site before visiting, since holiday and event schedules in Hollywood can shift them.
Where is The Hollywood Museum located?
The museum is at 1660 North Highland Avenue, Hollywood, CA 90028, inside the historic 1935 Max Factor Building. It sits at the eastern end of the Hollywood Boulevard tourist strip, a short walk from the Walk of Fame and the TCL Chinese Theatre.
Is there parking at The Hollywood Museum?
The museum does not have a verified parking price of its own. Parking in the Hollywood and Highland corridor is paid, drawn from commercial lots, garages and meters, and rates rise on event nights. Check the museum's official visit page for any recommended or validated lot.
Can you get to The Hollywood Museum by public transit?
Yes. The museum is a short walk from the Hollywood/Highland station on the Metro B Line subway, which runs from Downtown Los Angeles through Hollywood. Trip planning is available on metro.net, and arriving by rail avoids Hollywood's paid parking entirely.
How long does a visit to The Hollywood Museum take?
Most visitors allow one to two hours. The museum occupies four floors of the Max Factor Building, but the galleries are densely displayed rather than sprawling, so it works well as part of a Hollywood afternoon rather than a full-day outing.
Can you buy The Hollywood Museum tickets on Tiqets, Klook or Trip.com?
No. None of those platforms sells any Los Angeles museum ticket, including this one. Tickets come through the museum's own hours and admission page or at the door.
Is The Hollywood Museum free?
No. Admission is $15, and the museum is not free at any time. It is, however, one of the cheapest paid museums in Los Angeles, costing less than the Academy Museum, the Petersen Automotive Museum or Madame Tussauds Hollywood.
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