LACMA Art + Film Gala 2026: Nicole Kidman, Kim Kardashian and Rosé Light Up the Night

Los Angeles throws a lot of parties. This one was different.

Saturday night, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art lit up its courtyard for the 2026 Art + Film Gala — the fifteenth one, if you’re counting — and the guest list felt like someone had shaken the whole entertainment world into a single room and let it settle. Nicole Kidman, in a Chanel dress that looked half ballet costume, half fever dream. Kim Kardashian, head to toe in burgundy sequins. Rosé, on stage, singing to a crowd that included half of Hollywood. Not bad for a museum fundraiser.

That’s the trick of this gala, really. It’s been going since 2011, and every fall it manages to be two things at once: a serious night for art and film, and one of the most photographed red carpets of the season. This year the museum honored painter Vija Celmins — one of the most respected artists of her generation, famous for work that digs into the beauty and the mess of the natural world — and Denis Villeneuve, the guy behind the Dune movies, who might be the most influential director working right now. Leonardo DiCaprio and LACMA trustee Eva Chow co-chaired, like they always do. Gucci presented the whole thing.

And yes, the money matters. The gala funds LACMA’s push to put film front and center in how the museum programs — exhibitions, acquisitions, education, screenings, the lot. But let’s not kid ourselves. Most of us were watching for the dresses.

Kidman, in Chanel, Just About Stole the Night

If one arrival made the photographers put their cameras down for a second just to look, it was Nicole Kidman.

She’s 59, she’s an Oscar winner, and she walked into her first LACMA gala wearing a Chanel dress with a fitted long-sleeved bodice and a big, playful white tulle skirt — the kind of thing that makes you think of a ballerina who wandered into a couture atelier and decided to stay. Messy high ponytail. Black strappy heels. Soft, rosy makeup. She posed by Chris Burden’s Urban Light, that famous grid of old street lamps that turns into the gala’s red carpet every single year, and honestly? The lamps have never looked better.

Kidman’s been on a tear lately. Film after film, red carpet after red carpet, and every time she shows up, she gives people something to talk about. Saturday was no exception. She even posed next to Villeneuve himself — one of the great actors of her generation standing beside one of the great directors of his — and the photo landed exactly the way you’d expect. The kind of image this gala exists to produce.

There’s something right about her being here, too. Her career has always lived in that space between art and film — the prestige pictures, the weird choices, the roles where she disappears completely and then turns up on a carpet looking like she stepped out of a magazine shoot. Saturday night, she didn’t just show up. She took a piece of the evening home with her.

Kim Kardashian, Burgundy Sequins, Zero Surprises

Then Kim Kardashian arrived, and look — nobody was surprised. This is her event now, as much as anyone’s.

She wore sparkling burgundy Gucci sequins, a gown with a back cutout that curved around her hips, the kind of silhouette that does exactly what a Kardashian red carpet moment is built to do. Stop the scroll. Get the screenshot. Dominate the group chat. She has the LACMA gala down to a science at this point: no half measures, no playing it safe, ever.

What made it more impressive was the week she’d just had. Days in New York promoting season two of her Hulu legal drama All’s Fair — morning shows, premieres, a different statement look every few hours — and then she flew across the country, switched coasts, and turned up at LACMA looking like she’d spent a week getting ready. The stamina is honestly part of the act at this point. She treats this gala like a tradition, and she dresses like it.

Kylie Jenner was there too, so the Kardashian-Jenner presence stayed firmly intact. Between the two of them, the sisters have become as much a part of this night as the lamps outside.

Rosé Sang, and the Room Listened

The musical guest was Rosé, and that booking tells you everything about where this gala sits now.

She’s spent the last couple of years breaking records as a solo artist, playing the biggest stages on the planet, and building a fashion profile to match — global ambassador for some of the biggest luxury houses around. At LACMA she performed in Saint Laurent, because of course she did, in front of a room packed with actors, directors, artists, and executives who all stopped what they were doing to watch.

Here’s the thing, though. Rosé isn’t just a name on a poster. She’s joining a list of past LACMA performers that includes Stevie Wonder, Florence and the Machine, Elton John, and Charli XCX. That’s not a warm-up slot. That’s a lineage. And she held it — up close, in a museum courtyard, with those glowing lamps behind her.

It’s a good snapshot of what this event has become. What started in 2011 as a museum fundraiser is now one of those rare nights where music, film, fashion, and art actually collide in the same room. Rosé on stage. Villeneuve being honored a few feet away. Kidman posing by the lamps. It shouldn’t work. It does.

The Guest List Just Kept Going

But here’s what people forget about LACMA: the headliners are only half of it.

The full list read like someone had raided a casting director’s Rolodex. Anya Taylor-Joy. Andrew Garfield. Viola Davis. Sarah Paulson. Sienna Miller. Sofia Vergara. Quinta Brunson. Paris Hilton. Irina Shayk. Emily Ratajkowski. Elsa Hosk. Monica Barbaro. Jessica Williams. Ashley Park. Tom Hanks. Timothée Chalamet. Salma Hayek Pinault, there with her husband François-Henri Pinault. Even Hrithik Roshan flew in — the first mainstream Indian actor to grace the event, in a custom Brunello Cucinelli tuxedo, no less.

And the clothes. Gucci was everywhere, because Gucci was presenting — Rosie Huntington-Whiteley in a sculptural backless gown, Alex Consani in a twisted creation that looked like it was defying gravity. But it wasn’t a one-brand night. Kidman’s Chanel. Rosé’s Saint Laurent. The range on display was wild, and that’s the point. Stylists treat this gala like a mini Met Gala now, and the stars clearly agree.

What makes the list work, though, is that it isn’t just actors and models. Artists, musicians, athletes, entrepreneurs, philanthropists — they all mix in a way that doesn’t happen at a premiere or an awards show. Lindsey Vonn was there. Monica Lewinsky was there. It’s a museum event, after all. Museums belong to everyone, and for one night a year, the guest list actually looks like it.

Fifteen Years In, It Isn’t Slowing Down

Last year’s gala honored artist Mary Corse and filmmaker Ryan Coogler, with nearly 600 guests in the room. This year’s fifteenth edition felt bigger — and the honorees said a lot about why.

Celmins makes work about the natural world — detailed, patient, the kind of art that rewards you for actually standing still and looking. Villeneuve makes films that do the same thing on a massive scale, movies that have changed what a blockbuster is allowed to look like. Put them together and you get the whole idea of the night in a nutshell: art and film, side by side, taken seriously.

It’s easy to get distracted by the sequins. Honestly, that’s half the fun. But underneath the glamour, the gala pays for real things — exhibitions, acquisitions, education, screenings that keep film at the heart of what LACMA does. The red carpet is the hook. The museum is the point.

By the end of the night, the lamps were still glowing over the courtyard, the crowd was still buzzing, and the 2026 gala felt like a statement. Fifteen years in, it hasn’t lost its pull. If anything, it’s only getting stronger. The stars keep coming. The fashion keeps getting bolder. The honorees keep getting bigger. And somewhere in the middle — between Kidman’s tulle skirt and Rosé’s performance and Kardashian’s burgundy sequins — a museum in Los Angeles raised the money to keep art and film exactly where they belong. Right at the center of it all.

Source: Just Jared