For the devoted cinéastes who patronize the city’s art houses — the sorts of movie fanatics who scour the late-night listings on Turner Movie Classics and prefer coffee to candy at theaters — perusing the schedules of repertory programming at Film Forum, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and the Anthology Film Archives is part of a weekly routine. If there’s still time left, they can also check the trailers at the Pioneer Theater, the Museum of the Moving Image, and Symphony Space.

With all the competition, it’s a wonder to some how all of them stay afloat. On the contrary — in the last two years, another venue has joined the club, drawing regular crowds away from those venerable institutions with the likes of Ozu and Altman, Fassbinder and Kurosawa. In the process, through limited weekend screenings and occasional series, the IFC Center on Sixth Avenue has emerged as a formidable contender, often featuring several more titles on a weekly and monthly basis than its counterparts, and screening those titles in perhaps the city’s best theater environment.

Since opening its doors in June 2005 and almost immediately launching into a special series of films by the subtle and sublime Japanese master Yasujiro Ozu, the IFC Center has enjoyed a consistent catalogue of classics. Typically, its repertory titles are packed into a “weekend classics” series, featuring 12 p.m. screenings every Friday, Saturday, and the occasional Sunday. Sometimes, the venue will also feature a two- to three-week series on a given filmmaker (the recent Robert Altman retrospective not only drew healthy crowds, but resurrected many of Altman’s least-known titles, overlooked in so many of the director’s obituaries last November). This weekend, in honor of Father’s Day, IFC co-programmer Harris Dew has scheduled one of Mr. Ozu’s lesser-known masterpieces, “There Was a Father,” a quiet 1942 film about a Japanese father struggling to raise a son by himself while trying to remain loyal to the empire as well.

Last week, Mr. Dew shared with the Sun the “weekend classics” schedule through late September — a continuation of IFC’s current tribute to Janus Films, the independent film company that celebrated its 50th anniversary last year, and for decades was the only major player attempting to bridge the gap between American audiences and foreign filmmakers.

Planning to continue the Janus retrospective — which began last year — through October, Mr. Dew said the current series offers him the rare opportunity to not only call attention to the films that defined a generation of moviegoers, but also to recognize the visionary film company that helped bring them to the world.

“There are virtually no independent film companies that have marked an anniversary,” he said. “It’s not all that outrageous for a major studio to mark a 50th anniversary, but for an independent company, it’s rather astonishing, given the difficulties of the business.”

But like IFC, Janus continues to find its niche in a chaotic market.

“Janus has made a big push to get these movies out there,” Mr. Dew said, “which is exciting because it means we get access to this amazing catalogue.”

While some of the chosen Janus titles are available in a recently released 50-film DVD boxed set, Mr. Dew — who, before joining IFC, bounced all over the movie world, from positions with the San Francisco International Film Festival to the Museum of Modern Art and Film Forum — said that the same crowds that are too impatient to wait for the new Gus van Sant or Lars von Trier film to come out on DVD prefer to see black-and-white classics in a movie theater instead of a on a television screen.

“Sure, DVDs have changed things, but I believe in my heart that repertory programming will never die,” Mr. Dew said. “Granted, it’s very dependent on the city, but we’re so lucky here in New York because New Yorkers know movies so well and we have such a committed and passionate film press that wants to support it, that knows their readers want to hear about it. At the end of the day, regardless of how great your flat screen TV is, or how great your Blue-ray discs are, you want to see movies with a community of people, to go out and make a night of it.”

It’s not just the quantity, but the surprising assortment that has made the IFC classics stand out — whether it’s this week’s Ozu selection, or next week’s “The Flowers of St. Francis,” Robert Rossellini’s devoutly silly 1950 film. The next few months will offer underappreciated films from Ingmar Bergman, Jean Renoir, Kenji Mizoguchi, and Federico Fellini.

Pouring over the last few years of weekend classics, Mr. Dew recalled two particular series, one a collection of François Traffuat films and another a daylong Rainer Fassbinder marathon, that attracted particularly passionate fans. From these crowds, he said, he often comes to recognize customers who return every day of a particular marathon. “It tends to go by filmmaker,” he said, “that if you’re a huge fan of Fassbinder, then you’re here for every show.”

And what of the competition with those established art houses, which now face yet another rival? “We haven’t been around as long as places like Film Forum, and we haven’t been able to develop the same audience they have over that amount of time. I’m hoping we’ll get there. But New York is such a huge town and New Yorkers are such film freaks — God love ‘em — that there’s certainly enough audience to go around. What we hope to do is add to that general dialogue, that a rising tide raises all ships.”

As for this weekend’s selection, Mr. Dew said he is a lifelong Ozu fan, and he hopes the director’s tale of fathers and families will find a way to connect to holiday audiences over the buzz of this weekend’s “Fantastic Four” sequel.

“It’s classic counterprogramming,” he said. “I’m sure there’s a section of the moviegoing public that will have to agonize over that: ‘Silver Surfer’ or Ozu? But hopefully they’ll do this one on Saturday and then that one on Sunday. That’s the beauty of New York: so many options.”