Anyone familiar with the importance of community spaces knows already that an arcade is not just a place to play video games. Just as how music venues aren’t just for hearing bands, and bookstores aren’t just for buying books. As such, the original Chinatown Fair was not just any arcade either; its closure marked the closing of a chapter for those who called the place their home, as well as the end of an era for New York City as a whole.

Some of the best video game documentaries you’ll find are less about the games themselves and more about the games who play them, those who are affected by them. Yet The Lost Arcade truly stands out by not only depicting an intimate portrait of New York’s fighting game scene, and detailing the complicated relationship that the Big Apple has with public spaces dedicated to gaming in general, but by doing so in an unapologetically objective manner.

Simply put, you will not find a more fully realized, thoroughly researched, and... perhaps most important of all... engaging film document on the subject of video games and New York to both so-called experts on the subject and outside observers anywhere, period. Yes, The Lost Arcade is that damn good.