LA's $1 billion Lucas Museum of Narrative Art opens to the public on Tuesday, Sept. 22, in Exposition Park. The five-story, 300,000-square-foot building holds more than 1,300 works across more than 30 galleries, a rooftop restaurant with reservations booked into November and a free public library stocked with 30,000 comic books.

Tickets and admission

Adult tickets cost $25. Seniors 65 and older pay $21. Children 17 and younger, active-duty military, museum members and California EBT cardholders get in free, according to Visit California. Residents of the 90037 zip code, roughly 65,000 people in the museum's South LA neighborhood, can register for a free annual pass, The Art Newspaper reported.

Every visitor needs a timed-entry ticket reserved in advance. Reservations are available from Sept. 22 through February 2027.

Hours and getting there

The museum is closed Tuesdays. Hours are 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays; 10 a.m.–9 p.m. Fridays; 9 a.m.–9 p.m. Saturdays; and 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Sundays.

The address is One Lucas Plaza in Exposition Park, near the Natural History Museum and the California Science Center. The closest Metro stop is Expo/Vermont. Two paid parking lots sit on the museum campus, with four more lots in Exposition Park.

What to see first

The Los Angeles Times recommends taking the glass-tube elevators to the fourth floor and working down. The bulk of the galleries live on that level.

Star Wars fans should head to "Star Wars in Motion" on the fourth floor. Seven full-size, screen-used vehicles sit with no glass barrier, including Luke Skywalker's Landspeeder from the 1977 original and the first-ever physical build of General Grievous' Wheel Bike, the Times reported. The Wheel Bike had previously existed only as CGI; Lucas requested it be built for the museum.

CEO Tracey Bates told the Associated Press at a Sept. 2 press preview that Star Wars occupies only 7% of the inaugural exhibitions, as Spectrum News reported.

Beyond Star Wars

The collection spans Norman Rockwell paintings, a 1940 Frida Kahlo self-portrait, original Peanuts strips, the first Flash Gordon comic strip and an original Black Panther splash page. The original Cowardly Lion costume from "The Wizard of Oz" stands alone in the center of a room, its belly stitched with shoelace-style threading and its slippers tipped with sharp claws.

On the fifth floor, Banksy stencil works include a remake of "Girl With a Balloon," created after the street artist visited at Lucas' invitation. Black paint spots stain the wood floor below one piece known as "Crayon House."

"Is it fine art? It's finer art because it's actually telling a story," Lucas said at a museum event in early September, as quoted by the Los Angeles Times.

Skywalker Grill

The rooftop restaurant features curved cherry-wood walls, a full bar and an outdoor patio with views of the downtown LA skyline. The menu lists lobster corn dogs, Wagyu burgers sourced from Skywalker Ranch in Marin County and Dungeness crab cakes. It is open for lunch, dinner and weekend brunch.

No museum ticket is required to dine. Reservations are made through Resy, but tables are scarce. As of Sept. 8, the next available reservation for two was not until Wednesday, Nov. 18, the Los Angeles Times reported. A more casual first-floor café serves pizza and grilled cheese without a ticket.

Free stuff

The 13-acre campus, designed by Mia Lehrer of Studio-MLA, includes a free park open from 8 a.m. until sunset with more than 300 newly planted trees, an amphitheater and a waterfall called "The Rain." Ten outdoor sculptures dot the grounds, including a bronze of Princess Leia choking Jabba the Hutt with her chains.

The Research Library on the first floor is also free. Its shelves hold roughly 3,000 art books donated by Steve Martin and his wife Ann Martin, volumes from mythologist Joseph Campbell's personal library and materials from the former Skywalker Ranch Library. Orange carts carry signs of Yoda reading: "Reshelve, do not. Leave books here, you must!"

The museum was funded entirely by Lucas and co-founder Mellody Hobson. Construction began in 2018 on what was previously an asphalt parking lot.