Anyone who doesn’t think of Los Angeles as an arts capital of the world at this point just isn’t paying attention. Not only do we have museums boasting Modernist masters and impressive Impressionists, but most of these world-class institutions offer a way to visit for free. Some offer free admis sion for L.A. County residents on weekday afternoons; some let visitors come for free one day a month or one day a week. But many museums—including objectively some of the very best in the city—are free all of the time. This week, we refreshed and reorganized our guide to L.A.’s best free museums with all of the most up-to-date details on when and how to check them out for free. And one museum continues to gravitate to the top: The Broad. Even though, compared to most of the entries on our list, the Broad is a relative newcomer—it opened the doors of its distinctive honeycomb-like building in 2015—it quickly made a splash both among the art world and on social media (remember when a selfie in the Infinity Mirror Room was the biggest flex in town?). But to the Broad’s credit, it has always backed up all the buzz with both style and substance. When determining our rankings of the best free museums, we balanced the level of free accessibility with the caliber of art and scope of each museum’s artistic and cultural programming. The Broad ticks all these boxes and then some. When philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad opened their namesake museum a decade ago, it was envisioned as a gift to Los Angeles that would make contemporary art accessible to all—and the free admission (even, on select nights, to otherwise paid exhibitions) has definitely helped make that goal a reality.   Photograph: Courtesy Unsplash/Rahul Chakraborty From the start, the building’s unique “veil and vault” design by Diller Scofidio + Renfro added visual interest from the outside along Grand Avenue, and helped get people in the door to explore the collection of 2,000 post-war and contemporary works from the Broads’ collection, including pieces by artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Mark Bradford, Jasper Johns, Jeff Koons, Barbara Kruger, Takashi Murakami, Robert Rauschenberg, Ed Ruscha, Cindy Sherman, Cy Twombly and Andy Warhol. And of course we can’t forget Yayoi Kusama—the museum has two of the artist’s immersive, mirror-laden rooms (one that you can step into, and one that you only pop your head into). And now you don’t even have to wait in long standby lines to step into Infinity Mirrored Room—The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away; you can book a free time slot as an add-on to your free museum ticket. Though the permanent collection is destination-worthy on its own, you can usually find a rotating special exhibition in the Broad’s first-floor galleries. The space has housed everything from Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson’s video piece The Visitors (which The Guardian named the best work of art of the 21st century) to a large-scale Kusama show. Last year, “Jeffrey Gibson: the space in which to place me” was one of our picks for the best exhibitions of the year. Arriving from the Venice Biennale, the show used foundational American documents to comment on Indigenous and queer oppression in a timely and surprisingly joyful way.     Photograph: Michael Juliano for Time Out“Robert Therrien: This Is a Story” at the Broad On view now through April 5 is “Robert Therrien: This Is a Story,” which expands on the late L.A.-based artist’s upstairs presence; his popular Under the Table was actually the very first artwork installed in the museum. And coming up this year, “Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind”—the artist, musician and activist’s first-ever solo museum show in Southern California—is one of the exhibitions we’re most excited about in 2026. That’ll open May 23 and run through October 11. Though these special exhibitions typically require a separate paid ticket (admission to the Robert Therrien retrospective is $19), there’s even a way to see those buzzworthy shows sans the price of admission. On Thursday evenings, you can check out the current show for free from 5 to 8pm, with a public tour of the exhibition at 6pm (book a ticket here).   Courtesy of The Broad. © Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R). Rendering by Plomp.Exterior rendering of the future Broad expansion from Hope Street. What’s more, a large-scale museum expansion is in the works, which will add three floors and 55,000 square feet of new gallery space above the parking lot, amounting to a whopping 70% increase of the museum’s footprint. There will be room for expanded displays of well-known artists like Warhol, Basquiat and Koons, as well as artists new to the Broad collection, like Cauleen Smith, Lauren Halsey and Patrick Martinez, as well as other overlooked artists and movements. The expanded galleries will be complemented by top-floor courtyards and live programming spaces that will host performances and concerts. You’ll also be able to actually stroll among the racks of paintings housed inside the museum vault, which normally can only be glimpsed from the elevator. And yes, the Broad will still be free. The expansion is scheduled to be completed in 2028.     Photograph: Michael Juliano for Time OutThe Getty Center. As for the rest of our list: In the No. 2 spot is the iconic Getty Center, which boasts a calendar of classy, free programs throughout the year—not to mention hilltop views that are as stunning as its collection of Impressionist paintings (including Van Gogh’s Irises), drawings, illuminated manuscripts, photography and more. In the No. 3 spot is the Hammer Museum, which regularly hosts exciting exhibitions of cutting-edge art, including the biennial “Made in L.A.” exhibition that’s become a cornerstone of the city’s local arts scene. You can catch this most recent iteration through March 1. Rounding out the top five are MOCA Grand Avenue, right across the street from the Broad, and the Getty Villa, which reopened last summer after surviving the Palisades Fire. Farther down on the list, you’ll also find eminently worthy museums including LACMA, the Natural History Museum and the Autry Museum of the American West—those aren’t free all the time, but we’ve detailed when and how you can visit without paying. As Los Angeles prepares to take center stage in a big way—starting this summer with the World Cup, followed by the Super Bowl in 2027 and especially the 2028 Summer Olympics—this year many museums are unveiling renovations, expansions or completely new permanent exhibitions in time to welcome scores of new visitors. And then there are brand-new museums that we can’t wait to check out: namely the long-awaited Lucas Museum of Narrative Art and Dataland, the world’s first museum of AI arts. It’s still TBD whether either of these eagerly anticipated museums, which are sure to be a hot ticket, will offer ways to visit for free. ...read more read less