The Thalia is back.

After being closed for most of the past 15 years, the legendary revival house at 95th Street and Broadway – where for decades legions of film buffs devoured double bills of foreign and American films – reopened this weekend.

To mark the occasion, the Thalia today is offering free screenings of movies about New York.

Next Saturday, the 175-seat theater will kick off a 14-weekend series of classic French flicks (sorry, but you’ll have to pay to see them), starting with Marcel Carne’s “Les Enfants du Paradise” (1944).

In July, the Thalia goes to daily double features, returning to weekend-only screenings in the fall.

Fabiano Canosa, a longtime fixture on the New York movie scene, will handle programming for the Thalia, which is located in the basement of Symphony Space, the cultural institution best known for its “Selected Shorts” program.

The biggest challenge for the theater, Canosa told Cine File, has been tracking down watchable prints, as it’s not economical for studios to produce new ones.

“We’re fiercely trying to get the best we can,” he said.

“We want to keep repertory films alive,” added Joanne Cossa, executive vice president of Symphony Space.

Named for the muse of comedy and pastoral poetry, the Thalia was a film mecca from 1931 to 1987.

There were several attempts to revive it after 1987, but none was successful.

A long-running real estate battle ended in 1996, allowing Symphony Space to redevelop its site, including the Thalia.

The redesigned movie house bears little resemblance to its forebear.

Gone are the quirky rounded marquee, the musty smell that intoxicated movie lovers and the aisles that slanted up instead of down.

The reborn Thalia has a sleek modern look, a larger screen and a cafe.

That’s great, but we somehow miss the seedy charm that made the Thalia what it was.

* The Japan Society’s annual showcase of new films from Japan is upon us.

Nine features and two shorts are on tap, starting Wednesday with “Vegeance Is Such a Great Business” (2001), a samurai comedy, no less, by veteran helmer Kihachi Okamoto.

The series runs through June 21 at the Japan Society, 333 E. 47th St. Details: http://www.japansociety.org.