A movie theater, cinema, or cinema hall, also known as a movie house, picture house, picture theater or simply theater, is a business that contains auditoria for viewing movies for public entertainment. Most are commercial operations catering to the general public, who attend by purchasing tickets.
The nickelodeon was the first type of indoor exhibition space dedicated to showing projected motion pictures in the United States and Canada. Usually set up in converted storefronts, these small, simple theaters charged five cents for admission and flourished from about 1905 to 1915. American cable station Nickelodeon was named after the theater.
The Kinetoscope is an early motion picture exhibition device, designed for films to be viewed by one person at a time through a peephole viewer window. The Kinetoscope was not a movie projector, but it introduced the basic approach that would become the standard for all cinematic projection before the advent of video: it created the illusion of movement by conveying a strip of perforated film bearing sequential images over a light source with a high-speed shutter. First described in conceptual terms by U.S. inventor Thomas Edison in 1888, it was largely developed by his employee William Kennedy Laurie Dickson between 1889 and 1892. Dickson and his team at the Edison lab in New Jersey also devised the Kinetograph, an innovative motion picture camera with rapid intermittent, or stop-and-go, film movement, to photograph movies for in-house experiments and, eventually, commercial Kinetoscope presentations.
Vitagraph Studios, also known as the Vitagraph Company of America, was a United States motion picture studio. It was founded by J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith in 1897 in Brooklyn, New York, as the American Vitagraph Company. By 1907, it was the most prolific American film production company, producing many famous silent films. It was bought by Warner Bros. in 1925.
The ByTowne Cinema is a one-screen repertory movie theatre located in Ottawa, Ontario, The cinema is one of Ottawa's main venues for independent and foreign films. The 650-seat cinema is located on Rideau Street at Nelson, several blocks east of the Rideau Centre. It was closed on December 24, 2020, with a final week of screenings shown on February 26 to March 7, 2021. The cinema reopened under new ownership on September 8, 2021.
A movie palace is a large, elaborately decorated movie theater built from the 1910s to the 1940s. The late 1920s saw the peak of the movie palace, with hundreds opening every year between 1925 and 1930. With the advent of television, movie attendance dropped, while the rising popularity of large multiplex chains in the 1980s and 1990s signaled the obsolescence of single-screen theaters. Many movie palaces were razed or converted into multiple-screen venues or performing arts centers, though some have undergone restoration and reopened to the public as historic buildings.
The Benevolent Irish Society (BIS) is a philanthropic organization founded on 17 February 1806, a month before the Feast of St. Patrick, in St. John's, Newfoundland. It is the oldest philanthropic organization in North America. Membership is open to adult residents of Newfoundland who are of Irish birth or ancestry, regardless of religious persuasion. The BIS is a charitable, fraternal, middle-class social organization founded on the principles of "benevolence and philanthropy", and had as its original objective of helping the growing numbers of poor in St. John's, and providing the necessary skills which would enable people to better themselves. The rules of the BIS prohibited members from formally discussing political or religious questions, but the Society occasionally took a public political stand. In 1829 it participated in a large parade through St. John's to celebrate Roman Catholic Emancipation.
Marcus Loew was an American business magnate and a pioneer of the motion picture industry who formed Loew's Theatres and the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio (MGM).
The Stanley Theater at Kennedy Boulevard and Pavonia Avenue is a historic theater in Journal Square in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Greater Union Organisation Pty Ltd, trading as Event Cinemas, Greater Union, GU Film House, Moonlight Cinema and Birch Carroll & Coyle, is the largest movie exhibitor in Australia and New Zealand, with over 140 cinema complexes currently operating worldwide.
Alexander Pantages was a Greek American vaudeville impresario and early motion picture producer. He created a large and powerful circuit of theatres across the Western United States and Canada.
The Masonic Temple built in 1894 at St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada is an example of Victorian construction which includes pilasters, free-standing columns and multiple pediments. The Masonic Temple was designated a Registered Heritage Structure by the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador in April 1995.
The Paramount Theatre was a 3,664-seat movie palace located at 43rd Street and Broadway on Times Square in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Opened in 1926, it was a showcase theatre and the New York headquarters of Paramount Pictures. Adolph Zukor, founder of Paramount predecessor Famous Players Film Company, maintained an office in the building until his death in 1976. The Paramount Theatre eventually became a popular live performance venue. The theater was closed in 1964 and its space converted to office and retail use. The tower which housed it, known as the Paramount Building at 1501 Broadway, is in commercial use as an office building and is still home to Paramount Pictures offices.
The Nickel Independent Film Festival is an annual film festival held in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The festival was conceived in 2001 by filmmaker Roger Maunder to allow local filmmakers to exhibit their film and video work. The festival is named after the Nickel Theatre which was the first theatre in Newfoundland to have talking film feature movies. Since then the festival has grown to include other Canadian and even international short films, features, documentaries and music videos. The festival is held at the LSPU hall which is run by the Resource Centre for the Arts, an artist-run company.
The Strand Theatre was an early movie palace located at 1579 Broadway, at the northwest corner of 47th Street and Broadway in Times Square, New York City. Opened in 1914, the theater was later known as the Mark Strand Theatre, the Warner Theatre, and the Cinerama Theatre. It closed as the RKO Warner Twin Theatre, and was demolished in 1987.
The Danforth Music Hall is a music venue and event theatre on Danforth Avenue in the neighbourhood of Riverdale in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is served by Broadview station on the TTC's Bloor–Danforth line. The building was designated as a property of historic interest under the Ontario Heritage Act in 1985.
The timeline of St. John's history shows the significant events in the history of St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador.
John Hamrick (1875–1956) was an American entrepreneur in the theater business. He leased and owned a large number of vaudeville and movie theaters in the Northwest from at least the early 1920s until the late 1940s. Hamrick lived in Seattle, Washington and eventually assembled a string of theaters that included the Rex Theatre, which he was in charge of as early as 1913. the Oriental Theatre in Portland, Oregon, the Beverly, several Blue Mouse Theatres, the Music Box Theatre, the Riviera Theatre, and the Roxy Theatre. Hamrick also owned several theaters in Seattle and is generally credited as being the first Seattle theater owner to show "talking pictures."
John Stanley Coombe Beard FRIBA, known professionally as J. Stanley Beard, was an English architect known for designing many cinemas in and around London.
Ozone Theatres Ltd, formerly Ozone Picture Company and then Ozone Amusements Ltd, was a cinema chain based in Adelaide, South Australia, from 1911 until 1951, when it sold its theatres to Hoyts. It was founded by Hugh Waterman and friends, and was jointly run by him and seven sons, including Clyde Waterman and Sir Ewen McIntyre Waterman. S.A. Theatres and Ozone Theatres were subsidiary companies, and the chain was referred to as the Ozone circuit. It was one of two major film exhibitors in the state from after World War I until the late 1940s, the other being D. Clifford Theatres Limited. After 1938, Ozone dominated the market.
