A grindhouse or action house is an American term for a theatre that mainly shows low-budget horror, splatter, and exploitation films for adults. According to historian David Church, this theater type was named after the "grind policy", a film-programming strategy dating back to the early 1920s which continuously showed films at cut-rate ticket prices that typically rose over the course of each day. This exhibition practice was markedly different from the era's more common practice of fewer shows per day and graduated pricing for different seating sections in large urban theatres, which were typically studio-owned.
A movie palace is any of the large, elaborately decorated movie theaters built between the 1910s and 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.
El Capitan Theatre is a fully restored movie palace at 6838 Hollywood Boulevard in the Hollywood neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, United States. The theater and adjacent Hollywood Masonic Temple is owned by The Walt Disney Company and serves as the venue for a majority of the Walt Disney Studios' film premieres.
Landmark Theatres is a movie theatre chain founded in 1974 in the United States. It was formerly dedicated to exhibiting and marketing independent and foreign films. Landmark consists of 34 theatres with 176 screens in 24 markets. It is known for both its historic and newer, more modern theatres. Helmed by its President Kevin Holloway, Landmark Theatres is part of Cohen Media Group.
Powers Auditorium, in Youngstown, Ohio is one of the largest auditoriums in the Youngstown-Warren area. The facility is the main venue of downtown Youngstown's DeYor Performing Arts Center. The complex also includes the Adler Art Academy, Beecher Flad Pavilion, and Ford Family Recital Hall. Originally built in 1931 as the Warner Theatre, the former movie palace was renovated and reopened as Powers Auditorium in 1969.
The Million Dollar Theatre at 307 S. Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles is one of the first movie palaces built in the United States. It opened in 1917 with the premiere of William S. Hart's The Silent Man. It's the northernmost of the collection of historical movie palaces in the Broadway Theater District and stands directly across from the landmark Bradbury Building. The theater is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
The James M. Nederlander Theatre is a theater located at 24 West Randolph Street in the Loop area of downtown Chicago, Illinois. Previously known as the Oriental Theatre, it opened in 1926 as a deluxe movie palace and vaudeville venue. Today the Nederlander presents live Broadway theater and is operated by Broadway In Chicago, currently seating 2,253.
The Golden Bough Playhouse is a historic three-story theatre in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California on Monte Verde St., between 8th and 9th Avenues. The playhouse occupies the site of the former Carmel Arts and Crafts Club, Carmel's first cultural center and theatre, built in 1906–1907 on Casanova Street, and the Arts and Crafts Hall, built in 1923–1924 on an adjacent lot on Monte Verde Street. Since 1994, the facility has been owned and operated by Pacific Repertory Theatre, Monterey County's only year-round professional theatre company. A two-phase renovation of the aging facility began with an interior building project in 2011. A second phase project, including both interior and exterior renovations, is scheduled for 2023-2024. The theatre was recorded with the National Register of Historic Places on July 3, 2002. It is significant as a California historic building because it is located on the original site of the Carmel Arts and Crafts Club and Hall, the oldest indoor performing arts venues in Carmel.
The Somerville Theatre is an independent movie theater and concert venue in the Davis Square neighborhood of Somerville, Massachusetts, United States. Over one hundred years old, the Somerville Theatre started off as a vaudeville house and movie theater. The theater has since transitioned and now operates as a live music venue and first-run movie theater. As a music venue, the theater has played host to many historic concerts, including the first of the two Last Dispatch concerts, two shows by Bruce Springsteen in 2003, and a performance by U2 in 2009. Recent live performances have included Ryan Adams & the Cardinals, Cursive, Norah Jones, The Jonas Brothers, Joan Baez, and the John Butler Trio.
An atmospheric theatre is a type of movie palace design which was popular in the late 1920s. Atmospheric theatres were designed and decorated to evoke the feeling of a particular time and place for patrons, through the use of projectors, architectural elements and ornamentation that evoked a sense of being outdoors. This was intended to make the patron a more active participant in the setting.
The Broadway Theater District in the Historic Core of Downtown Los Angeles is the first and largest historic theater district listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). With twelve movie palaces located along a six-block stretch of Broadway, it is the only large concentration of movie palaces left in the United States. The same six-block stretch of Broadway, and an adjacent section of Seventh Street, was also the city's retail hub for the first half of the twentieth century, lined with large and small department stores and specialty stores.
The Earl Carroll Theatre was a historic stage facility located at 6230 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California. It was built by showman Earl Carroll and designed in the Streamline Moderne style by architect Gordon Kaufmann in 1938. The theatre has been known by a number of names since, including Moulin Rouge from 1953 to 1964 and the Aquarius Theater in the 1960s and 1970s. From 1997 to 2017, it was officially known as Nickelodeon on Sunset, housing the West Coast production of live-action original series produced for the Nickelodeon cable channel.
The Mayan Theater in Los Angeles, California is a landmark former movie palace and current nightclub and music venue.
The Ricardo Montalbán Theatre is a theater in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles.
The Balboa Theater is a historic former movie theater on the Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach, California. Opened as the Ritz Theater in 1928, it screened mainstream film for 47 years. In 1975, Pussycat Theaters acquired the venue and converted it to an adult movie theater to the ire of residents and city officials. The Pussycat operation became the subject of several police raids and an eventual criminal court trial for its exhibition of pornographic films. In 1979, Landmark Theatres became the Balboa's operator, operating it as an arthouse theater. The Balboa Theater screened its final movie in 1991 and remains closed despite attempts to reopen it.
The Metro Theater is a defunct movie theater at 2626 Broadway on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was designed by architecture firm Boak and Paris and built between 1932 and 1933. The theater is designed in the Art Deco style and originally contained 550 seats. Although the theater's interior was demolished after it was closed in 2005, the original facade remains intact as of 2023 and is a New York City designated landmark.
The Roxie Theatre is a historic former movie theater in the Broadway Theater District of Los Angeles, California. The venue opened in 1931 as the last theater to be built on Broadway. Architect John M. Cooper's Art Deco design of the Roxie remained the only theater of that style in the downtown neighborhood. In 1978, Metropolitan Theatres converted the space into a Spanish-language filmhouse. Following the Roxie's closure in 1989, the lobby was converted into retail space whereas the auditorium was left intact.
The Cameo Theatre is a historic former movie theater on Broadway in Los Angeles, California. Opened by film mogul W. H. Clune as Clune's Broadway Theatre in 1910, it was one of the first purpose-built movie theaters in the United States. It remained the oldest continually operating movie theater in Los Angeles until its closure in 1991. Alfred Rosenheim designed the building in the Neoclassical style.
The Belasco Theater is a historic theater in Downtown Los Angeles, California. Opened in 1926, it operated as a playhouse and briefly as a movie theater until its closure in 1950, after which it was used for non-theater purposes. The building was renovated and reopened as a music venue called The Belasco in 2011. Live Nation became its operator in 2020.
The West End Theater is a historic former movie theater on 4th Street in Santa Ana, California. Developer L. A. Schlesinger commissioned the theater in 1915 and architect James Flood Walker designed the building. It was later operated by Santa Ana theater proprietor C. E. Walker and named the State Theater. It showed arthouse and foreign film in the 1960s as the Guild Theater and was operated as an adult movie theater called the State Arts Theater in the 1970s. After the venue closed in 1978, the building survived a series of demolitions downtown. It has since been repurposed as a cafe.
