08/25/2026
I used to live walking distance from the Vista, and it will always be a favorite!
Los Angeles moviegoers are still celebrating SONY Pictures and Alamo Drafthouse’s restoration and 2028 reopening of the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood. Less than one week ago, another classic Southern California theater, the Bruin in Westwood, announced that it will reopen in the fall of 2026 after a two-year closure. And over in Glendale, the 101-year-old Alex Theater became the country’s highest-grossing movie theater when it showed director Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster summer film, The Odyssey. The activity surrounding these longstanding movie houses feels like a good harbinger for a city known for filmmaking (and viewing) after several years of industry upheaval. Still, the recent momentum points toward a key moment in 2026: Los Angeles is in the midst of an old-school movie theater revival.
Los Angeles has older theater institutions, including Hollywood’s El Capitan; TCL Chinese Theatres; Quentin Tarantino’s New Beverly Cinema; and his Vista Theater in Los Feliz with its attached cafe, Coffy, all of which originally opened in the 1920s. But the region has also suffered some recent and significant closures (iPic) while witnessing some of Los Angeles’s most stunning theaters converted into retail spaces (Studio City Theatre as a Barnes & Noble), collecting dust behind plywood (Roxie Theater in Downtown), or turned into a church (South Pasadena’s Rialto).
Read more: https://la.eater.com/los-angeles-restaurant-news/305926/cinerama-dome-bruin-theater-alex-theater-classic-movie-theater-los-angeles-hollywood
