L.A.‘s Old-School Movie Palaces Are Staging a Comeback

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).

Few hold the same status as the Cinerama Dome. Locally known as the Dome, the main room (plus the ArcLight Hollywood) closed in 2021 when its parent company the Decurion Corporation decided it would no longer operate the alabaster honeycomb structure on Sunset Boulevard between Vine Street and Ivar Avenue. Originally opened in 1963, the building, made of concrete hexagons and pentagons, is the only geodesic-domed movie theater that exists, says the Los Angeles Conservancy.

Throughout the decades, the Dome became the gold standard for movie outings with a curved, 86-foot-wide screen that requires three projectors. It’s an immersive experience that was formerly bolstered by ArcLight Cinemas. As Los Angeles County health officials relaxed social distancing restrictions in 2021, it was too late for Decurion, which “exhausted all potential options,” leaving it no choice but to file for bankruptcy and shutter all ArcLight and Pacific properties.

The man behind the Dome’s Save Your Cinema campaign, Benjamin Steinberg, was a driving force to reopen the theater. Launched in 2021, Steinberg noticed tiles falling from the historic structure and wondered why the theater remained dormant in the years immediately following its closure. He created an online petition that collected tens of thousands of signatures. He kept applying pressure to Decurion, including projecting the owners’ faces onto the Dome’s facade in April. His efforts appear to have been fruitful. “After that, I noticed that the executives at the company started viewing my LinkedIn profile,” says Steinberg. “A few weeks later, there was a public hearing for the property.”

On July 22, Sony signed a lease at the Dome and ArcLight venues: The entertainment company will embark on a restoration project to reopen the theater in 2028. With Alamo Drafthouse as the primary operator, the Austin-based company will program movies at the Dome and 14 other screens at the adjoining multiplex. A Sony spokesperson tells Eater that Alamo’s industry-changing food and drink program will only be available at the multiplex, not at the Cinerama Dome.

The Bruin Theater — Westwood

Two historic theaters will return near UCLA. The Bruin and Village Theater are directly across the street from one another and closed in 2024. After their leases expired, a collective of filmmakers, including director Jason Reitman, will renovate and reopen the Village Theater in 2027, reports KTLA. Originally named the Fox Westwood Village Theater, it opened on August 14, 1931.

The Bruin’s reopening will come this fall. KTLA also notes that Toronto-based theater owner Riu Pereira leased the property from the Skouras family, who, at one point, owned nearly 700 theaters across the country, with Spyros Panagiotis Skouras helming 20th Century Fox from 1942 to 1962. Pereira will also upgrade the projection system with 35mm and 70mm projectors.

The Alex Theater — Glendale

Glendale’s Alex Theatre hired projectionist and IMAX consultant Taylor Umphenour to oversee the design and installation of a 70mm system less than two months before The Odyssey debuted. The Hollywood Reporter notes that the Alex Theatre had not typically offered a first-run movie for almost four decades, but became the country’s highest-grossing theater for The Odyssey on film format. The Alex regularly shows older films, along with music and dance performances. Given the high numbers of the record-breaking film worldwide and audience preferences for multiplex comforts, it remains a delightful anomaly that a 100-year-old Glendale theater is at the forefront of The Odyssey’s domestic success.

Forbes recently published an essay arguing that movie theater attendance is so back, baby. With a 15 percent ticket sales increase in one year and five movies clocking in (or beyond) $1 billion in box office receipts, the Alex, the Bruin, Village Theater, and the Cinerama Dome project seem ideally timed for a resurgence. When that time comes, there is always time to discuss which theater has the best popcorn (we’ll even revisit Eater’s ranking).