Ever wondered why your multiplex feels like a shoebox compared to where grandma saw Gone With the Wind?
Celebrating the splendor and grandeur of the great cinemas of the United States, built when movies were the acme of entertainment and the stories were larger than life, as were the venues designed to show them. The film also tracks the eventual decline of the palaces, through to today’s current preservation efforts. A tribute to America’s great art form and the great monuments created for audiences to enjoy them in.
Production
Staggering archival footage of demolished palaces
Direction
Wright's clear love letter without dusty academia
Editing
Then/now comparisons that genuinely hurt
Director
April Wright
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Many 'movie palaces' were designed by the same architects who built actual opera houses, explaining the absurdly ornate lobbies and chandeliers.
The documentary quietly argues that Netflix's 'event' theatrical releases are a hollow echo of the palace era's genuine communal spectacle — a take that stings more now than in 2019.
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