Movie Houses of Worship: What’s Your Favorite Place to See Movies?

Tampa Theatre. Photo by Joe Roberts.

Every Sunday morning, I like to begin the day with a regular feature called Movie Houses of Worship. It doesn’t actually run every week, however, because I don’t receive enough submissions to make that happen. See, this feature requires help from our readers. I wish I had the time and money to travel the world checking out different cinemas (if you ever want to witness someone doing this, read Kevin Murphy’s “A Year at the Movies”).

But I also don’t want the feature to be a review of theaters based on one-time visits. It’s intended for the places we attend regularly, as if these movie theaters were our regular house of religious worship. We all have preferred local cinemas, and I want you all to have the opportunity to share your experience(s) of being a longtime and loyal patron to these establishments. One day most movie theaters will be gone, so now is the chance to showcase your appreciation for any currently standing.

I do actually get the occasional suggestion for a theater to post about. Since starting the feature, I have been told to write about the Tampa Theatre (Tampa, FL), Raleighwood Cinema Grill (Raleigh, NC), the Wilderness Outdoor Movie Theater (Trenton, GA) and Cedar Lee Theatre (Cleveland, OH). But none of the tipsters offering these up for ideas would offer any personal comment for the “Why I worship here” and “Why you should worship here” sections of the column. And I can’t rightly speak authoritatively on them because I’ve never been to them.

Movie Houses of Worship will continue consistently or inconsistently so long as I do get proper submissions or support from people looking to highlight their personal movie houses of worship (If you’d like to suggest or submit a place you regularly worship at the altar of cinema, please email me). And if time goes by where there aren’t many contributions perhaps I’ll write about something relative associated with the pastime of moviegoing or the cinema industry. For instance, this week, in lieu of a single place to showcase, I welcome you all to answer the following question, as simply as you wish:

What is your favorite place to see movies?

Related Topics: Movie Theaters

Christopher Campbell began writing film criticism and covering film festivals for a zine called Read, back when a zine could actually get you Sundance press credentials. He's now a Senior Editor at FSR and the founding editor of our sister site Nonfics. He also regularly contributes to Fandango and Rotten Tomatoes and is the President of the Critics Choice Association's Documentary Branch.