The best movie theater in the entire world is also one of the most famous.
According to a new list from Time Out, the iconic TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood ranks as the best theater on Earth because “from the second you step foot inside the Chinese Theatre’s palatial lobby, you can tell you’ve escaped to someplace special.”
They also praised the theater’s “Exotic Revival auditorium, the radiant red curtain, grandiose golden columns and dazzling starburst on the ceiling,” and noted that the facilities have gotten a major boost in recent years thanks to the addition of an IMAX projector. (They do warn, however, that the IMAX auditorium “is attached to a six-screen multiplex; you’ll want to ignore those smaller spaces and stick to the main theater.”)
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Time Out’s list ranks what they deem the 100 best movie theaters in the world. Of that number, 17 are located in the United States, including New York’s Film Forum (ranked #3 overall), Village East, Metrograph, Angelika Film Center, and BAM Rose Cinemas, and Los Angeles’ New Beverly, Egyptian, and David Geffen Theaters.
They also singled out the famed Castro theater in San Francisco, the Texas Theatre, in Dallas, and Shankweiler’s Drive-In in Orefield, Pennsylvania, which boasts on its website that it is the oldest operating drive-in theater in the world.
I have only visited a handful of these theaters, but I would love to travel the world and see them all. Most of them look fantastic; I’m currently trying to figure out how to expense ScreenCrush for a, uh, “research trip” to Florence to visit the Giunti Odeon.
The Chinese Theatre first opened in Los Angeles in 1927 as Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Built by Sid Grauman, it has been the home to countless film premieres over the last 100 years, and is one of the unofficial symbols of Hollywood and the movie business. Besides it elaborate theming and entrance, it’s also world renowned for its famous forecourt filled with hand and footprints of famous filmmakers.
The Chinese is so famous, in fact, that it was copied by the Walt Disney Company, who built a replica, right down to the cement footprints, at its Disney’s Hollywood Studios theme park in Orlando. That version of the Chinese did not make Time Out’s list; it currently houses a Mickey Mouse ride.
Time Out’s top five movie theaters in the world are…
- TCL Chinese Theatre, Los Angeles
- The Stella Cinema Rathmines, Dublin
- Film Forum, New York
- BFI Southbank, London
- New Beverly Cinema, Los Angeles
