Everyone goes to the movies, right? The thrill of a new blockbuster, the lure of a thoughtful, modest drama, or even the rescreening of an old favorite can compel us to wait in line, buy a ticket, and sit quietly with strangers in a dark room for the communal experience. OK, maybe that’s not as true as it once was. Now that we all hold in our mitts an expansive universe of films, why do we need movie theaters? Well, that depends on whom you ask. Movie theaters remain a perfect third space: not home, not work. In Houston, a cold, dark room is the best respite from the heat and humidity.

In the early twentieth century, when the motion picture industry grew into a global phenomenon, grand movie palaces were built in every corner of America. They took their design cues from performing arts theaters and opera houses, with many including a stage underneath the screen. For the biggest of those Houston movie theaters, spectacle was the theme, with names as grand and romantic as the films they showed: the Metropolitan, the Egyptian-themed Isis, the Queen, and the Majestic. All are now gone.

The only remaining theater from that era is the Ritz Theater; it was restored, renamed the Majestic Metro, and reopened in 1990 as a rentable events space. The former silent movie house on Preston Street wasn’t as grand as the larger movie palaces downtown and had a small footprint, which was likely the reason it was spared the wrecking ball.

At the corner of Westheimer and Waugh Drive, the 1,200-seat Tower Theater opened to great fanfare in 1936. The single-screen movie house would be the anchor to the adjacent Tower Community Center. The art deco structure, designed by architect Joseph Finger, has been updated slightly over the years. However, it remains a bona fide Montrose landmark, stubbornly resisting the slow neighborhood gentrification. The Tower Theater, which spent time as a performance venue, cabaret, video store, and restaurant, appears safe from demolition now that developers Radom Capital are rebuilding the stage for jazz performances. Hopefully, the neon marquee sign will soon twinkle above Lower Westheimer once more.

In 1939, the one-screen art deco movie house River Oaks Theatre opened as a companion to the new River Oaks Community Center shops on West Gray at Shepherd. By the 1970s, it had evolved into a repertory theater with offbeat, artsy flicks, cult classics, and foreign films. To sell more tickets, the balcony was closed and divided into two small screens, and a bar was added in the early 2000s. After COVID decimated ticket sales, the theater shuttered in 2020, but the landlord found a new tenant in Sugar Land–based Star Cinema Grill, who restored it to an unusually high standard for Houston landmarks. And they brought back midnight Rocky Horror Picture Show screenings.

Also in 1939, just a few blocks away, the Alabama Theatre had its grand opening. The art deco, single-screen movie theater anchored the Alabama Center, named for its location on Shepherd and West Alabama. Showing first-run movies until the 1980s, the theater lost patrons to multiplexes and home video. In 1984, the Austin-based bookstore chain Bookstop restored the vacated movie house into a glorious example of historic preservation. Houstonians, accustomed to demolition of beloved theaters, were shocked and charmed by the renovation. After getting bought out by Barnes & Noble, Bookstop moved out after nearly 20 years. Landlord Weingarten Realty removed the sloped floor, the stage, and most of the architectural distinctiveness, hoping a simplified interior would snag a new tenant.

It worked. Sort of.

Trader Joe's moved in and tries to play to the theater's history with movie pun advertising. Ironically, the theater that was once the best example of historic preservation and adaptive reuse in Houston is now the lamest example. Pragmatic Houstonians with their “at least they saved the outside” don’t remember how wonderful it was inside.

Among the remaining classic movie theaters, the River Oaks is the only one still showing movies. Bellaire Theatre is part of a Whole Foods, the Heights Theater is a cozy live music venue, and the Fifth Ward’s originally segregated DeLuxe Theater got its first makeover in 1971, when art collectors John and Dominique de Menil hosted the contemporary art exhibition The DeLuxe Show. Following the exhibit, the de Menils kept the space open as the Black Arts Gallery until 1976. The DeLuxe Theater was restored in 2015 as a community performing and visual arts facility, and is a charming landmark on Lyons Avenue.

Garden Oaks Theater on North Shepherd is now home to the Grace Church. The desolate OST Theater is nearly invisible to drivers along Old Spanish Trail near Griggs. By now, it’s been empty longer than it was a movie theater. There are likely more former theaters hiding in plain sight, stripped of their marquees and neon.

In the 1970s and ’80s, movie theaters were integral to shopping malls. In the summer, as an atypical Houston kid, I preferred any mall over AstroWorld (too crowded, too hot). The Galleria had two movie theaters, Greenway Plaza had a two-screen theater, later converted to three in its subterranean micro-mall. Meyerland had a two, later 3-screener out in its parking lot. Free-standing multiplexes haven’t had such a great lifespan either. The jumbo AMC on Dunvale more closely resembled an airport, with its whopping thirty screens, but is just a multi-acre memory now.

In general, movie theaters feel disposable now, and it is rare that Houstonians get something truly special. However, in 2021, we were treated to the Lynn Wyatt Theater in the Museum of Fine Arts’ Kinder Building. Its sibling through the MFAH tunnel, the Brown Auditorium Theater on the opposite side of Bissonnet, opened in 1973 with what we now call stadium seating, and mercifully without any noisy popcorn.