Des Moines Cinema

22333 Marine View Drive South,
Des Moines, WA 98198

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The Des Moines Cinema building was opened in March 1947 by Delbert and Wally Osterhoudt to house a 400-seat cinema, retail stores and office spaces.

The cinema over the years has changed hands and had been closed entirely. In 1973, the theater was sold and changed from running family-oriented films to showing adult movies. Local groups picketed the theater in the 1970s, and in the 1980s the city even took legal action.

In the 1990s, the theater reopened under new management and reverted to showing family-oriented films.

It features 1940s decor, snack bar, a stage and shows second-run movies. The theater sits on situated on Marine View Drive and could go almost unnoticed by people driving by.

Contributed by Kate

Recent comments (view all 9 comments)

ArthurAllen on June 26, 2005 at 8:36 pm

Now that the Lewis and Clark theater has closed, the Des Moines Cinema has started showing first-run movies. That along with the closing of 12 screens in Federal Way means this single screen movie theater has a large area of South King County all to itself.

paghat on September 8, 2005 at 5:53 am

I remember that in the 1960s this theater would project advertisements out the upper window onto the wall of the building across the alley. The only movie I can recall seeing there was Bambi which really messed with my head, animals being burned alive. Later when it became a porno house I was still pretty young & it seemed so weird that I’d seen Bambi in a porno theater.

kateymac01 on March 10, 2006 at 3:35 am

I just discovered that this theater closed TEMPORARILY in December for repairs. It had to close for noncompliance building issues. A bunch of volunteers stepped up to help operator Joel Thomson get the theater into compliance. The theater is expected to reopen this month. Fingers crossed!

lostmemory on August 18, 2008 at 5:11 pm

Here is their website.

kencmcintyre on December 19, 2008 at 12:22 am

Here are photos from 1961 and 2003. Function should be changed to movies (first run).
http://tinyurl.com/4z5tsb

lostmemory on December 19, 2008 at 12:24 am

In the future I’ll make sure that I mention things like type of movies when I post the website links.

kencmcintyre on August 25, 2009 at 5:41 pm

Here is another photo:
http://tinyurl.com/mf2odv