Coolidge Corner Theatre
290 Harvard Street,
Brookline,
MA
02446
290 Harvard Street,
Brookline,
MA
02446
24 people
favorited this theater
Converted in 1933 as an Art Deco style movie house from a 1906-built Universalist church in the Boston suburb of Brookline, the Coolidge Corner Theatre has been showing movies for over seventy years.
New management shifted the Coolidge Corner’s schedule from first run films in 1977 as the theater became a showcase for art house and foreign films.
In an effort to increase profits, the balcony was closed off and converted into a second screen. Despite the renovation, the theater could no longer turn an adequate profit and was put up for sale and nearly demolished.
In 1989, the Coolidge Corner Theatre Foundation bought the theater and now houses a steady stream of art house, second run films and classic movies. A 45-seat video screening room was added in 2000. One more small video screening room has since been added bringing the total screen count to four.
The Coolidge Corner Theatre is the only currently operating Art Deco style theater in the Boston area.
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Recent comments (view all 53 comments)
Yankee Magazine has named the Coolidge Corner as one of the five top movie theaters in New England. The other four are in Dennis MA, Newport RI, Concord NH and Waterville ME. The judge was veteran local movie man Garen Daly. The listing in Yankee was reported in a small item in today’s Boston Sunday Herald. It says that these five cinemas “have found a unique voice, one that represents the communities in which they dwell.”
Saw Midnight in Paris there recently which was showing in the lovely Art Deco main theatre. Went to school in Boston in the 60’s, but don’t remember going here then.
I love the Coolidge Corner Theatre, and I always will. Holding an annual membership there really helps.
I absolutely love this theatre. It’s one of those main auditoriums that gives you shivers.
Came here right when they were doing extensive renovations around 2001. Repair-work and scaffoldings were everywhere, but the theater was still gorgeous.
I saw Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and during the follow-the-boucing-ball scene, EVERYONE in the audience sang along to the lyrics at full pitch. Coolest cinematic/theatrical experience to date.
Exclusive 70mm engagement of “The Master” confirmed: Link
Can’t wait to see “The Master” here in 70mm.
An article about the theater’s reluctant and expensive conversion to digital can be read here.
I went there as a really little kid in the late 60s-early 70s. Who Remembers:The Weechi-Wachi springs ad(“Get your souvenir orange today”), those weird Eastern European and Mexican children’s films, “The Lemon Grove Kids Meet the Monsters”, “Eyes of Hell”(“The Mask”)with scenes in 3-D, that Herb Alpert style music they always played before the movie…………
A membership for me would not be practical due to the fact I would have to travel 2 hours each way to get to the cinema. I was able to go there for the American Hustle preview screening last month. I was sort of disappointed that not only the director appearance was in the screen as opposed to in person, the performance was recorded the preceding evening a far cry from my dream of the event the prior evening which featured an in person appearance by Jennifer Lawrence. The evening was still enjoyable and worth the trip. I was quite impressed in how the curtain opened just at the start.
I was also disappointed that the Sundance screening would be of a documentary as opposed to a Comedy or drama film. Had it not been the Bulger film I would have gotten tickets.