Opera Plaza Cinema
601 Van Ness Avenue,
San Francisco,
CA
94102
601 Van Ness Avenue,
San Francisco,
CA
94102
5 people
favorited this theater
An unsung art-house fourplex, opened November 16, 1984, developed by Allen Michaan as part of a shopping and office plaza near the Civic Center. Now operated by Landmark Theatres.
Contributed by
Garrett Murphy
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Recent comments (view all 10 comments)
Opera Plaza is NOT the best place but they are the last chance to see some of the bigee underdogs before disappearing completely from SF. I was fortunate to have seen a FEW flicks here both Margaret Cho’s concert films Im The One That i Want & Notorious C.H.O.
Just for the record: the Opera Plaza Cinemas opened on November 16, 1984, so this year, 2004, marks their twentieth anniversary,
no small achievement considering the multiplexes up the street,
and the competitive state of the market
What’s also amazing that this theatre is still going after 20 years is that the screens in the 4 theatres are not much bigger than todays TV sets and they don’t have any upgraded sound.
I caught at least three films here in my visits to the city: Ted Kotcheff’s Joshua Then and Now in July, 1986; a revival of the 1937 Polish/Yiddish film by Michal Waszynski The Dybbuk on November 11, 1989, and the Hungarian Whooping Cough, directed by Péter Gárdos, on August 2, 1990. I remember the theatre as being functional, the screening rooms small, the programming incomparable. Every decent-sized city in America should have an Opera Plaza Cinema. So if the description calls it “an unsung art-house,” I am singing it.
Website for the Opera Plaza Cinema.
I’ve posted information and photos from a recent visit here.
The Landmark Opera Plaza has a marquee out front on Van Ness but they don’t change the wording ever. Says the same thing every day. You don’t know what’s playing. Probably don’t want to pay the help with a ladder to post the new films playing in the tiny cinemas. Just like Century, Brendan and Regal many theatres don’t bother changing the marquee these days. Maybe If they did some advertising out front people will stop in.
Still hasn’t been changed when I was out there. But with it being San Francisco there’s this thing called the internet that provide whats playing when.
I was walking past there with a friend, we wanted to go to a movie and walked up to the theatre to see what was playing and when, the showtimes and posters are prominently displayed.
I love this theater. It is a definite throwback to the 80’s with the neons and the reflective ceiling. The popcorn is always fresh and the bathrooms always clean. The movies they show are mostly foreign and independent films, as they are part of the Landmark chain. They usually get movies that have been playing for a little while at the Embarcadero Center Cinema or the Clay, which means that they will undoubtedly be getting the films that are doing better. While the screens are not very large, the projection and sound is always top notch and the small auditoriums make it seem like an exclusive movie event put on just for you. A very nice movie theater experience. I hope this theater stays open for many years to come!
With the closing of the Lumiere recently, it looks as though viewing times have expanded here ( and at the Clay) as well. So they are up to 4 shows a day instead of 2, which is great.