Rialto Theatre

lostmemory on April 24, 2009 at 4:17 pm

Closed in June of 2008. Here is a 1981 photo.

rialtoarts on June 28, 2008 at 7:56 am

The Rialto Theatre in Ridgefield Park, NJ is now officially closed. As the owners of the property and the theatre we tried to keep the movies playing; but short of dividing it into little boxes we had to sell to stop the losses…and yes we tried almost every idea you can come up with.
The property was purchased by a developer who will re-purpose the interior into retail space. Fortunately, the exterior will remain the same as it is in a historic district of Main Street.
The official website will remain operational:
http://www.rialtoarts.com/

kencmcintyre on June 11, 2008 at 2:19 pm

Here is a June 2 article regarding the closure:
http://tinyurl.com/6mbrzw

hotwaterbottle on June 9, 2008 at 9:37 am

This week, June 9 – 13, The Rialto will have it’s final program. They will be showing, rather appropiately, Cinema Paradiso. Bergen County will be losing it’s last single screen theatre. I don’t know if it will be sold to new owners and reopened, or gutted for retail space, or demolished. I hope it can be reopened at some point. Personally, I feel the current owners really dropped the ball by not considering a classic film program, like the Lafayette in Suffern offers. The Rialto clientele is mostly + 65 yrs old and would appreciate seeing the old classics they remember from their youth. Also, the parking situation in downtown Ridgefield Park is really tight. So, another one bites the dust. Too bad; I’ll miss it.

JeffreyM on May 30, 2008 at 11:39 am

Sad news. I heard tha the theatre was sold and wil close for good next week. I loved this place, and will miss it BIG time.

rhett on February 24, 2007 at 2:04 am

A NICE thater that’s wasted…why don’t they have classic movie retrospectives…I bet they’d draw them in like flies…especially with that theater..

lostmemory on February 19, 2007 at 5:45 am

Here is a 2/18/2001 article about the Rialto Theater.

“Independent Movie Theater in Ridgefield Park, N.J., Struggles to Survive.

The Record, Hackensack, N.J.
By Lewis Krauskopf

Feb. 18—Aviva Djiji-Levy knows well the competitive climate of the New Jersey cinema industry.

Djiji-Levy’s family has owned The Rialto Arts Cinema in Ridgefield Park for 32 years, mostly as a second-run theater showing commercial films a few weeks after they open elsewhere.

But the past five years, the growth of screens around the Rialto in part forced the family to change the theater’s theme, first to a venue that catered to a South Asian audience, and then last July to a showcase for foreign and independent art films.

“That seemed to be the only alternative,” said Djiji-Levy, who owns the theater with her father, Nissim Djiji. “Those are the type of films that I would enjoy seeing, and business-wise those are the only things that make showing films viable for us.”

Opened in 1927, the Rialto has survived as a single-screen theater while others from its era were redeveloped into multiscreen venues. It sits on Main Street in downtown Ridgefield Park and seats 520.

For years after the family bought the Rialto in 1969, Djiji-Levy says it thrived by showing commercial films such as “Jaws” or “Star Wars” at discount prices a few weeks after the blockbusters opened nationally.

But more theaters began to pop up in the area, eroding the theater’s audience. The biggest blow came in the early 1990s, when Loews opened a 12-plex in Ridgefield Park.

So in 1995 the family agreed to lease the Rialto to other businessmen for Indian films. The Rialto stood out along with a few other theaters in northern and central New Jersey as a cultural center for South Asians. In addition to showing a taste of “Bollywood,” as India’s Bombay-based film industry is known, patrons nibbled on samosas from the concession stand.

But the tenants couldn’t pay the rent, Djiji-Levy said, and the Rialto closed in October 1999. The family looked for other tenants and for potential buyers, but nothing worked. Rather than leave it vacant, they reopened.

By showing independent and foreign films, Djiji-Levy said, the Rialto could differentiate itself from the competition. Also, distributors usually require that extensively released commercial movies run for a set number of weekends — Djiji-Levy can avoid getting stuck with a flop by avoiding that sort of obligation.

Still, the Rialto remains in a dogfight with nearby cinemas to win the independent dollar.

The Paramus Picture Show, which has shown independent films since the mid-Nineties, presents competition. And increasingly, the larger cinemas are using screens to show independent films. Djiji-Levy was hoping the Rialto would get “Chocolat” or “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” but nearby multiplexes picked up the Oscar-nominated films.

“It’s a bloodbath out there, I’ll tell you that,” she said. “It’s very, very difficult to be an independent right now”.

teecee on March 2, 2006 at 3:02 am

Listed in the 1961 FDY as part of Triangle-Liggett Theatre Service.

teecee on August 13, 2005 at 5:25 am

My photos from 7/23/05:
View link

View link

View link

teecee on July 24, 2005 at 6:58 am

I saw “March of the Penguins” here yesterday. Some notes and observations not made clear in their web page nor by member postings:

There is no balcony.
There is a small stage with false arches on either side.
The screen is huge, so large in fact that the projected image did not fill the entire width.
Sound is great. Projection very good.
They don’t use a curtain.
They show movie previews but no annoying advertising.
There is no organ in this theater but they do play nice music before the show.
Rest rooms are tiny and a bit dated.
The CVS that was to be built here must have been built later on the same side of the street at the next corner.
The parking lot is tiny, 8 spaces.
The marquee is V shaped and partially blocked by a tree.
I took some photos that I will put in photobucket.
Overall a very nice experience. And the movie was wonderful!

teecee on May 19, 2005 at 7:17 am

Article about the reopening:

The Record (Bergen County, NJ), July 27, 2000 pL1
RIDGEFIELD PARK’S 1920S MOVIE PALACE RETURNS AS ART HOUSE. (NEWS) Peter J. Sampson.
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2000 Bergen Record Corp.

By PETER J. SAMPSON, Staff Writer

RIDGEFIELD PARK – The Rialto Theater, a 1920s movie palace that screened films from India in its last incarnation, is reopening Friday as a showcase for foreign and independent art films.

One of the few remaining grand theaters from early in the 20th century, the Rialto has a wide screen, a stage, and a 520-seat auditorium.

Tonight, Mayor George D. Fosdick is expected to cut a ribbon at the reopening ceremonies, which will include a private screening of the Canadian film “Five Senses” for about 300 invited guests.

The theater, at 172 Main St., will have its grand opening to the public the following evening with shows at 7:30 and 9:35.

Fosdick said Wednesday that he is pleased to see the old movie house reopening after being shuttered for nine months.

“The Rialto Theater has been there since the 1920s, and it has always been an important part of the community,” Fosdick said.

In recent years the theater catered to a largely South Asian audience with movies produced by Bollywood, as India’s prolific Bombay-based film industry is known.

Then hard times led to the prior tenant’s bankruptcy and eviction.

After its closing in October, the theater’s owners shopped around for a new tenant and considered selling the building, said Aviva Djiji-Levy, whose family owns the Rialto. At one point, a prospective tenant wanted to open a wrestling arena, but that idea didn’t go over too well with local officials, she said.

“So we decided rather than leave it closed, we’d like to open it and get that Main Street [area] active again,” Djiji-Levy said.

The theater has been given a fresh coat of paint, new carpeting, an enhanced projector, and a new Dolby Surround-Sound system. Future improvements will include replacing seats and doors.

The challenge now, Djiji-Levy said, is getting the word out to a specific market that enjoys art and foreign films and “to let them know we exist,” she said. “We want to give them a good product and bring films they don’t have the opportunity to see in New Jersey,” she said.

In addition to screening films for general audiences, the owners plan to offer programs that would allow different ethnic and cultural groups to rent the theater for special events tied to a particular film.

“We’d like to develop some programs that will serve the community; to find different cultural organizations to make use of our stage and all that space,” Djiji-Levy said.

Staff Writer Peter Sampson’s e-mail address is

Article CJ63741588

umbaba on July 19, 2004 at 6:50 am

I was there once. It is a great great theater. It only shows the independents but I wish they would use it for other films.

It’s such a shame that one of the only surviving single screen theaters doesn’t show the older big screen classics the way the Lafayette in Suffern does. If they showed Sound of Music, Bridge on River Kwai, Jaws, Ben-Hur etc. etc. on that screen at the Rialto, I believe it would put the theater on the map and they would get alot of people. The lafayette shows their classics on Satuday mornings at 11:30 am. recently they showed Casablanca (the same day it was also on TCM) and there was over 300 people there.

I hope the Rialto expands their program instead of just indies. It’s a great theater and should be used what it was meant to be used for. Showing the greats. It has to be owned by film lovers, the fact that it wasn’t cut up to multi screens.