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Landmarks

The extraordinary film houses of Minneapolis and Saint Paul have been documented in the classic book by Kirk J. Besse entitled Show Houses: Twin Cities Style. Another book The Marqueee of Main Street looks at the influence of a specific man, Jack Liebenberg, and his influence on film theatre designs in the first half of the 20th century.

Show Houses: Twin Cities Style, Kirk J. Besse, Victoria Publications Ltd., Minneapolis 1997.

Marquee on Main Street: Jack Liebenberg's Movie Theaters 1928-1941, March 22-April 25, 1982.

University Gallery, University of Minnesota, Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 82-70857

Below please read the histories of some historic venues which are still in operation today. The history is by no means comprehensive, but these examples give a taste of the rich past of theatre going in the Twin Cities. And please visit our THEATRES section of TWIN CITIES FILM TODAY to read shorter histories of these places as well as perhaps visit them - since all the venues listed below are still in operation.

Bell Auditorium

The Bell Auditorium is the nations first and only dedicated non-fiction film screen. Formerly home to the University Film Society, The Bell Auditorium has been a pioneer in film exhibition both locally and nationally for 43 years. Since its inception, the Bell Auditorium has hosted many directors and film scholars including Robert Altman, Jean-Luc Godard, Roberto Rosellini, Max von Sydow, Pauline Kael, Marcel Ophuls, Benoit Jacquot and countless others.
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Heights Historic Theatre

The Heights Theatre is located in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, a Northeast Minneapolis suburb. The Heights was originally constructed in 1926 by Gluek Brewery heir Arthur Gluek as a prohibition real estate venture.
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Oak Street Cinema

Oak Street Cinema was founded as a single screen movie theatre in 1995 by a core group of dedicated cinephiles who decided to revive the old Campus Theatre.
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Riverview Theater

In the late 40s, Sidney and William Volk wanted to replace an aging Falls Theater which was located on Minnehaha Avenue. They contracted with the premier theater architects of that period, Liebenberg and Kaplan, to build one of the finest theaters of that day.
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Walker Art Center

Widely recognized for presenting a full-range of moving-image art forms, the Walker Art Center's film and video programs feature both contemporary and historical works. In the 1940s, the Walker quickly identified moving images (mostly movies, but also experimental films) as integral to contemporary life. Artists of that time were experimenting with film's formal properties, such as light, motion, and sound, while also separating film art from conventional narrative cinema. The Walker recognized the importance of these developments and made a commitment to the presentation of both experimental and classic cinema as essential to its core mission-a philosophy that continues today.
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Bell Auditorium

bell auditorium entryway

The Bell Auditorium is the nations first and only dedicated non-fiction film screen. Formerly home to the University Film Society, The Bell Auditorium has been a pioneer in film exhibition both locally and nationally for 43 years. Since its inception, the Bell Auditorium has hosted many directors and film scholars including Robert Altman, Jean-Luc Godard, Roberto Rosellini, Max von Sydow, Pauline Kael, Marcel Ophuls, Benoit Jacquot and countless others.

More recently, the Bell Auditorium has screened a month long activist film series, a retrospective of the works of Jean Rouch, a New Jewish cinema program, and showcases such as Search and Rescue, a weekly collection of discarded ephemera from the University of Minnesota Film Archive. The Bell Auditorium operates nightly with the mission of bringing the best in non-fiction cinema to the Twin Cities.