Chicago was the birthplace of the movie industry in the early 1900s, so it makes perfect sense that it is also the birthplace of the movie palace. With the opening of the Central Park Theater on the west side in 1917, movie palace construction boomed. Theaters were constructed by legendary theater operators Balaban & Katz and others throughout the city. While big theaters were built downtown, equally large movie palaces were constructed in outlying neighborhoods from the late teens through the 1930s. They attracted neighborhood residents with air conditioning, fantastical and ornate architectural designs, and huge neon marquees. More than just a place to see a movie, they were important social centers and drivers of economic development in their respective neighborhoods. Each has a different story. From Charlie Chaplin's original theatre to the old Biograph Theatre where John Dillinger was gunned down, many concepts in film technology began in the cinema houses of Chicago. 

The Old Biograph Theatre ~ Chicago

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Chicago~

The Music Box Theatre

Gene Siskel Film Center

DOC Films

Facets

Austin, Texas

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema

Chicago Theatre

Al and Barney Balaban (with Samuel Katz) founded what had become the dominant chain of movie theaters in Chicago and the upper Midwest. Aligned with First National, the chain was purchased in 1926 by Paramount.

The Charlie Chaplin Theatre

The Essanay Film Manufacturing Company was an American motion picture studio. It is best known today for its series of Charlie Chaplin comedies of 1915.In late 1914 Essanay succeeded in hiring Charlie Chaplin away from Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios, offering Chaplin a higher salary and his own production unit. Chaplin made 14 short comedies for Essanay in 1915, at both the Chicago and Niles studios, plus a cameo appearance in one of the Broncho Billy westerns. Chaplin's Essanays are more disciplined than the chaotic roughhouse of Chaplin's Keystones, with better story values and character development. The landmark film of the Chaplin series is The Tramp (1915), in which Chaplin's vagabond character finds work on a farm and is smitten with the farmer's daughter.

Portage Theatre

Located at Six Corners in the Portage Park neighborhood of Chicago's Northwest Side, the Portage Theater is one of the oldest movie houses in Chicago. The Portage Theater opened on December 11, 1920 as the Portage Park Theatre (the former name is still visible on the building's facade). Built for the Ascher Brothers circuit with 1,938 seats, the Portage was the first theater built specifically for film (and not vaudeville) in the area. Today the historic Portage Theater is the home of the Silent Film Society of Chicago, The Northwest Chicago Film Society and hosts the Chicago Silent Film Festival as well as portions of the Chicago Polish Film Festival.