Marriage Story at the Paris Theater, November 2019. DavidSchwartzNetflix via Wikimedia Commons
It’s been a long time coming for fans of the kind of arthouse cinema that beloved Manhattan institution The Paris Theater (4 West 58th Street) shows, but beginning on September 1, the borough’s only single screen movie theater will fully reopen with new Dolby Atmos Sound and 70mm film screening capabilities.
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The Paris Theater originally announced in August 2019 that they were closing before leasing their building to Netflix – which temporarily reopened the theater for a few limited screenings that November. It closed during the height of Covid in 2020, reopened with new seating in August 2021, and closed again shortly thereafter for the upgrades which have now been completed.
The Paris Theater first opened in 1948 with a ribbon cutting ceremony by Marlene Dietrich alongside the U.S. ambassador to France, specializing in foreign and independent films from directors like Federico Fellini and Franco Zeffirelli.
The theater has changed hands multiple times since then, after Pathé Cinema, the initial owner, lost its lease in 1990. Loews Theaters bought it and four years later, it was sold to real estate developer Sheldon Solow. Finally, Netflix became its current owner in 2019.
Netflix is celebrating the reopening with a new series called “Big and Loud,” running September 1-7. The theater’s official website released some highlights of the new series that include Sorcerer by William Friedkin, Cannes 2021 Grand Jury Prize winner, Memoria, and the first NYC screening of the Wilco Documentary, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, in 20 years.
The Hollywood Reporter reports Netflix will use it as a special events theater and will not show first-run films from other film companies. The full lineup and ticket information is available here.
What a disappointment that this storied home of great art=house movies seems to have strayed very far from its roots, with a focus on pop music films, noisy films and action-type films. So it goes..