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New Orleans hosted America’s first dedicated movie theater
Three-story theater building with signs for shows out front. From the Historic New Orleans Collection’s archive of Charles L. Franck and Franck-Bertacci Photographs. Source: USA TODAY Network
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect//June 3, 2026//
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- Vitascope Hall opened in New Orleans in 1896 as America’s first indoor theater dedicated exclusively to showing movies.
- The venue screened short silent films using the Edison Vitascope and helped establish the modern cinema model.
- The former Vitascope Hall building still stands on Canal Street, marked by a historical plaque.
- Prytania Theatre, operating since 1915, is Louisiana’s oldest continuously operating movie theater and survived major industry changes.
On July 26, 1896, the first indoor, fixed-seating movie theater in America, Vitascope Hall, opened in New Orleans and screened the silent short film “Niagara Falls.”
This was only 18 years after the world’s first motion picture, “The Horse in Motion” in 1878, and eight years after what’s considered the first ever movie, “Roundhay Garden Scene” in 1888. These films only lasted a few seconds, and movies in the 1890s were 20 seconds to one minute long.
The theater showroom consisted of 400 benches and chairs, a large white cloth fitted across mounted frame, black canvas-covered windows. For 10 cents, patrons watched one minute of black-and-white moving images projected by the Edison Vitascope.
Up until this point, films were only screened at existing entertainment venues, like parks, carnivals and vaudeville theaters. Vitascope Hall was the first theater dedicated solely to exhibiting films and, at the time, it was uncertain whether films would draw crowds without other entertainment.
Today, the building that once housed Vitascope Hall still sits among a stretch of storefronts on Canal Street, yet the only physical indicator of the theater’s existence is a Historic Marker that offers a brief background on the enterprise that laid the blue print for modern cinemas.
The oldest continuously operating theater in Louisiana has been showing movies since 1915
Prytania Theatre opened its doors in 1915 as one of numerous neighborhood theaters. These neighborhood theaters went out of business over the years, and Prytania is the only one that remains.
While the theater is not located in its original building from 1915, it still exists within the neighborhood house on Prytania Street the theater relocated to in 1927.
When the theater first opened in the 1910s, it would have shown black-and-white silent short films that typically lasted around 15 minutes. In the early 1920s, films would have been around an hour long and included on-screen text cards, while also being accompanied by live orchestral music.
At the time of the theater’s relocation, the end of the 1920s, movies were forever changed with the evolution of “talkies,” effectively introducing dialogue to movies and ending the silent era.
From two World Wars and the Great Depression to the transition of silent films into “talkies” and the rise of household television, Prytania Theatre has kept its post and retained it’s early 20th century atmosphere.
Inside the theater, chandeliers luminate the lobby and the walls showcase movie posters, hand-painted marquees and memorabilia. The cinema’s expansive auditorium has 204 floor seats and 16 balcony recliners
Presley Bo Tyler is the Louisiana Deep South Connect Team reporter for USA Today Network. Find her on X @PresleyTyler and email at [email protected]
This article originally appeared on Shreveport Times: Louisiana is home to America’s first indoor, seated movie theater
Reporting by Presley Bo Tyler, Shreveport Times / Shreveport Times
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
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