The legendary Grand Rex is the oldest cinema in Paris. Opened in 1932, the same year as New York's Radio City Music Hall, it boasts amongst other architectural features a florentine balcony and a byzantine loggia. The outside is decorated in a typical art deco style and the three lettered sign REX used to rotate. The main screening room is an over-the-top mixture of baroque and art deco with a starry sky. It was originally planned to hold 5000 spectators, but in practice held a mere 3,300..

During the Second World War, the cinema was requisitioned by the Germans to become somewhere for the soldiers to watch German propaganda films. It reopened as a cinema for the masses in October 1944, after the occupation of Paris, briefly becoming a holding centre for prisoners of war in 1945.

50 minute audio-guided tours are held in the behind-the-scenes area, and can be combined with a ticket for the latest film you'd like to watch afterwards.

Currently a music venue as well as cinema, luminaries such as Nick Cave and the Smashing Pumpkins have played there, although they never seem to be playing on the weekends we're visiting..

Information

1, bd Poissonnière
75002 Paris
France

Phone: +33 8 92 68 05 96
Web: Grand Rex