Vista Theatre is a historic single-screen movie theater in Los Angeles, California, located in Los Feliz on the border with East Hollywood.
Vista Theatre opened on October 9, 1923,[3] as a single-screen theater. In addition to screening films, the theater also showed vaudeville acts on stage.[1] Originally known as Lou Bard Playhouse on opening day in 1923, the cinema played the film Tips starring Baby Peggy.[4] The original seating capacity in the auditorium held space for 838 seats. The owners later removed every other row to allow for increased legroom, reducing the number of seats to 400.[2]
It is one of the remaining historic structures from the 1920s, when Hollywood was first built up and began attracting residents to its new suburban homes from areas near downtown Los Angeles and East Los Angeles, which, at the time, were middle and wealthy class sections of Los Angeles.
Until its refurbishment by Thomas Theaters in 1980, the theatre showed softcore pornography, then moved to hardcore porn and finally gay porn for 20 years. It also showed gay-oriented non-pornographic films, including the local premiere of The Times of Harvey Milk (1984).[5]
The theater is a local landmark. It was renovated to play new release movies, and retains its historic architecture. The theater's forecourt features cement handprints and footprints of notable film figures.
The Vista has drawn many famous actors and directors to attend, host, or sometimes surprise audiences at screenings of their films there. Anne Hathaway, Taika Waititi,[6] Lupita Nyong'o,[7] John Cho,[8] Zoë Kravitz, Chris Hemsworth, and Tessa Thompson have attended screenings of their films at the Vista since 2018.