Vista Theatre – Los Angeles

Vista Theatre is located just on the border between Los Feliz and Silver Lake in Los Angeles. It opened October 9th, 1923 – over 90 years ago! It was opened as a Lou Bard Playhouse and was packed on its first day.

“Tips” was playing, and it starred Baby Peggy.

This was the first of many movies to play at Vista Theatre – and there are more to come! The single-screen theater not only screened many films, but at first it also showed vaudeville acts.

Vista Theatre originally had 838 seats! Today, there are 400 seats after the owner decided to remove every other row of seats to allow for increased legroom. That’s something you cannot get in many places in Hollywood these days.

The theater was renovated to be able to play new movie releases, but has kept the historic architecture. This local landmark is one of the remaining structures from when Hollywood was first built up.

Many visitors have remarked on the stunning interior of Vista Theatre.

The location offered new suburban homes in comparison to downtown Los Angeles and East Los Angeles. At the time these were middle and wealthy class sections of Los Angeles.

Similar to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, Vista Theatre features handprints and footprints of film stars. The difference is that Vista Theatre has more stars from independent and cult films.

For a list of hand and footprints, along with photos, click here.

The annual Silver Lake Film Festival started with its grassroots in the Vista Theatre and was held there for the first four years. It was seen as the longest-running freestanding theatre in Southern California.

Vista Theatre is located just off of Sunset Blvd and Hollywood Blvd click here for show times.

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