Locals say goodbye to Beaches cinema, as neighbourhood 'fixture' to screen final films Tuesday

Community members and movie lovers are grieving as a Toronto east-end theatre is closing its doors after more than two decades.

The last screenings at the Cineplex Cinemas Beaches location will take place Tuesday. In a statement to CBC Toronto, Cineplex spokesperson Alannah O’Farrell said the landlord has chosen to lease the space to another business.

“We are grateful to the Beaches community for their support,” O’Farrell said. “We have loved being members of this wonderful neighbourhood for the past 20 years.”

According to the city’s building application status tracker, a zoning review application has commenced at the location of the movie theatre, 1651 Queen St. E. The proposal seeks interior renovations and an addition on the second floor to “facilitate the conversion of the existing Alliance Cinema space to accommodate a new tenant, Altea, to operate a physical and wellness facility.”

Kai Muyoboke grew up in the Esplanade neighbourhood, which meant frequent movie outings at the Cineplex Cinemas Beaches location with his father and sister.

“It's one thing to just go to a movie theatre. It's another thing to go to a place that has a lot of character,” he told CBC News. “It's a fixture of the Beaches neighbourhood. So [it] sucks to see it go.”

Muyoboke said it’s especially sad to see the movie theatre close because it means the city he once knew is no longer.

“I hate whenever something closes down [in] Toronto,” he said. “The things that you grew up really enjoying, they go away.”

Muyoboke said he hasn’t been frequenting the movie theatre in recent years, though. For him, it’s a three-pronged reason: the rise of streaming, the lack of quality in recent movies and the appeal of local, independent theatres.

“Maybe I'm part of the problem, too,” he said.

According to Cineplex Cinemas’ 2025 Q4 release, its movie theatres saw a 1.8 per cent decrease in attendance. That’s why Toronto Metropolitan University professor Paul Moore, who specializes in the history of moviegoing, said the news that the theatre is closing is sad, but not surprising.

“In the age of streaming, in the age of watching things on people's phones and big screen [televisions] at home, habits of going out have definitely changed,” he told CBC News.

This isn’t the first movie theatre to be turned into a gym, Moore added.

“It's kind of an obvious thing to do with a big mega space this size near homes,” he said. “Given only 24 hours in the day, two or three hours at a movie is not people's preference, especially younger people. They're more interested in going out to restaurants, going to the gym.”