Users pay a monthly fee which allows them an unlimited amount of visits to select movie theaters using their "Cineville pass."

[6] Cineville was founded by a group of four students working at Kriterion cinema; they were motivated by a desire to change the "old-fashioned" image of arthouse movie theaters in The Netherlands.

[7] The company was originally a "collective" of 13 arthouse cinemas in Amsterdam, uniting in part due to the perceived hegemony of commercial multiplex film theaters.

It was an initiative of five Brussels arthouse movie theaters that had suffered significant losses of income during the COVID-19 pandemic in Belgium.

In March 2023, a subsidiary in Austria was founded, which uses the technical backend of Cineville, but does not use the name and branding, but uses the name 'Nonstop - Dein Kinoabo'.