It was opened on 15 September 1988 by Prince Charles and at the time, was the world's largest museum devoted entirely to cinema and television.
A few months before MOMI opened in 1988, the animator Chuck Jones was invited to create a chase sequence directly onto the high walls of the museum.
Winners of the competition developed a short film in the 'goldfish bowl', a three-meter (10') square glass box; this allowed the public to see the animator's every move.
A series of temporary exhibitions were held in the final room at the end of the museum tour: MOMI was housed in a glass-sided steel framed metal-clad building (designed by Bryan Avery of Avery Associates Architects), with red roofs running along each side of Waterloo Bridge.
[3] The exhibition offered a scaled down version of MOMI using actors and items from the museum collection to tell the history of the moving image.
The MOMI programme was discontinued and its site reopened as BFI Southbank on 14 March 2007, providing a new entrance to the National Film Theatre complex.