Odeon Theatre Toronto

Designed by architect Jay English and operating between 1949 and 1973, the theatre was the Canadian flagship of Odeon Cinemas and one of Toronto's best examples of Streamline Moderne architecture.

In 1938, the company was bought by J. Arthur Rank, and shortly after this time, a Canadian arm of the business was opened, called Odeon Theatres Canada.

[2] The screening was attended by Patricia Roc and Trevor Howard, the posters and newspaper ads boasting that it was, “The Showplace of the Dominion.” It contained a restaurant on the mezzanine level, the first theatre-restaurant in Canada.

However, this was deemed financially ruinous for the city, since it was already subsidizing the O’Keefe Centre, now named the Meridian Hall as of 2019.

[9][10] The cinema is well known in Toronto for playing foreign, arthouse, and independent films that are often ignored by larger chain theatres.