Movie Theaters

The State Theatre, an Art Deco masterpiece in downtown Traverse City, reopened in 2007 after an extensive restoration and today is the headquarters of the Traverse City Film Festival.  The building dates back to the Silent Film era, built in 1916 and rebuilt twice - once after a 1923 fire (when it was known as the Lyric and showed the first talking pictures in northern Michigan in 1929) and again after another fire in 1948.  The elegant features that made it such a popular movie house during the Fifties and Sixties were enhanced by the most recent renovation, which added new projection and sound equipment, new seats, a new lobby, new carpeting, and a glow-in-the-dark "starry night" ceiling.

Entertainment of an equally traditional kind can be found just down the road in the village of Honor, home to the Cherry Bowl Drive-In -- one of America's last remaining drive-in theatres.  In continuous use since 1953, the Cherry Bowl still runs a traditional program of double-feature films with cartoon and such flourishes as a 19-hole 1950s-style miniature golf course.

The area also boasts two classic examples of small-town movie houses that are still thriving in their respective hometowns.  The Bay Theatre in Suttons Bay has been in existence since 1946, when it was installed in a former livery stable, and still has the original hardwood floor and body-form seats.  But its state of the art sound system and 16mm and 35mm film projection make it a favorite venue for commercial and art films.  The Elk Rapids Cinema, built in 1940, is another Art Deco gem.  Recently renovated, it has restored its original blacklighted ceiling and walls.

Another charming hometown cinema, the Bellaire Theatre, was originally built in the early Forties and rebuilt after a 1988 fire with a new sound system and rocking chair seats with cupholders - one of the first theatres in northern Michigan to do so.  A second screen was added in 2003.

First-run movies are usually found at Traverse City's two multiplex theatres, the Carmike Horizon 10 Cinemas, with 10 screens, located in the Horizon off US 31 south, and the Carmike Grand Traverse 9, a nine-screen complex in the Grand Traverse Mall.