04/23/2026
We love a night at the movies! 🍿We’re throwing it back to when the Studebaker showed films for !
In 1982, M&R Amusement converted the Studebaker Theater and the smaller World Playhouse theater into a multiplex: the Fine Arts Theatres. It opened on Christmas Day in 1982 with “Moonlighting” and “Veronika Voss.” At first, it showed mostly art and independent films, including Talking Heads’ “Stop Making Sense,” “Paris, Texas,” “Blue Velvet,” “Metropolis,” and many more.
In 1988, M&R sold their theater chain, and the Fine Arts Theatres started showing more Hollywood films until closing in 2000.
Although the Studebaker was only briefly a movie theatre, the World Playhouse became one of Chicago’s first dedicated art and foreign film theatres in the 1930s and continued to be for decades.
