"Electric Theatre", the first full-time movie theater in the United States, opens in Los Angeles.

A movie theater or cinema, also known as a movie house, cinema hall, picture house, picture theater, the movies, the pictures, or simply theater, is a business that contains auditoriums for viewing films for public entertainment. Most are commercial operations catering to the general public, who attend by purchasing tickets.

Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Southern California. With an estimated 3.88 million residents within the city limits as of 2024, it is the second-most populous in the United States, behind New York City. Los Angeles has an ethnically and culturally diverse population, and is the principal city of a metropolitan area of 12.9 million people (2024). Greater Los Angeles, a combined statistical area that includes the Los Angeles and Riverside–San Bernardino metropolitan areas, is a sprawling metropolis of over 18.5 million residents.