West Newton Cinema

West Newton Cinema has been showing movies on Washington Street since 1937, when it opened as the Newton Theatre, and it nearly didn’t make it. In 2022 the building was headed for a developer and demolition, until the nonprofit West Newton Cinema Foundation bought it in 2024 and kept the lights on.

Today it has six screens and a calendar that goes well beyond the new releases, from Ty Burr’s Movie Club to classic musicals on the big screen at its Musical Matinee series. It’s also a home for the Boston Jewish Film Festival every November. It’s a real neighborhood movie house, the kind most towns lost decades ago, and it’s worth the drive.