The Rialto Theatre is one of the few surviving monuments to Montreal’s golden age of cinema, both preserved and reborn. Built in 1924, this Beaux-Arts gem was inspired by the Paris Opera and designed by local architect Raoul Gariépy, with a showstopping neo-Baroque interior by Emmanuel Briffa, the prolific decorator behind dozens of North America’s grandest movie houses. Originally a neighbourhood picture palace, it served Mile End through the silent era, double features, and eventually Greek-language films, before falling into disrepair. Multiple failed reinventions followed—concert hall, nightclub, steakhouse—until the Carosielli family took over in 2010. They restored the theatre’s faded opulence with patience and precision, reopening it as a multidisciplinary venue that now hosts everything from classical concerts to weddings to ghost stories.
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