Empty seats, idle projectors: Dhaka’s single-screen cinemas are on their last legs
Once, the capital’s legacy cinema halls drew a massive audience, offering an escape, even if only for a few hours, from the harsh realities of life. But now, the very films that attract modern audiences are not screened at these older venues
This Eid, the buzz surrounding Bonolota Express sounded like a revival for Bangladesh's film industry. By its fourth week, the film had pulled in a staggering Tk6.10 crore, dominating the screens at Star Cineplex, Blockbuster, and Lion Cinemas.
But for all its success, the movie remains noticeably absent from Dhaka's traditional cinema halls. Save for a recent showing at Madhumita cinema hall, Bonolota Express — or even the other highly anticipated hit, Pressure Cooker — has not been screened in the theatres that once formed the backbone of Dhaka's culture.
Once, these halls drew a massive audience, offering an escape that allowed viewers to forget, even if only for a few hours, the harsh realities of life. But now, the very films that attract modern audiences are not screened at these older venues.
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Some blame the deteriorating screening quality and poor service, while others point to a lack of monitoring that makes these halls a breeding ground for piracy.
There is also a persistent feeling that the audiences who still frequent these aging buildings are simply looking for a different kind of cinema than what this new breed of filmmakers is producing.
Today's multiplex hits are treated as elite experiences, reserved for those who can afford the sterile comfort of a mall. But long before these legacy theatres became derelict corners and entertainment became limited to a certain class of people, the neighbourhood cinemas were the city's most prestigious social cathedral.
Azad Cinema Hall on its last breath
Take the Azad Cinema Hall on Johnson Road in Old Dhaka for instance, which began its life under the name Mukul Talkies. Named after Mukul Banerjee, the Zamindar of Murapara, the hall was inaugurated by the renowned historian and then-Vice Chancellor of Dhaka University, Ramesh Chandra Majumdar (RC Majumdar).
The history of this place is etched into the very origins of cinema in the region. In 1929, it hosted the screening of The Last Kiss, the first silent film ever produced in Dhaka. By the 1930s, the hall had become a wide window to the world, screening celebrated works like Chandidas, Gora, and A Farewell to Arms.
In those years, Azad Cinema was the beating heart of Dhaka's intellectual and social elite; the air inside was thick with the conversations of writers, painters, and film crews. People would travel from the far corners of the city in horse-drawn carriages and rickshaws, eager to lose themselves in stories told in English, Urdu, Hindi, and Bangla.
In 1974, the hall was purchased by Khalilur Rahman, a man whose life was driven by a deep devotion to film. Since his passing, his four sons have looked after the property, but the world they inherited has changed beyond recognition.
Today, the hall is a shell of its former self. The glamour has long since evaporated, and the building is barely functional. The projection and screening quality are hopelessly backdated, reflecting technology that the rest of the world has moved past.
The physical space itself is crumbling; while the second-floor seats can still somewhat be used, the ground floor has become a graveyard of broken chairs and thick layers of dust where nothing is ever cleaned.
It sits there like a century-old woman gasping for her final breaths, seemingly waiting for the inevitable moment when the owners give the order to tear it down and raise a new shopping mall in its place.
The departed
While Azad Cinema clings to its precarious life, others have already disappeared into the city's noise. The ghost of one such hall still haunts the lyrics of a famous song by Matin Chowdhury: "Tikatulir mor e ekta hall royechhe, hall e naki air condition royechhe" (There is a hall at the Tikatuli crossing, they say it has air conditioning.)
Even in 2026, this song still rattles the speakers at weddings and neighbourhood festivals, but the landmark that inspired it — Abhisar cinema hall — is gone.
Founded in 1968, Abhisar was once a sprawling theatre with a thousand seats. Its 52-year run ended in 2020, a casualty of the pandemic and mounting financial pressure. The building was eventually pulled down, replaced by a commercial complex and yet another shopping mall.
The story repeats at Shabistan, the oldest cinema hall in Dhaka. Originally known as Picture House, it was established in Armanitola during the First World War by an Englishman named Laser. The theatre began its journey with a Greta Garbo film in an era so distant that lanterns and hurricane lamps were used for projection.
Today, that cinematic history is buried under small shops and warehouses.
This pattern of disappearance has rippled across the city. Of the nearly 500 cinema halls that once formed the backbone of Dhaka's social life, the vast majority have closed their doors.
Perhaps 50 or 60 remain, and most are in such a state of neglect they seem more like ghosts than active businesses. Yet, even in this age of digital streaming and polished cineplexes, a few traditional halls have found a way to endure by adapting.
Surviving through adaptation
Madhumita and Ananda are two such survivors, though they exist in a state of constant, quiet desperation.
Madhumita, located near Motijheel's Shapla Chattar, remains one of the oldest anchors of the city's cinematic history. It was once the premier destination for both local hits and Hollywood blockbusters.
After Titanic was released globally, Madhumita brought it to Bangladesh and ran it for a year and a half. The profits were so immense they funded the construction of the high-rise building the hall now occupies.
To keep up with the times, Madhumita has invested in modern upgrades, including new air conditioning, luxurious washrooms, a food canteen, and state-of-the-art sound systems. Usually, they run Eid movies, and primarily Shakib Khan's films are their main target for drawing an audience.
However, even with these facilities, the business remains incredibly precarious. This year, Shakib Khan's Prince did not do business well, while Tanim Noor's Bonolota Express was a hit throughout the multiplexes.
When asked last week why the Bonolota Express or Pressure Cooker was not available at Madhumita, the house manager said, "It's not that we do not want to screen such films like Bonolota or Pressure Cooker, but the producers of those movies did not give us those movies, maybe they think there is a chance of piracy. But we are trying to bring these movies into our theatres."
That fear of piracy is a major hurdle.
Last year, right after a few weeks of release, Shakib Khan's Taandob was pirated, leaving directors and distributors wary of single-screen venues. When asked about surveillance inside the theatre, the gateman at Madhumita admitted the difficulty, "We don't have such manpower and well-trained employees like cineplexes. We do prohibit recording while they are entering. But after entering the halls, since our hall is so huge, we might not be able to constantly keep an eye."
Bonolota Express finally made it to Madhumita this week, but the arrival was nothing like that in the cineplexes.
On 15 April, during the 12pm show, the gateman noted that only five people had bought tickets. At the cineplexes, the film is so popular that it was almost impossible to get a ticket, yet here, the same cinema is failing to draw any response at all. This gap points to a growing reality: the modern blockbuster, designed for the sanitised comfort of the cineplex, may not be intended for the audience that still clings to the city's single-screen theatres.
Madhumita used to operate year-round, but now the hall only opens its doors for about three to four months — typically the window from Eid-ul-Fitr to Eid-ul-Adha. For the rest of the year, it remains closed.
When it does run, they hold four screenings a day: the first show at 12pm, followed by others at 3pm, 6pm, and a final screening at 8:45pm. Tickets are divided into three categories — Dress Circle (DC), Rear Circle, and Middle Circle — usually priced between Tk100 to Tk300.
Then, right at the Farmgate crossing toward Karwan Bazar, Ananda Cinema stands as another persistent fixture. Unlike Madhumita, it stays open year-round, but the reality inside is sobering.
The environment here is far from comfortable; there is no dedicated parking space, and the overall cleanliness is poor. As soon as you step through the gate, you are hit with a strange, stingy smell that seems to have settled into the walls.
Inside, there is no air conditioning or well-maintained seating arrangements, and the screening conditions have significantly deteriorated. Tickets at Ananda are cheaper, reflecting its dismal condition, usually priced at Tk80 to Tk100 for Rear and DC seats.
The attendee at Ananda's ticket counter recalls a grim milestone from this year, "For the first time, we had to keep the hall closed during Ramadan. We tried running shows for the first two days, but not a single person walked in. When you see a completely empty room, there's no point."
Both halls now survive on a rotating loop of old movies, specifically anything featuring Shakib Khan, just to keep the lights on. The threshold for starting a show is paper-thin. At Ananda, if they get 15 or 20 people, they will run the film. "But if it's fewer than 10," the ticket seller explains, "we have to ask them to wait and we merge them with the next show."
The struggle is not just about a lack of audience; it is about a lack of content that the general public actually wants to see.
Harun Bhai, who has been with Madhumita for 42 years, remembers a different era. "There was a time when the whole country loved cinema. Back then, we'd have 150 to 200 films a year — one or two new movies every week. Now, we're lucky to get five proper releases in a whole year. And even the ones that do come out aren't made for the common person; they're made by TV people for their own circles."
Ananda's ticket seller shares this bitterness, pointing to a darker turn in the industry's history. "This cut-piece trend has damaged our industry beyond fixture," he says. "Dipjol is the one responsible for this downfall of our film industry."
Because Ananda is under the direct watch of the local police station, they stick strictly to censored films, refusing the "cut-piece" fillers that once plagued older theatres, but this commitment to standards does not necessarily fill the seats.
The workers in these halls are the human fabric of these buildings. Most have been here for 30 or 40 years. For Ananda's ticket seller, the job was a connection to a childhood dream. "I watched the movie Malka Banu right here in this hall, and that was the moment I knew I wanted to work here. I used to have this dream of being in the movies myself. I started on Tk800 a month; now I get Tk7,000. But back then, there was joy in the work. Now, I'm only here because there isn't any other income waiting for me."
Despite the 1,100-seat capacity at Madhumita, the hall cannot be sustained by just a handful of films released during the Eid seasons. This year, they opened with Shakib Khan's Prince, but reports from both Madhumita and Ananda suggest the film struggled. At Ananda, some shows had fewer than 20 people, and many viewers walked out halfway through.
"For the general audience, Shakib Khan is the only thing left, but he only has one film a year," Harun Bhai observes. "You can't run a hall just by one movie. We don't have new heroes coming up. An industry needs new faces. At the end of the day, the average person still comes to the theatre to see a 'Hero' and a 'Heroine.' If the industry doesn't give them that, the pulse just stops."
