6 Best Performing Arts Venues in Toronto, Ontario

If you like your films factual, informative, and inspiring, then the Hot Docs Cinema is for you. The permanent home of the Hot Docs festival each spring, this historic cinema (which opened in 1913) also has an ongoing calendar of documentaries, plus special engagements and crowd-pleasing classics.

This art deco--era cinema located a few minutes west of the Annex underwent a splashy restoration in 2019. Classic and second-run movies are screened here, but the theater also plays host to live events, including a popular candlelit concert series. Grab a glass of wine at Blue Door Wine Shop, coffee or breakfast at Cafe Paradise, or Italian fare at an outpost of local chain Piano Piano.

This fully restored 1939 single-screen theater hosts film fest screenings and special engagements, as well as live comedy and music. On top of the usual concessions, next-door bar Birreria Volo has opened a café and snack bar in the lobby, so you can grab a bite even on the days you can't catch a flick.

A five-story architectural masterpiece, this glass-paneled building houses the year-round headquarters of the internationally acclaimed Toronto International Film Festival, which takes place in September. Throughout the year visitors can attend film-related lectures, watch screenings, and enjoy smaller film festivals, including the TIFF Next Wave Film Festival, a film festival with free movies for anyone under 25 that takes place in April. A stellar educational program includes summer camps and ongoing workshops—on how to produce a stop-motion movie, for example. The TIFF Cinematheque, open to the public, plays world cinema classics and contemporary art house films.

In July and August, free movies are screened outdoors as part of the Free Flicks program. Documentaries, frequently accompanying summer festivals, cultural events, and retrospectives, are presented ad hoc throughout the year.

Operated by the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) organization, this state-of-the-art five-screen, five-story complex, opened in 2010, shows classic and avant-garde films, director retrospectives, actor tributes, national cinema spotlights, exclusive limited runs, and new documentaries and artistic films. Tickets are C$13.