Toronto’s east end is reportedly about to lose one of its most familiar movie-going fixtures.
According to the Globe and Mail’s film editor Barry Hertz, Cineplex Beaches will close at the end of the day on Feb 17, shutting down the six-screen multiplex that first opened in June 1999, under the Alliance Atlantis banner, before being taken over by Cineplex in 2019.
Bad Toronto movie theatre news: Cineplex Beaches, a six-screen multiplex opened in 1999 under the Alliance Atlantis brand, is closing end of day Feb. 17.
— Barry Hertz (@HertzBarry) February 8, 2026
The theatre, nestled at 1651 Queen St E near Coxwell, has long been a low-key option for locals to catch new releases without trekking downtown. As of publication, Cineplex’s own listing still shows the location as active with showtimes and theatre details, and it hasn’t (at least publicly) posted a closure notice on the venue page.
The news has already sparked a wave of nostalgia, with locals tying this late-’90s multiplex holdover to the rituals of neighbourhood life, like impromptu weekday screenings and first jobs.
On a recent Reddit thread, one user summed up the mood plainly: “Truly sad to see, my first part time job was at Alliance Atlantis Cinemas at Bayview Village. I’d go to the Beaches location every so often to help when they were short staffed,” while another wrote that Cineplex Beaches was their “main theatre” dating back to the Alliance Atlantis days, even if it “was never very busy” (which is part of why they liked it).
Others focused on the loss of a super walkable theatre in an area where movie options aren’t exactly overflowing.
“This sucks. I have a car, so Eglinton Town Centre isn’t too far. But nothing beats…walking home from a late night showing,” one Redditor wrote, while another gave ideas on how the theatre could potentially continue running: “I’m hoping that someone finds a way to maybe cut it down to 1-2 screens and run it like The Fox with the rest of the space being renovated into some other retail use.”
