Porte des Lilas - Cinéma, decommissioned metro station in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, France
Porte des Lilas - Cinéma is a disused underground railway station in the 19th arrondissement of Paris. Its platforms are lined with simple tiles, old signs, and metal gates that remain from an earlier period of urban transit.
The station opened nearly a century ago during the expansion of the Paris metro, but a planned connection was never fully completed. Over time it fell out of passenger use and became one of the city’s ghost stations.
The name refers to the old city gate called Porte des Lilas and to the lilac flowers linked to the neighborhood. Today the empty platforms serve mainly as a filming location, where directors change the decor and lighting to create fictional underground scenes.
The station is closed to regular passengers, so access is only possible during organized events or film shoots. If you are nearby, you can still see its entrance from street level, but the platforms remain out of reach without special permission.
This hidden platform is sometimes called a ghost station because it still exists beneath the streets but no longer carries passengers. Film crews regularly use it to imitate a busy metro stop, while outside filming hours the space remains almost completely silent.
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