Regent Theatre, Heritage-listed movie theater in Queen Street, Brisbane, Australia
Regent Theatre is a heritage-listed former cinema on Queen Street in Brisbane, built in a style that mixes Gothic, Baroque, Art Deco, and Neo-classical elements. Inside, the building features a curved marble staircase, ornamental plasterwork, and a barrel-vaulted main hall with chandeliers.
Hoyts built the theatre between 1928 and 1929, during a period when grand picture palaces were opening across Australia. It opened with Fox Movietone Follies and quickly became a fixture in Brisbane's entertainment scene.
The building's Queen Street frontage held the entrance hall and grand foyer, while the 2,500-seat auditorium stood on the broader Elizabeth Street side, a layout dictated by the shape of the land parcels. The site's Queen Street lot had been acquired in the 1850s by Patrick Mayne and later passed to his children James and Mary, whose estate went to the University of Queensland.
The building sits in central Brisbane on Queen Street and is easy to reach on foot from most parts of the city centre. The heritage areas near the entrance and staircase are worth a slow look, as they are the most detailed parts of the building.
The Regent was the first and only American-style picture palace built in Queensland. Its narrow Queen Street frontage held the entrance hall and grand foyer, while the 2,500-seat auditorium stood on the broader Elizabeth Street part of the site, a layout dictated by the shape of the land parcels.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 92,647 contributors worldwide.