Cinéma du Panthéon, a cinema on rue Victor-Cousin since 1907

The Cinéma du Panthéon opened in February 1907 at 13 rue Victor-Cousin, near the Place du Panthéon, in a former gymnasium used by Sorbonne students. It is one of the oldest cinemas still running in Paris.

Pierre Braunberger took it over in 1929 and ran it for more than sixty years. In May 1930 it reopened with Ernst Lubitsch’s The Love Parade and became the first cinema in Paris to show films in their original version. Jean-Paul Sartre describes going there with his mother in Les Mots, and Jacques Prévert was a regular too.

Producer of Truffaut and Resnais, Braunberger championed the New Wave here and had the façade redesigned in 1972 by Louis Roger. After his death the cinema became the Europa Panthéon. In 2001 the production company Why Not Productions, founded by Pascal Caucheteux, took it over.

In the Sorbonne quarter, its single screen shows auteur cinema, film clubs and talks. Under the roof, the Salon, decorated in 2006 by Catherine Deneuve and Christian Sapet, hosts debates and private evenings.