About Us

Since 2015, MDC’s Tower Theater Miami is South Florida’s highest-grossing art-house cinema. Our mission is to connect art with audiences, and foster a value for cinema for future generations. The Theater is the year-round home of Miami Film Festival. Our philanthropic work includes free educational screenings for students and subsidized rental fees for non-profits to showcase cinema without commercial pressures.

MDC’s Tower Theater Miami is one of Miami’s oldest cultural landmarks. When it opened in December of 1926, it was the finest state-of-the-art theater in the South.

In the early 1960s, large numbers of Cuban refugees fled to Miami. The area surrounding S.W. Eighth Street – “Calle Ocho” – became a place of new beginnings. For many Cuban families, films at Tower Theater Miami were an introduction to American culture in addition to pure entertainment. Soon the theater altered its programming to include English-language films with Spanish subtitles, and eventually Spanish-language films. However, after almost sixty years of operation, Tower Theater Miami was closed to the public in 1984.

In 2002, the City of Miami authorized Miami Dade College to reopen the Theater. In 2011, USA Today declared MDC’s Tower Theater Miami “one of the 10 great places to see a movie in splendor” in the newspaper’s round-up of the best old-fashioned movie palaces in America, and the same year the Theater came under the programming and operational direction of MDC’s Miami Film Festival. Today, Tower Theater Miami thrives as a social gathering place for cultural connections in Little Havana, where the community can enjoy alternative and culturally specific exhibitions, performances, independent and international films, specializing in both Spanish-language films and English-language films, subtitled in Spanish.

MDC’s Tower Theater Miami is located in the heart of Little Havana, next door to the famous Domino Park. The Theater features two auditoriums, one with 250 seats, the other with 104 seats.

The theater opens 40 minutes before the first scheduled screening of the day.

The theater is handicapped accessible.

To view our full Safety Guidelines Please Click HERE