Favorite Places: The Belcourt Theatre, Nashville, Tennessee

History and Southern Show Biz in Nashvegas

By Misty Thomas
QuailBellMagazine.com

The first time that I had the chance to go to the Belcourt Theatre in Nashville was actually my first time ever in Nashville. I had been working for a company that allowed me to travel a lot on the job, and I fell in love with the city the second I got there. I immediately found Hillsboro Village, the artsy part of town, and that's when I saw The Belcourt Theatre. I've been a film lover from an early age, so I immediately wanted to view something there.

The Belcourt is a very significant theatre whose history dates all the way back to 1925. Located in the heart of downtown Nashville, the Belcourt Theatre was once home to the Grand Ole Opry from 1934 to 1936. It has served as a theatre and also an art gallery. The non-profit theatre has goals of engaging, enriching, and educating through film while doing so in a gorgeous historic venue. Talk about breathing power into art and film.

The Belcourt Theatre was chosen to be one of the theatres to participate in the showing of Sundance Film Festivals movies and is one of several partners of Film Forward, an international film touring program designed to help educate filmmakers and film fans. The theatre has also partnered with many schools in the Nashville area to also try and educate students through film and art.

Movies are shown 365 days out of the year and the theatre has some special movie features, too. The Belcourt show midnight movies which have featured the “Friday the 13th” films and have an outdoor cinema feature that happens on Saturday nights in June through September. The theatre also caters to children and hosts kids shows on Saturdays at 10 a.m. 

In the next few months, I have planned a trip to one of my top five favorite cities, which is—surprise!—Nashville. I plan on visiting the Belcourt again to get my dose of nostalgia. They are currently showing a bunch of Woody Allen films and it would be great to actually get there in order to see a few of them in this setting.

Belcourt.org