The Cinerama theater is a single-screen cinema and has had the largest movie theater screen in Seattle since its opening in 1963. It was originally designed (and named) for the Cinerama format involving three simultaneous projectors, but quickly changed most of its showings to more common film formats while maintaining its capability to show Cinerama films The Cinerama's attendance declined in the 1980s and 1990s due to increasing competition from suburban theaters and it almost closed in 1998 before being purchased by Paul Allen. Allen owned the theater until his passing in 2018, and the Cinerama closed in February 2020. It remained closed until late 2023, when the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) purchased the theater from Allen's estate and renamed it SIFF Cinema Downtown.

This image shows the exterior of the Cinerama in March 1997, when it was showing the special edition re-release of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. At the time, the Cinerama's operator planned to close the theater and its future was uncertain.

Caption information source: "SIFF Cinema Downtown, formerly known as Cinerama, officially opens," by Moira Macdonald and Taylor Blatchford, Seattle Times, December 14, 2023, retrieved from https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/movies/siff-cinema-downtown-formerly-cinerama-officially-opens/
Caption information source: "'Jedi' probably last curtain call for downtown's Cinerama Theatre," by William Arnold, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, March 18, 1997, page C1.