A family-owned cinema on Newbattle Terrace in the Morningside district of Edinburgh, 1½ miles (2.5 km) south southwest of the city centre, the Dominion Cinema opened 1938 with the film Wee Willie Winkie based on a story by Rudyard Kipling and starring Shirley Temple.
It was designed by the local architect Thomas Bowhill Gibson (1895 - 1949) in the Art Deco style and originally seated an audience of 1300 in a single auditorium. It was subdivided in the 1970s and again in the 1980s, now forming four smaller rooms (with 419, 206, 60 and 47 seats), although much of the original decorative scheme survives. The facade features a tall projecting fin which advertises the name of the cinema and once included a clock, while the entrance hall is decorated with marble, oak and glass. The building was B-listed in 1993.
The Dominion has hosted film premieres, award ceremonies, fashion shows and a range of corporate events, with the likes of Sigourney Weaver, Dame Judith Dench, Julie Walters, Cary Grant, Steve Martin, Jude Law, Sir John Hurt, Stephen Fry, Peter Mullan, Emma Watson, Billy Connolly and Steve Coogan having all walked through its doors.
