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V. Culture, Media & Youth Experience

21. Valhalla Theatre, Glebe

Counterculture cinema, activism, and suburban bohemia.

Valhalla Cinema, Glebe (1937 → 2005)

Cult Film, Counterculture & the Inner-West That Vanished

The art-deco cinema on Glebe Point Road opened in 1937 as the Astor, but its second life is what burned itself into Sydney’s memory. Reborn in the late 1970s as the Valhalla New Cinema, it became the inner-west’s sanctuary for cult films, political cinema, midnight screenings, double-bills, student radicals, punks, weirdos, lecturers, Glebe misfits, and anyone allergic to multiplex polish.

Until it closed in 2005, Valhalla was more than a cinema — it was a cultural rite of passage.

Explore online

  1. Glebe Society — Valhalla: Paradise on Glebe Point Road
  2. Overland — Paradise on Glebe Point Road: the story of the Valhalla cinema
  3. Dictionary of Sydney — Valhalla Cinema
  4. Cinema Treasures — Valhalla (Astor)