The Babylon is a listed cinema at Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, in the ochre corner block the architect Hans Poelzig designed at the end of the 1920s as part of a whole housing quarter. The cinema opened in 1929. After decades as an East Berlin cinema and a period of decay, it was restored and now runs as a repertory house with a programme no multiplex would touch: film series, retrospectives, silent films and festival screenings.
The big hall still has its cinema organ in the orchestra pit, one of the few in Germany in its original place, and it is played for silent films. The building also has smaller screens and a foyer café. Several Berlin film festivals use it as a venue, and once a month the artists' cinema project Videoart at Midnight takes over the big hall at midnight with free screenings of video art. Special screenings bring film-makers in for talks, such as the 20th-anniversary showing of WHOLETRAIN with director Florian Gaag on 23 November 2026.
Visiting
- Tickets: at the box office or through the cinema's website. Prices depend on the screening. The midnight video-art screenings are free.
- Language: many films are shown in the original language with subtitles. Check each listing.
- Before or after: the Volksbühne is on the other side of the square, and the bars of Torstraße and Alte Schönhauser Straße are a few minutes' walk away.
Getting there
U2 Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz is right outside. U8 Weinmeisterstraße is five minutes away, and Alexanderplatz about ten minutes on foot.
Nearby
The Sophiensæle and the galleries of the Spandauer Vorstadt, among them EIGEN + ART, are ten minutes west.