The O'Brien Theatre is a historic cinema

Movie theater

A movie theater, cinema, movie house, picture theater, film theater is a venue, usually a building, for viewing motion pictures ....

 in the town of Arnprior, Ontario

Arnprior, Ontario

Arnprior is a town in Renfrew County, in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario, Canada. It is located at the mouth of the Madawaska River, as it enters the Ottawa River in the Ottawa Valley...

. Arnprior's first cinema opened on the site in 1906, and the current building dates from 1919. It was originally both a cinema and venue for vaudeville

Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

 performances. With the growth in popularity of films the building renovated and became a full time cinema in 1929. It was owned by the O'Brien Entertainment Corporation, which owned a number of cinemas in the Ottawa Valley

Ottawa Valley

The Ottawa Valley is the valley along the boundary between Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec along the Ottawa River. The valley is the transition between the Saint Lawrence Lowlands and the Canadian Shield...

. Several other towns in the area had O'Brien cinemas. The equally historic O'Brien Theatre in Renfrew, Ontario

Renfrew, Ontario

Renfrew, Ontario, Canada, is a town on the Bonnechere River in Renfrew County. Located one hour west of Ottawa in Eastern Ontario, Renfrew is the third largest town in the county after Petawawa and Pembroke. The town is a small transportation hub connecting Ontario Highway 60 and Highway 132 with...

is the only other still open, and both theatres are today again owned by the same company. Not part of any of the major theatre chains, the O'Brien has been owned by several small businesses over the last decades. In 2000 the theatre was completely refurbished and restored to its 1930s appearance.