Istanbul Cinema Museum

Located in Istanbul’s historic Atlas Cinema, the Istanbul Cinema Museum showcases Turkish film history through exhibits, interactive archives, and restored 19th-century architecture.

Planning your visit

The Istanbul Cinema Museum occupies the Atlas Cinema on İstiklal Caddesi, and the building carries the history it displays. The Atlas passage dates to the nineteenth century as an Armenian-owned mansion, became a cinema in 1948, and operated as one of Beyoğlu's landmark picture houses until its restoration turned the complex into a museum with the auditorium retained.

The subject is Yeşilçam, the Turkish film industry that took its name from a street in this district and produced hundreds of films a year at its height in the 1960s and 70s — melodramas, comedies and action films made fast and cheap, with a star system that remains central to Turkish popular memory. Costumes, posters, cameras, projection equipment and interactive archives cover it, alongside wax figures of major stars.

For visitors unfamiliar with Turkish cinema the museum functions as an introduction to a national film culture that was among the most prolific in the world and is almost unknown outside it.

İstiklal Caddesi outside is Istanbul's main pedestrian street. Allow ninety minutes. The main booking is an entry ticket. Current availability is listed below.