Nickelodeon, the common name for American movie theaters in the early days of the film industry, got its name because the admission fee was only a nickel. It was the predecessor of today’s cinema.

On June 19, 1905, the first nickelodeon theater opened in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. Theater owner and real estate agent John P. Harris and his brother-in-law Harry Davis used 96 seats left over from the grand opera performance and hung them on the wall. curtain, transforming an empty store in Pittsburgh's bustling business district into a small theater. In terms of equipment, there were innovations such as a projector, a screen, and piano accompaniment, and films began to be shown continuously. As a result, film screenings have their own dedicated venue. The movies shown in the nickelodeon were not new; some were already released two years ago, such as Edwin S. Bout's "The Great Train Robbery."

The theater is named "Five Cents Cinema", and "Five Cents" is the American five-cent coin, so it is also called "Nickelodeon Cinema". The owners advertise the low ticket prices. As a result, from 8 a.m. to nighttime, all 96 seats in the theater were packed, nickels were rolling in, and the average weekly income was more than 1,000 yuan. The main patrons of "Nickelodeon" were American immigrants from the poorest strata of society. The success of "Nickelodeon" soon set off a wave of imitation in the United States, which not only brought huge economic income to the United States but also greatly stimulated the distribution, screening and production industries in the United States. By 1906, there were an estimated 100 theaters in Pittsburgh, and by 1908, there were 8,000 to 10,000 theaters of the same type across the United States.

What is interesting is that most of the founders of the "5 Cent Cinema" were recent immigrants, especially Jews who fled Central Europe, including shoemakers, businessmen, and workers. Some of these people later became big names in the film industry.

In the early 1910s, 5-cent movie theaters began to be replaced by larger and more luxurious screening rooms.