One of the reasons for the establishment of permanent cinemas around 1905 was that it became easier to get hold of films. In general the first permanent cinemas were quite simple, but there were also cinema palaces, like the Cinéma-Omnia Pathé in Paris.

Motion pictures was from the very beginning an international phenomenon. During the first decade of the 1900s a growing film industry was soon established. However, it was not American but French, and from early on the film company Pathé Frères dominated the film market.

The photo to the left is taken outside the Omnia cinema in 1907. The pictures beneath are early advertisement posters from Pathé, and a front page of a program for Omnia from 1913.