Cinema Iris

Cine Iris is a piece of old Rio, a beautiful heritage-listed cinema from the early 1900s on Rua da Carioca in the downtown Centro, with a grand marble staircase and faded colonial-era glamour. Today it runs as an adult movie theater, and while the ground floor screens straight films, the upstairs is one of the city's oldest and cruisiest gay spots, dimly lit, steamy, and busy, with glory holes and open cruising drawing a mixed-age crowd of local men from early afternoon on. Atmospheric and unmistakably old-school, it's cheap to get in and best in the afternoons — a raw, no-frills slice of Rio's cruising history rather than a polished venue.