Cinema historians are rare in Middle East Studies. Often scholarship focuses on film analysis without detailing the historical contexts in which cinema functioned. This trend is, of course, changing; as this panel and other recent scholarship attest. In the first half of my paper, I will examine the implications of exploring cinema from a historical perspective, and examine how this might open up exciting research opportunities into cinematic cultures that existed in the Arab world throughout the 20th century. In terms of Egyptian cinema history, the national framework, and the focus on films produced in Egypt, for example, obscures a much larger global history of which Egypt was a part, obliterating the many facets of early cinematic cultures that existed. As a result of this national frame, aspects of film programming, distribution, exhibition practices, and the practice of cinema-going are not well studied. In the second half of my paper, I will zoom into the challenges and opportunities of excavating histories of cinema audiences in Egypt during the interwar period focusing on celebrity and fan culture, and the early cinematic press. Specifically, I will explore early Egyptian press coverage of Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Rudolf Valentino. What emerges from these historical sources is the existence of a vibrant and globally-oriented cinematic culture and film audience that can help us better understand not only the movement of images, ideas, and commodities but the practice of pleasure and leisure in early twentieth century Egypt.