Initial reports suggested up to 50 people had been hurt but police say there were no injuries.
German television showed pictures of heavily armed police storming the Kinopolis complex in Viernheim and a couple running for safety.
An employee, Guri Blakaj, told Reuters the man entered the building at around 3pm and ordered staff into an office.
He then went into the cinema and fired a number of shots.
Mr Blajak said the gunman was aged between 18 and 25 and about 1.7m (5ft 7in) tall.
Police spokeswoman at the scene, Christiane Kompus, said he took several hostages.
Officers "successively entered the cinema and were able to locate the man and the people he was holding," she said.
"There was a threat situation and the man was then shot dead by a colleague."
Ms Kompus said police were at the scene for about three hours and no-one else was hurt.
She had no information on the assailant's identity and motives.
Another police spokesman, Bernd Hochstaedter, said that "there are no indications at present of an Islamist background".
Hesse state's interior minister, Peter Beuth, said it was not clear if the attacker's weapon was real.
He told the regional legislature in Wiesbaden the man was masked and apparently fired four shots.
He was carrying a rifle or "long gun" and appeared to be a "disturbed man".
The Kinopolis, a multiplex theatre, is located in a shopping mall in Viernheim, which is near the city of Mannheim.
It was a hot afternoon and the cinema was relatively empty at the time of the incident.
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