Taken together, the loosening of the restrictions is “very real and quite significant,” said Jane Kinninmont, a scholar at the British research organization Chatham House who studies Saudi Arabia, adding that “maybe there will be some jobs created in a new agency to censor the movies” along the way.

The social overhauls are part of a broad plan to open up the kingdom’s economy and to reduce its near-total dependence on oil. To that same end, the crown prince has simultaneously embarked on a broad crackdown against corruption, holding members of the Saudi elite in a luxury hotel, in what has been described as an effort to force them to repay billions of dollars diverted into personal coffers from other transactions.

Critics say the detentions were intended, in part, to neutralize potential challengers.

Prince Mohammed, the 32-year-old favorite son of King Salman, 81, has amassed a degree of personal power without precedent in Saudi Arabia, and he has indicated no interest in political reforms to parallel his program of opening up the economy and social rules. The most prominent cleric the crown prince has jailed, Salman al-Awda, was known for advocating loosening social rules while putting in place democratic political changes, and he appears to have been detained for the latter.

The prince has promised that he will use his power to move Saudi Arabia toward a more tolerant form of Islam than its religious establishment has promoted in the kingdom and around the world for decades.

In a statement, the Culture and Information Ministry said the government would begin within 90 days licensing movie houses to open. It did not indicate what kind of movies the government might allow to be screened, but made clear that films would be governed by Islamic law.