We investigate the relationships among all currently known X-ray structures of crystalline pentacene by calculating their “inherent” structures of minimum potential energy. We are thus able to show that two distinct bulk crystalline phases of pentacene exist, with very subtle but clear di.erences. We then assess the effects of temperature on the crystal structures, by including both inter- molecular and low-frequency intra-molecular phonons in the framework of quasi harmonic lattice dynamics methods. In this way we properly reproduce the experimental thermal expansion, and obtain a reliable description of the phonon dynamics and of its temperature dependence. The calculated phonon frequencies compare well with the experimental Raman spectrum.