Our popular, ongoing programme brings cinema classics to the big screen every month – so you never need to miss those must-sees! Most screenings also have an informal post-screening discussion following one of their showing so you can meet and talk about the film with fellow film fans. And due to popular demand we have added a Tuesday evening screening, so each of our Classics will now screen on Sunday, Tuesday & Wednesday.
Classics
PREVIOUSLY IN THIS STRAND:
Cinema
Film
Akira (15)
Last session:
Wed 4 Nov 2020 at 19.15
Iconic & game-changing, Akira is the definitive anime masterpiece. Ôtomo’s landmark cyberpunk classic obliterated the boundaries of Japanese...
Film
Do The Right Thing (15)
Last session:
Mon 12 Oct 2020 at 19.00
The hottest day of the year explodes on screen in this vibrant look at a day in the...
Film
Girlhood (15)
Watch Online
Fed up with her abusive family situation, lack of school prospects and the “boys’ law” in the neighbourhood,...
Film
Naked Lunch (18)
Last session:
Wed 19 Feb 2020 at 13.00
In this adaptation of William S. Burroughs’s hallucinatory, once-thought-unfilmable novel, Cronenberg follows exterminator & drug addict Bill Lee...
Film
Juliet of the Spirits (15)
Last session:
Wed 5 Feb 2020 at 13.00
Cinematographer Gianni di Venanzo’s masterful use of Technicolor transforms Juliet of the Spirits, Fellini’s first colour feature, into...
Film
Cabaret (15)
Last session:
Wed 18 Dec 2019 at 13.00
Classic Liza Minnelli performance in a new 35 mm print of the legendary Bob Fosse's film.
Film
First a Girl (U)
Last session:
Wed 4 Dec 2019 at 13.00
A little-known British adaption of the 1933 German film Viktor und Viktoria (later remade as Victor Victoria and similarly reworked in Shakespeare in...
Film
Saboteur (PG)
Last session:
Wed 20 Nov 2019 at 13.00
Robert Cummings, a Los Angeles aircraft factory-worker, witnesses his plant’s firebombing by a Nazi agent. During the explosion,...
Film
Nosferatu the Vampyre (12A)
Last session:
Wed 6 Nov 2019 at 13.00
Herzog's atmospheric remake of the silent classic is one of the great vampire films.
Film
Kind Hearts and Coronets (PG)
Last session:
Wed 23 Oct 2019 at 13.00
Alec Guinness plays all members of an ancestral family who are murdered one by one by a distant...
Film
Coming Home (18)
Last session:
Wed 9 Oct 2019 at 13.00
Coming Home originated from a possibly unlikely source: star Jane Fonda, then a controversial figure in the U.S....
Film
In Cold Blood (18)
Last session:
Wed 25 Sep 2019 at 20.10
Adapting Truman Capote’s true-crime novel about the senseless murder of a family in rural Kansas, In Cold Blood...
Film
A Place in the Sun (U)
Last session:
Thu 19 Sep 2019 at 17.50
George Stevens’ multi-Oscar winning A Place in the Sun is one of the most powerful and touching of...
Film
Sunset Boulevard (PG)
Last session:
Wed 18 Sep 2019 at 13.00
This acid-etched portrait of Tinseltown remains one of the darkest movies on moviemaking.
Film
Blue Black Permanent (PG)
Last session:
Wed 4 Sep 2019 at 13.00
This haunting work moves between Edinburgh and Orkney as it tells of a woman’s attempts to come to...
Film
Blue Velvet (18)
Last session:
Wed 21 Aug 2019 at 13.00
A classic of American cinema starring Kyle MacLachlan, Dennis Hopper and Laura Dern. A clean-cut young man makes...
Film
Videodrome (18)
Last session:
Wed 7 Aug 2019 at 13.00
Cronenberg’s potent and prescient sci-fi thriller remains one of the director’s greatest achievements.
Film
The Small World of Sammy Lee (12)
Last session:
Fri 26 Jul 2019 at 20.30
The vibrant, down and dirty Soho of the 1960s lives on in British classic The Small World of...
Film
Desperately Seeking Susan (15)
Last session:
Wed 24 Jul 2019 at 13.00
Madonna burst onto the big screen in her first major role as Susan, the free-spirited New Yorker who...
Film
Goodbye First Love (15)
Last session:
Wed 10 Jul 2019 at 13.00
Goodbye First Love is a sincere and heart-felt story of teenage love and loss from critically acclaimed French...
Film
Possession (18)
Last session:
Wed 19 Jun 2019 at 13.00
Written and directed by Andrzej Zulawski, Possession is a deeply unsettling experience.
Film
The Blue Angel (PG)
Last session:
Wed 5 Jun 2019 at 13.00
Loosely based on a novel by Heinrich Mann, Sternberg's masterpiece is a dazzling construct of enigmatic lighting, decor...
Film
A Clockwork Orange (18)
Last session:
Wed 22 May 2019 at 13.00
Kubrick’s adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s decline-of-civilisation novel remains a chilling, thrilling and unsettling cinematic vision of nihilistic violence...
Film
The Pajama Game (U)
Last session:
Wed 8 May 2019 at 13.00
This joyus Doris Day vehicle is a big budget adaptation of a runaway Broadway success. A typical romantic...
Film
Charlie Bubbles (PG)
Last session:
Wed 24 Apr 2019 at 13.00
Albert Finney turned director for this surreal comic twist on the ‘kitchen sink’ dramas in which he’d made...
Film
The Watermelon Woman (15)
Last session:
Wed 17 Apr 2019 at 13.00
An aspiring black lesbian filmmaker (Cheryl Dunye) researches an obscure 1940s black actress billed as the Watermelon Woman.
Film
Ring (15)
Last session:
Wed 20 Mar 2019 at 13.00
Hideo Nakata’s hugely influential J-Horror, in which a reporter learns of a story about a supernaturally cursed video-tape...
Film
Alien (15)
Last session:
Wed 13 Mar 2019 at 13.00
Ridley Scott’s sci-fi classic celebrates its 40th anniversary.
Film
The Red Shoes (U)
Last session:
Wed 20 Feb 2019 at 13.00
We are proud to showcase the new digital print of the vibrant Powell & Pressburger masterpiece which integrates...
Film
Poetry (12A)
Last session:
Wed 6 Feb 2019 at 13.00
Lee Chang-dong's Poetry is raw and unsentimental and features a masterclass performance by Jeong-Hie Yun at its centre.
Film
A New Leaf (U)
Last session:
Wed 23 Jan 2019 at 13.00
One of America’s greatest comic legends, Elaine May, made her debut as writer and director with the wonderful...
Film
Bad Timing (18)
Last session:
Sun 13 Jan 2019 at 13.00
A masterful, deeply disturbing foray into the dark world of sexual obsession, directed by Nicholas Roeg.
Film
9 to 5 (15)
Last session:
Wed 28 Nov 2018 at 13.00
As relevant today as it was when it was first released, 9 to 5 is a film that...
Film
Naked (18)
Last session:
Wed 7 Nov 2018 at 13.00
Screening as part of the Mike Leigh season.
Film
The Apartment (PG)
Last session:
Wed 10 Oct 2018 at 13.00
Jack Lemmon plays a put-upon clerk whose apartment is colonised for illicit trysts by various executives who’ve promised...
Film
The Women (U)
Last session:
Wed 19 Sep 2018 at 13.00
George Cukor’s THE WOMEN is a legendary, acid bitch-fest. Whilst the ladies take lunch they immerse themselves in...
Film
Mildred Pierce (PG)
Last session:
Wed 5 Sep 2018 at 13.00
Michael Curtiz blends film noir and melodrama in this passionate story of a self-sacrificing mother who would do...
Film
Strangers on a Train (PG)
Last session:
Wed 22 Aug 2018 at 13.00
In a world of shadows, Patricia Highsmith looms large in terms of crime writing and exploring the dark...
Film
Rear Window (PG)
Last session:
Wed 8 Aug 2018 at 13.00
One of cinema’s finest observations of the act of looking, this is perhaps the best-known adaptation of a...
Film
Escape From New York (15)
Last session:
Wed 18 Jul 2018 at 13.00
One of the cult entries in the vast Stanton filmography, John Carpenter’s dystopian thriller echoes Romero’s Dawn of...
Film
The Piano (15)
Last session:
Wed 4 Jul 2018 at 13.00
Jane Campion became the first female director to win the Palme d’Or for The Piano, her extraordinary, triumphant...
Film
Love is the Devil (15)
Last session:
Wed 20 Jun 2018 at 13.00
This dazzling and audacious film charts the powerful and dangerous relationship between one of Britain's most revered twentieth-century...
Film
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (PG)
Last session:
Wed 6 Jun 2018 at 13.00
Salford native Finney stars as Arthur Seaton, who spends his days in the factory and evenings in the...
Film
A Fistful of Dollars (15)
Last session:
Wed 23 May 2018 at 13.00
The first of Sergio Leone’s landmark westerns rejuvenated the ailing genre and catapulted Eastwood to stardom.
Film
The Girl Can’t Help It (U)
Last session:
Wed 9 May 2018 at 13.00
Often called the best rock ’n’ roll film ever made, this high-powered, high-voltage comedy features music by Fats Domino, Little...
Film
Buena Vista Social Club (U)
Last session:
Wed 18 Apr 2018 at 13.00
Please note the changes to the advertised programme. Times on this website are now correct. Wenders' moving testament...
Film
Bottle Rocket (15)
Last session:
Wed 4 Apr 2018 at 13.00
Wes Anderson’s first feature (co-written with Owen Wilson) established his surreal and distinctive cinematic vision. The tale of...
Film
The Seventh Seal (PG)
Last session:
Wed 21 Mar 2018 at 13.00
Bergman' s classic masterpiece beautifully restored for its 50th anniversary. In an attempt to stave off his imminent...
Film
The Touch (15)
Last session:
Wed 7 Mar 2018 at 13.00
The Touch features an outstanding performance from Elliot Gould as a New York archaeologist who is drawn into...
Film
Cries and Whispers (18)
Last session:
Wed 21 Feb 2018 at 13.00
Part of the Ingmar Bergman season
Film
Life of Brian (15)
Last session:
Wed 7 Feb 2018 at 13.00
Originally banned in Glasgow, the film traces the life story of a mistaken-identity messiah and his band of...
Film
In the Cut (18)
Last session:
Wed 24 Jan 2018 at 13.00
We revisit Jane Campion's psychological, erotic thriller starring Meg Ryan
Film
The Last Seduction (18)
Last session:
Wed 10 Jan 2018 at 13.00
John Dahl’s neo-noir has one of the all time great femme fatale performances from Linda Fiorentino as Bridget...
Film
State of Siege (15)
Last session:
Tue 21 Nov 2017 at 20.30
Perhaps the greatest political thriller of the 1970s, Costa-Gavras calls on Yves Montand to lead this story of...
Film
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (PG)
Last session:
Wed 8 Nov 2017 at 13.00
A series of unexplained events lead an electrical engineer into an encounter with an alien lifeform.
Film
Belle de Jour (18)
Last session:
Wed 20 Sep 2017 at 13.00
Deneuve stars as the beautiful, bourgeois and bored doctor’s wife who decides to spice up her afternoons by...
Film
Comrades (15)
Last session:
Wed 6 Sep 2017 at 12.45
Unfolding in the pastoral haze of Dorset and blinding light of Australia, Bill Douglas’s neglected masterpiece is rich...
Film
Le Doulos (12A)
Last session:
Wed 23 Aug 2017 at 13.00
A stone-faced Belmondo stars as enigmatic gangster Silien, who may or may not be responsible for squealing on...
Film
The Motorcycle Diaries (15)
Last session:
Wed 9 Aug 2017 at 13.00
Based on the journals of both Alberto Granado and Ernesto Guevara (The Motorcycle Diaries), Brazilian director Walter Salles...
Film
The Last Detail (18)
Last session:
Wed 26 Jul 2017 at 13.00
Hal Ashby’s follow-up to 1971’s Harold and Maude is a similarly anti-authoritarian fable.
Film
The Graduate (15)
Last session:
Wed 5 Jul 2017 at 13.00
One of the seminal films of the 1960s and featuring a breakout performance from Hoffman, the film is...
Film
Ghost World (15)
Last session:
Wed 21 Jun 2017 at 13.00
Based on the acclaimed underground comic book by Daniel Clowes, Zwigoff’s Ghost World is a raw-edged comedy about...
Film
The Big Heat (15)
Last session:
Wed 7 Jun 2017 at 13.00
A police detective whose wife was killed by the mob teams with a scarred gangster’s moll to bring...
Film
Whisky Galore! (U)
Last session:
Wed 24 May 2017 at 13.00
Scottish islanders try to plunder 50,000 cases of whisky from a stranded ship in Alexander Mackendrick’s much-loved classic.
Film
Fox and His Friends (15)
Last session:
Wed 10 May 2017 at 13.00
Featuring one of Fassbinder’s finest performances in front of the camera, this is a caustic tale of an...
Film
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (15)
Last session:
Wed 26 Apr 2017 at 13.00
Adapted from Ken Kesey’s bestselling 1962 novel and brilliantly directed by Milos Forman, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest won...
Film
El Mundo sigue (12A)
Last session:
Tue 11 Apr 2017 at 20.20
Two sisters, with an extreme case of sibling rivalry, each try to find success, love and status in...
Film
Fear Eats the Soul (15)
Last session:
Wed 5 Apr 2017 at 12.45
Paying homage to the classic melodramas of Douglas Sirk, in particular All That Heaven Allows, Fear Eats the...
Film
Rosemary’s Baby (18)
Last session:
Wed 22 Mar 2017 at 13.00
A young couple move into a new apartment, surrounded by peculiar neighbours and odd occurances. When the wife...
Film
Lost in Translation (15)
Last session:
Wed 8 Mar 2017 at 13.00
Two guests at a Tokyo hotel - a middle-aged actor and the young wife of a popular photographer...
Film
Amarcord (15)
Last session:
Wed 22 Feb 2017 at 13.00
The winner of Foreign Language film Oscar in 1975 (Fellini counted four Oscar wins for films he directed...
Film
Goodfellas (18)
Last session:
Wed 8 Feb 2017 at 13.00
Hugely influential, Goodfellas was adapted by author Nicholas Pileggi from his true-crime book Wiseguy. Featuring the director’s trademark...
Film
One From the Heart (15)
Last session:
Wed 25 Jan 2017 at 13.00
Francis Ford Coppola shines his spotlight on a Las Vegas couple whose break-up on the 4th of July...
Film
Gumshoe (12A)
Last session:
Tue 10 Jan 2017 at 20.40
Albert Finney gives a career-best performance as night club compere Eddie Ginley who has dreams of being Liverpool’s...
Film
In the Heat of the Night (12A)
Last session:
Wed 23 Nov 2016 at 13.00
The story of an odd couple police duo forced to work together to solve a murder in a...
Film
Safe Passage (12A)
Last session:
Wed 9 Nov 2016 at 12.45
Based on true stories related by director Jean-Devaivre and writer Jean Aurenche, Tavernier’s superlative film tells of the...
Film
Stormy Weather (U)
Last session:
Wed 26 Oct 2016 at 13.00
Despite racial hurdles, self-taught entertainers The Fabulous Nicholas Brothers became one of the biggest musical acts of their...
Film
The Man Who Fell to Earth (18)
Last session:
Wed 21 Sep 2016 at 13.00
The story of an alien on an elaborate rescue mission provides the launch pad for Nicolas Roeg’s visual...
Film
Sid & Nancy (18)
Last session:
Wed 7 Sep 2016 at 13.00
Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb star in Alex Cox's seminal punk biopic.
Film
The Tin Drum (15)
Last session:
Wed 24 Aug 2016 at 13.00
A surreal black comedy following a child drummer born with the mind of an adult, forced to navigate...
Film
Barry Lyndon (PG)
Last session:
Wed 10 Aug 2016 at 13.00
This exquisitely detailed adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel about the exploits of an 18th century Irish adventurer...
Film
Lift to the Scaffold (PG)
Last session:
Wed 20 Jul 2016 at 13.00
In his mesmerising debut feature, twenty-four-year-old Louis Malle brought together the beauty of Jeanne Moreau, the camerawork of...
Film
A Kind of Loving (15)
Last session:
Wed 22 Jun 2016 at 13.00
Pity poor Vic. When he begins a relationship with Ingrid, a typist at the Lancashire factory where he...
Film
Suture (15)
Last session:
Wed 8 Jun 2016 at 13.00
The first film from writing and directing duo Scott McGehee and David Siegel, 1993’s Suture is very much...
Film
Ivan’s Childhood (12A)
Last session:
Wed 25 May 2016 at 13.00
Tarkovsky’s debut feature is an extraordinarily moving and powerful story of war and revenge. Determined to avenge his...
Film
Johnny Guitar (PG)
Last session:
Wed 11 May 2016 at 13.00
A lady saloon owner (Crawford) battles a female rancher out to frame her for murder by hiring a...
Film
Shooting Stars (PG)
Last session:
Wed 20 Apr 2016 at 13.00
Anthony Asquith’s tale of stardom and scandal on the studio floor of a 1920s film set epitomises the...
Film
Russian Ark (U)
Last session:
Wed 6 Apr 2016 at 13.00
A spectacular journey through time and Russia’s past that uses the magnificence of the Hermitage Museum as both...
Film
Alphaville (12A)
Last session:
Wed 23 Mar 2016 at 13.00
Eddie Constantine stars as intergalactic hero Lemmy Caution, on a mission to kill the inventor of fascist computer...
Film
Solaris (PG)
Last session:
Wed 9 Mar 2016 at 13.00
A hugely influential and brilliantly original piece of science fiction from the master Tarkovsky.
Film
Wake in Fright + discussion... (18)
Last session:
Wed 24 Feb 2016 at 13.00
A seminal work in the development of modern Australian cinema, admired by Martin Scorsese, once seen, never forgotten.
Film
Land and Freedom (15)
Last session:
Wed 27 Jan 2016 at 13.00
Jim Allen’s last produced script, once more directed by Ken Loach, is a moving story of hope and...
Film
The Gold Rush (U)
Last session:
Wed 13 Jan 2016 at 13.00
The Gold Rush had its premiere at the now-demolished Gaiety Theatre on Peter Street in Manchester on 11...
Film
The Fallen Idol (PG)
Last session:
Wed 23 Dec 2015 at 13.00
Elegantly balancing suspense and farce, this tale of the fraught relationship between a boy and the beloved butler...
Film
The Silence of the Sea (15)
Last session:
Wed 9 Dec 2015 at 13.00
Set during WWII, The Silence of the Sea centres on a cultivated Francophile German officer billeted with an elderly...
Film
Letter from an Unknown Woman (PG)
Last session:
Sun 15 Nov 2015 at 13.00
Max Ophüls’ Letter from an Unknown Woman is a hauntingly beautiful film from one of cinema’s greatest Romantics...
Film
Two Lane Blacktop (15)
Last session:
Wed 28 Oct 2015 at 13.00
Drag racing east from Los Angeles in a souped-up ’55 Chevy are the wayward Driver and Mechanic (singer-songwriter...
Film
Seconds (18)
Last session:
Wed 7 Oct 2015 at 13.00
Hudson is a revelation in this sinister, science-fiction-inflected dispatch from the fractured 1960s. A tale of a strange...
Film
Cry of the City (12A)
Last session:
Wed 19 Aug 2015 at 13.00
An electrifying variation on the theme of a hoodlum (Conte) and a cop (Mature) who knew one another...
Film
Chimes at Midnight (PG)
Last session:
Wed 29 Jul 2015 at 13.00
Restored to mark its 50th Anniversary, Chimes at Midnight is a characteristically pioneering work by Welles and a...
Events
Talk
Cabaret + Intro
Tue 17 Dec 2019
The screening on Tue 17 Dec will be introduced by Dr Andrew Moor, Reader in Film at Manchester...
Discussion
Blue Velvet + Post-Screening Discussion
Sun 18 Aug 2019
There will be a post screening discussion with filmmakers and visual artists AL and AL following the screening...
