Regent Street Cinema – Winter screenings

The Regent Street Cinema has announced the screenings until 6 April, a list of films that includes some real choice titles. The cinema, which began life as a theatre in 1848, staged the UK’s first introduction to film in 1896 when the Lumière brothers’ Cinématographe machine was demonstrated to the press; appropriately, this winter’s showings include films from a far earlier period of cinema.

Of course, it’s also showing new releases, many of them BAFTA-nominated: La La Land, Manchester by the Sea, Moana, Jackie, The Pass, and The Eagle Huntress can all be seen at the RSC. But there’s also a range of much older movies.

If you like your classics prestigious and acclaimed, there’s Brief Encounter, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and – a real cineaste’s treat – Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin. If you prefer B-movies from that era, though, there are vintage monster flicks like The Mummy, Bridge of Frankenstein, and Creature from the Black Lagoon.

The season also includes double bills, either organised by actor – with Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s new film Snowden showing right after his cult indie drama Mysterious Skin, and Dustin Hoffman’s The Graduate paired with Midnight Cowboy – or director: Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps shown in tandem with North by Northwest.

And if you need to take your kids to see something, the Regent Street Cinema is screening a few mercifully good children’s classics like The Iron Giant and Pete’s Dragon.