Saturday 31 August saw the return of National Cinema Day in more than 700 cinemas across the UK and Ireland. Audiences enjoyed a diverse range of films with tickets available from just £4 (UK) and €4 (Republic of Ireland).
712 venues participated in this year’s National Cinema Day, an annual celebration of the power and spectacle of cinema. Audiences of 1.1m chose to visit their local cinema across the five home nations on Saturday, with cinema operators reporting significantly increased footfall and a celebratory atmosphere.
Now in its third successful year of operation, National Cinema Day was once again led by cross-industry body Cinema First and keenly supported by both the Film Distributors’ Association and the UK Cinema Association alongside numerous film sector partners. Following the event’s success, Cinema First Chair Iain Jacob said:
‘National Cinema Day is intended to celebrate the nation’s love of cinemagoing and to say a ‘big thank’ you to audiences, providing a great offer to everybody in the UK.
This third edition of the event confirms its status as an established part of the annual cinema calendar, with cinemagoers in their masses now taking up the opportunity to see multiple films on the Big Screen across the day.
Thank you to everybody who came and to everyone working in cinemas across the UK for making it such a fun, inclusive and memorable day.’
Across the summer, cinemagoers have embraced a broad choice of films on offer, including family titles Inside Out 2, Despicable Me 4, Garfield and IF; action pictures Deadpool and Wolverine, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Twisters and Bad Boys: Ride or Die; dramas It Ends With Us and The Bikeriders; horrors A Quiet Place: Day One, Alien: Romulus and Longlegs; plus timely re-releases such as the Spider-Man franchise and Coraline.
With such positive engagement from audiences, cinemas and distributors, National Cinema Day is now firmly set as a highpoint on both the annual cinemagoing and national cultural calendars and will likely return in 2025 for a fourth edition. The success of National Cinema Day caps a bumper summer of cinema, neatly leading into the final months of 2024 with audiences already anticipating the stellar collection of marquee films set to round out yet another great year at the movies.
For more details on National Cinema Day see Cinema First’s press release
Upcoming weekly cinema releases can be found on the FDA release calendar.