Hoylake Community Cinema

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly 30.06.17

Based on the book of the same name – the memoir of Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor of popular French fashion magazine Elle – The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is an exceptional 2007 biographical drama directed by Julian Schnabel. Told from Bauby’s (Mathieu Amalric) first person perspective, the film opens as he wakes from a three-week […]
Ice Cold in Alex 28.07.17

Ice Cold in Alex is a British film made in 1958, directed by J. Lee Thompson, and based on a series of articles written for the Saturday Evening Post published in book form in 1957. Starring John Mills, Sylvia Sims, Harry Andrews, Diane Clare and Anthony Quayle, the film was a prizewinner at the 8th […]
Like Father, Like Son 01.09.17

Like Father, Like Son is a 2013 Japanese drama film directed by Hirokazu Koreeda, starring Masaharu Fukuyama, Machiko Ono, Keita Nonomiya, Shôgen Hwang, Yōko Maki, and Lily Franky. Ryota Nonomiya (Fukuyama) is a businessman, driven so much by money and success that he neglects his wife, Midori (Ono), and son, Keita (Nonomiya). One day the […]
Charade 29.09.17

Charade is a 1963 American romantic comedy thriller directed by Stanley Donen, starring Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Walter Matthau, James Coburn, George Kennedy and Ned Glass, with Audrey Hepburn winning the 1964 BAFTA Best Actress Award. While on a skiing holiday in the French Alps, “Reggie” Lampert (Hepburn) confides in her friend Sylvie that she […]
Kes 25.01.13

Kes is a 1969 drama directed by Ken Loach and produced by Tony Garnett. Based on Barry Hines’ 1968 novel A Kestrel for a Knave, the film is ranked seventh in the British Film Institute’s Top Ten (British) Films and among the top ten in its list of the 50 films you should see by […]
The Wind that Shakes the Barley 22.02.13

Following on from our January screening of the 1969 Ken Loach classic Kes, we are showing another of his films, a Palme d’Or winner, made some 37 years later. Two brothers are caught on differing sides of the battle for Irish freedon in this politically minded historical drama from veteran British filmmaker Ken Loach. It […]
Some Like it Hot 29.03.13

Some Like It Hot is an American romantic comedy film, made in 1958 and released in 1959, which was directed by Billy Wilder and starred Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and George Raft. The supporting cast includes Joe E. Brown, Pat O’Brien, Joan Shawlee and Nehemiah Persoff. The film is a remake by Wilder […]
North by Northwest 26.04.13

Madison Avenue advertising man Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) finds himself thrust into the world of spies when he is mistaken for a man by the name of George Kaplan. Foreign spy Philip Vandamm (James Mason) and his henchman Leonard try to eliminate him but when Thornhill tries to make sense of the case, he is […]
Jaws 31.05.13

Jaws is a 1975 American horror/thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley’s novel of the same name. The prototypical summer blockbuster, its release is regarded as a watershed moment in motion picture history. In the story, a giant man-eating great white shark attacks beachgoers on Amity Island, a fictional summer resort […]
Downfall 28.06.13

Downfall (German: Der Untergang) is a 2004 drama film directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, depicting the final ten days of Adolf Hitler’s reign of Nazi Germany in 1945. The film’s screenplay was written by Bernd Eichinger, and based upon the books Inside Hitler’s Bunker, by historian Joachim Fest; Until the Final Hour, the memoirs of Traudl […]
Kind Hearts and Coronets 26.07.13

“At once a witty comedy of manners, a grotesque serial-killer caper and an acerbic satire on the class system.” – Time Out Kind Hearts and Coronets is a 1949 British black comedy film starring Dennis Price, Alec Guinness (as eight members of the D’Ascoyne family), Joan Greenwood and Valerie Hobson. The plot is loosely based […]
Osama 30.08.13

Osama is a 2003 film made in Afghanistan by Siddiq Barmak. It is about a girl living in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime who disguises herself as a boy, Osama, to support her family. It was the first film to be shot entirely in Afghanistan since 1996, when the Taliban régime banned the creation of […]
Don’t Look Now 27.09.13

Don’t Look Now is a 1973 thriller film directed by Nicolas Roeg. Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland star as a married couple who travel to Venice following the recent accidental death of their daughter, when the husband accepts a commission to restore a church. They encounter two sinister sisters, one of whom claims to be […]
Pan’s Labyrinth 25.10.13

Pan’s Labyrinth (Spanish: El laberinto del fauno, “The Labyrinth of the faun“) is a 2006 Spanish-language dark fantasy film written and directed by Guillermo del Toro. It was produced and distributed by Esperanto Films. Pan’s Labyrinth takes place in Spain in May–June 1944, five years after the Spanish Civil War, during the early Francoist period. […]
The Apartment 29.11.13

As of 1 November, 1959, mild-mannered C C Baxter has been working at Consolidated Life, an insurance company, for close to four years, and is one of close to thirty-two thousand employees located in their Manhattan head office. To distinguish himself from all the other lowly cogs in the company in the hopes of moving […]
Arthur Christmas and Big Night 15.12.13

Arthur Christmas reveals the incredible, never-before-seen answer to every child’s question: ‘So how does Santa deliver all those presents in one night?’ The answer: Santa’s exhilarating, ultra-high-tech operation hidden beneath the North Pole. But at the centre of the film is a story about a family in a state of comic dysfunction and an unlikely […]
The Truman Show 31.01.14

In this movie, Truman is a man whose life is a fake one… The place he lives is in fact a big studio with hidden cameras everywhere, and all his friends and people around him, are actors who play their roles in the most popular TV-series in the world: The Truman Show. Truman thinks that […]
Searching For Sugar Man 28.02.14

In the early 1970s, Sixto Rodriguez was a Detroit folksinger who had a short-lived recording career with only two well received but non-selling albums. Unknown to Rodriguez, his musical story continued in South Africa where he became a pop music icon and inspiration for generations. Long rumored there to be dead by suicide, a few […]
The Ladykillers 28.03.14

Classic Ealing comedy in which a group of bank robbers struggle to silence the eccentric old lady who discovers their crime. Mrs Wilberforce (Katie Johnson) lives alone in King’s Cross with her parrots. She has been led to believe that the group of men renting rooms from her, Professor Marcus (Alec Guinness), the Major (Cecil […]
A Matter Of Life And Death 30.05.14

Returning to England from a bombing run in May 1945, flyer Peter Carter’s plane is damaged and his parachute ripped to shreds. He has his crew bail out safely, but figures it is curtains for himself. He gets on the radio, and talks to June, a young American woman working for the USAAF, and they […]
A Separation 25.04.14

The stand out film of the 2011 Berlin Film Festival and winner of the Golden Bear, A Separation is a suspenseful and intelligent drama detailing the fractures and tensions at the heart of Iranian society. Written and directed by Asghar Farhadi, the film boasts a range of superb performances from the ensemble cast who collectively […]
The Hurt Locker 27.06.14

Rightly attracting major awards attention, The Hurt Locker is a supreme, tense and gripping piece of drama. And it grabs your attention from the stunning opening scene, which perfectly gets across the dangers faced by the specialist bomb disposal squad that we spend the rest of the film following. Chief among them is Jeremy Renner’s […]
The Sting 25.07.14

In 1930s Illinois, young hustler Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford) vows revenge after his older partner (Robert Earl Jones) is murdered at the behest of kingpin Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw) in retribution for a con pulled on one of his runners. Travelling to Chicago, Hooker teams up with old hand Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman), and together […]
The Big Easy 29.08.14

Laid back cop Lt Remy McSwain (Dennis Quaid) and his partner (Ned Beatty) discover the washed up body of a Mafia hood, and attribute the death to a gangland killing. Assistant District Attorney Anne Osborne (Ellen Barkin) is called in to investigate, and lifts the lid on police corruption, getting heavily involved with McSwain whilst […]
Argo 26.09.14

Based on real events, the dramatic comedic thriller Argo chronicles the life-or-death covert operation to rescue six Americans, which unfolded behind the scenes of the Iran hostage crisis, focusing on the little-known role that the CIA and Hollywood played–information that was not declassified until many years after the event. On November 4, 1979, as the […]
The Lunchbox 31.10.14

A lonely Mumbai office worker receives the wrong packed lunch after a mix-up by the city’s famous dabbawala couriers, and is so impressed by its wonderful cuisine that he returns a note to its sender – a neglected housewife trying to rouse her husband’s affections. So begins a letter-based romance in the vein of such […]
Goldfinger 28.11.14

To many, Goldfinger is the quintessential Bond film and a brilliant third entry in the series. Here Bond gets his Aston Martin, spars with two statuesque British beauties (Honor Blackman and Shirley Eaton) and pits his wits against a memorable villain, Auric Goldfinger. Add the first Shirley Bassey theme song and some exciting action sequences and […]
The Nutcracker 14.12.14

On 18 December 1892, The Nutcracker was given its premiere at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg. 122 years later, on 14 December 2014, we are thrilled to be screening it at Hoylake Community Cinema! An all–time favourite ballet for the holiday season, the story begins with a Christmas Eve party and a young girl, […]
Cinema Paradiso 30.01.15

A boy who grew up in a native Sicilian Village returns home as a famous director after receiving news about the death of an old friend. Told in a flashback, Salvatore reminiscences about his childhood and his relationship with Alfredo, a projectionist at Cinema Paradiso. Under the fatherly influence of Alfredo, Salvatore fell in love […]
The Producers 27.02.15

How can a Broadway producer who has seen his day really make a lot of money? Leave it to writer/director Mel Brooks to answer that, and answer it he does in the uproarious comedy `The Producers.’ Zero Mostel stars as the producer in question, one Max Bialystock, with Gene Wilder co-starring as Leo Bloom, the […]
Rashomon 27.03.15

A COMMUNITY CINEMA SPECIAL Q&A WITH ACTOR DAI BRADLEY Set in feudal Japan, this film presents an intriguing tale of violent crime in the woods, told from the perspective of four different characters — a bandit, a woman, her husband and a woodcutter. Only two things about the incident seem to be clear — the […]
In the Heat of the Night 24.04.15

Detective Virgil Tibbs is caught up in the racial tension of the US South when he is arrested after the murder of a prominent businessman. Tibbs was simply waiting for his next train at the station in Sparta, Mississippi and the confusion is soon resolved but when local police chief Gillespie learns that Tibbs is […]
Red Sorghum 29.05.15

Set in the northern province of Shandong during the 1920s and early 30s, a young bride, on her way to a prearranged future with the leprous owner of a wine distillery, avoids rape and then abduction, is seduced, takes over her mysteriously dead husband’s business, is captured, then ransomed and ultimately perishes during the Manchurian […]
Saturday Night Fever 26.06.15

John Travolta graduated from minor celebrity to superstar with Saturday Night Fever. Travolta plays Tony Manero, a Brooklyn paint-store clerk who’d give anything to break out of his dead-end existence. In life, Tony is a peasant; on the disco dance floor, he’s a king. As the soundtrack plays one Bee Gees hit after another (including […]
The Hunt 31.07.15

Lucas (Mads Mikkelsen), a highly-regarded school teacher, has been forced to start over having overcome a tough divorce. Just as things are starting to go his way, his life is shattered. An untruthful remark throws the small community into a collective state of hysteria. The lie is spreading and Lucas is forced to fight a […]
The Damned United (15) 04.09.15

Set in 1960s and 1970s England, The Damned United tells the confrontational and darkly humorous story of Brian Clough’s doomed 44-day tenure as manager of the reigning champions of English football – Leeds United. Previously managed by Clough’s bitter rival, Don Revie, the Leeds team had just completed its most successful period ever as a […]
Casablanca (U) 25.09.15

In World War II Casablanca, Rick Blaine, exiled American and former freedom fighter, runs the most popular nightspot in town. The cynical lone wolf Blaine comes into the possession of two valuable letters of transit. When Nazi Major Strasser arrives in Casablanca, the sycophantic police Captain Renault does what he can to please him, including […]
Of Time and the City (12) 30.10.15

Includes a Q&A with the films producers Roy Boulter and Sol Papadopoulos. Of Time and the City is a 2008 documentary collage film directed by Terence Davies. The film has Davies recalling his life growing up in Liverpool in the 1950s and 1960s, using newsreel and documentary footage supplemented by his own commentary voiceover and […]
Annie Hall (15) 27.11.15

Alvy Singer, a 40-year-old, twice divorced, neurotic, intellectual Jewish New York stand-up comic reflects on the demise of his latest relationship, to Annie Hall, an insecure, flighty, aspiring nightclub singer. Unlike his previous relationships, Alvy believed he may have worked out all the issues in his life through 15 years of therapy to make this […]
It’s a Wonderful Life (U) 11.12.15

Released in 1946, It’s a Wonderful Life stars James Stewart as George Bailey, a man whose imminent suicide on Christmas Eve brings about the intervention of his guardian angel, Clarence Odbody (Henry Travers). Clarence shows George all the lives he has touched and how different life in his community would be had he never been […]
Little Moth 29.01.16

UK PREMIERE WITH LIVE SKYPE DIRECTOR Q&A Luo Jiang and Guihua, a poor, middle-aged couple with few prospects, decide to buy an 11- year-old girl, Xiao Ezi (aka “Little Moth”), for $140 in rural China. Xiao Ezi’s life is in peril, as she is forced to earn money for her new parents as a beggar […]
Whisky Galore! 26.02.16

NOW SOLD OUT SPECIAL 75th ANNIVERSARY SCREENING Whisky Galore! is a 1949 Ealing comedy film from the novel Whisky Galore by Compton MacKenzie. Both the film and the novel are based on the real-life 1941 shipwreck of the S.S. Politician near the island of Eriskay, in the Outer Hebrides, and the unauthorised taking of its […]
The Passion of Joan of Arc 25.03.16

WITH LIVE PIANO ACCOMPANIMENT BY MIE YANASHITA: EXCLUSIVE UK PERFORMANCE This will be a unique and one off opportunity to experience this remarkable film in the UK with a live piano accompaniment by renowned Japanese composer and performer Mie Yanashita. Her composition for The Passion of Joan of Arc, which is part scored and part […]
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest 29.04.16

McMurphy has a criminal past and has once again gotten himself into trouble and is sentenced by the court. To escape labor duties in prison, McMurphy pleads insanity and is sent to a ward for the mentally unstable. Once here, McMurphy both endures and stands witness to the abuse and degradation of the oppressive Nurse […]
Beasts of the Southern Wild 27.05.16

Hushpuppy, an intrepid six-year-old girl, lives with her father, Wink, in the Bathtub, a southern Delta community at the edge of the world. Wink’s tough love prepares her for the unravelling of the universe, ready for a time when he’s no longer there to protect her. When Wink contracts a mysterious illness, nature flies out […]
Ida 01.07.16

Ida is set in Poland in 1962. Anna, an orphan brought up by nuns in the convent, is a novice. She has to see Wanda, her only living relative, before she takes her vows. Wanda tells Anna about her Jewish roots. Both women start a journey not only to find their family’s tragic story, but […]
The Graduate 29.07.16

Ben has recently graduated from college, with his parents now expecting great things from him. At his “Homecoming” party, Mrs Robinson, the wife of his father’s business partner, has Ben drive her home, which leads to an affair between the two. The affair eventually ends, but comes back to haunt him when he finds himself […]
The Rocket 02.09.16

A boy who is believed to bring bad luck to everyone around him leads his family and two new friends through Laos to find a new home. After a calamity-filled journey through a land scarred by the legacy of war, to prove he’s not bad luck he builds a giant rocket to enter the most […]
Robot & Frank 30.09.16

The film is set in the near future. Frank is a retired cat-burglar living alone while his successful son, Hunter, tries to care for him from afar. Finally, Hunter gets him a robot caretaker, but Frank soon learns that the robot could be useful as a burglary aide. As Frank tries to restart his old […]
Love and Mercy 28.10.16

FIRST FILM OF OUR SIXTH ANNUAL FILM SEASON, AND CELEBRATING THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF PET SOUNDS BY THE BEACH BOYS. Set in the 1960s, young songwriter Brian Wilson (Paul Dano) finds himself in the midst of extraordinary success after scoring numerous hit records with The Beach Boys. Following a panic attack, he resigns from concert […]
Singin’ in the Rain 25.11.16

Come along to this classic Hollywood musical and enjoy another great Hoylake Community Cinema ‘big surprise’! Singin’ in the Rain is a 1952 American musical comedy film directed and choreographed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, starring Kelly, Donald O’Connor and Debbie Reynolds. It offers a lighthearted depiction of Hollywood in the late 1920s, with […]
It’s a Wonderful Life 09.12.16

SPECIAL 70th ANNIVERSARY SCREENING WITH LIVE SKYPE LINKUP WITH CAST MEMBERS AT THE IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE FESTIVAL, SENECA FALLS Following up from our surprise Skype linkup with members of the cast after our 2015 Christmas screening, we are again connecting with our new patron Karolyn Grimes (Zuzu in the film) and friends in Seneca […]
He Named Me Malala 27.01.17

He Named Me Malala is a 2015 documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim about then 18-year old Pakistani activist and youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai. The film recounts her survival of an assassination attempt by a Taliban gunman as part of the organization’s violent opposition to girls’ education in the Swat Valley in […]
Set Fire to the Stars 24.02.17

WITH SPECIAL GUEST Q&A Set Fire to the Stars is a 2014 BAFTA cymru winning film, directed by Andy Goddard and starring our special guest for this evening Celyn Jones (Shameless) and Elijah Wood (Lord of the Rings). In 1950, poet and academic John Brinnin (Wood) invites Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (Jones) to New York […]
Backbeat 31.03.17

Backbeat is a fascinating drama, directed by Iain Softley, about the early ‘Hamburg’ days of the Beatles, when in 1960, Pete Best (Scot Williams), John Lennon (Ian Hart), George Harrison (Chris O’Neill), Paul McCartney (Gary Bakewell), and Stuart Sutcliffe (Stephen Dorff) moved there for a residency at The Indra and Kaiserkeller Clubs. The film focuses […]
Mustang 28.04.17

Mustang is a 2015 Turkish-French feaure film debut by director Deniz Gamze Ergüven, which follows the lives of five orphaned sisters who are sent to live with their traditionally conservative uncle and grandmother in a remote Turkish village. A single event at the beginning of the film, based on a personal experience of Ergüven’s, leads to […]
Ex-Machina 26.05.17

Ex Machina is a 2015 independent science fiction thriller written and directed by Alex Garland in his directorial debut. It stars Domhnall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac, and Alicia Vikander. The film revolves around computer programmer Caleb Smith (Gleeson) who wins a one-week visit to the luxurious, isolated home of his CEO Nathan Bateman (Isaac) to test […]

COMING UP

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly 30.06.17

Based on the book of the same name – the memoir of Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor of popular French fashion magazine Elle – The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is an exceptional 2007 biographical drama directed by Julian Schnabel. Told from Bauby’s (Mathieu Amalric) first person perspective, the film opens as he wakes from a three-week […]

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Ice Cold in Alex 28.07.17

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Ice Cold in Alex is a British film made in 1958, directed by J. Lee Thompson, and based on a series of articles written for the Saturday Evening Post published in book form in 1957. Starring John Mills, Sylvia Sims, Harry Andrews, Diane Clare and Anthony Quayle, the film was a prizewinner at the 8th […]

Read More Book Now

Like Father, Like Son 01.09.17

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Like Father, Like Son is a 2013 Japanese drama film directed by Hirokazu Koreeda, starring Masaharu Fukuyama, Machiko Ono, Keita Nonomiya, Shôgen Hwang, Yōko Maki, and Lily Franky. Ryota Nonomiya (Fukuyama) is a businessman, driven so much by money and success that he neglects his wife, Midori (Ono), and son, Keita (Nonomiya). One day the […]

Read More Book Now

Charade 29.09.17

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Charade is a 1963 American romantic comedy thriller directed by Stanley Donen, starring Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Walter Matthau, James Coburn, George Kennedy and Ned Glass, with Audrey Hepburn winning the 1964 BAFTA Best Actress Award. While on a skiing holiday in the French Alps, “Reggie” Lampert (Hepburn) confides in her friend Sylvie that she […]

Read More Book Now

Saturday Matinees

The Railway Children (DATE TBC)

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The Railway Children is a 1970 British drama film based on the novel of the same name by E. Nesbit. The film was directed by Lionel Jeffries, and stars Dinah Sheridan, Jenny Agutter (who had earlier featured in the successful BBC’s 1968 dramatisation of the novel), Sally Thomsett and Bernard Cribbins in leading roles. The […]

101 Dalmatians (DATE TBC)

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One Hundred and One Dalmatians, often abbreviated to 101 Dalmatians, is a 1961 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and based on the novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith. The seventeenth in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film was originally released to theatres on January 25, 1961 by Buena […]

Arrietty 04.08.12

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Arrietty (entitled The Borrower Arrietty (借りぐらしのアリエッティ Kari-gurashi no Arietti) in Japan and The Secret World of Arrietty in North America) is a 2010 Japanese animated fantasy film directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi, written by Hayao Miyazaki and Keiko Niwa and produced by Studio Ghibli, based on Mary Norton’s novel The Borrowers. The film tells the story […]

James and the Giant Peach 24.11.12

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James and the Giant Peach is a 1996 British-American musical fantasy film directed by Henry Selick, based on the 1961 novel of the same name by Roald Dahl. It was produced by Tim Burton and Denise Di Novi. The film is a combination of live action and stop-motion animation. In the 1930’s, James Henry Trotter […]