The lyricist Lorenz Hart’s collaborations with composer Richard Rodgers are the stuff of legend. Yet, in 1943, only months before he died from pneumonia, Hart’s partnership with Rodgers was on the rocks. Rodgers had first paired up with Oscar Hammerstein II, and their musical Oklahoma! had reinvigorated and reinvented narrative musical theatre.

Richard Linklater’s luminous, erudite drama imagines a loquacious Hart (an astonishing tour de force by Ethan Hawke) on the night of Oklahoma!’s premiere, holed up at Sardi’s and moving through various stages of grief and acceptance when faced with Broadway’s new world order. Also featuring stellar supporting work from Andrew Scott, Margaret Qualley and Bobby Cannavale, Blue Moon is a surprising yet entirely fitting addition to the Linklater canon: a film about the inevitable passage of time and the feeling of being left behind by those stuck in its folds.

The magician Herr Drosselmeyer needs to save his nephew. Hans-Peter has been transformed into a Nutcracker; the only way to save him is for the Nutcracker to defeat the Mouse King and find a girl to love and care for him. A flicker of hope comes in the form of the young Clara, whom Drosselmeyer meets at a Christmas party. With some magic, a cosy Christmas gathering turns into a marvellous adventure.

Peter Wright’s The Nutcracker has enchanted audiences since its 1984 premiere by the Company. Featuring Tchaikovsky’s most familiar melodies and brought to life by Julia Trevelyan Oman’s exquisite designs, The Nutcracker is sure to be a festive firecracker for all ages.

Cast:  

To be confirmed

Creatives:

Choreography PETER WRIGHT after LEV IVANOV

Music PYOTR IL’YICH TCHAIKOVSKY

Conductor KOEN KESSELS

Original Scenario MARIUS PETIPA after E.T.A. HOFFMANN

Production and Scenario PETER WRIGHT

Designer JULIA TREVELYAN OMAN

Lighting Designer MARK HENDERSON

Production Consultant ROLAND JOHN WILEY

A new documentary by Suffolk-based filmmaker Tim Curtis delves into one of Britain's most enduring Second World War mysteries.

Backed by decades of research from James Hayward and Ron Clayton, the film examines rumours of a foiled German invasion attempt, burning seas, and bodies on the beach along the wartime Suffolk coast.

The film also features former East Anglian Daily Times reporter Henry Creagh, who recounts a 1992 call from a source claiming to have seen secret MOD files describing a deadly friendly fire incident. This gripping documentary takes viewers deep into Suffolk's wartime history, and attempts to unravel a mystery that refuses to fade.

Following the screenings there will be an on stage discussion with director Tim Curtis, former East Anglian Daily Times Reporter Henry Creagh and our manager, Neil.

Ralph Fiennes leads an excellent ensemble of new and established talent in this funny and moving First World War drama by beloved writer Alan Bennett.

A Yorkshire village’s choral society finds its ranks depleted as men head off to war. With the annual performance looming, the society is forced to change its entry rules to enlist some unlikely teens and the musically gifted but socially scandalous Dr. Guthrie. Brimming with humour and hope, Bennett and Nicholas Hytner’s (The Madness of King George, The Lady in the Van) latest triumph celebrates the power of community in the darkest of days.

Friend of The Riverside, Edgar Wright, and star Glen Powell team up for a spirited take on Stephen King’s dystopian life-or-death gameshow thriller.

Edgar Wright’s film is a high-octane, fast-paced and thrilling adaptation of Stephen King’s dystopian take on future TV entertainment. The Running Man is a top-rated show, attracting an audience of millions, who watch the spectacle of contestants running for their lives as they’re hunted down. Blue-collar worker Ben Richards signs on, hoping to raise the money for his sick daughter’s treatment, but it soon becomes clear the game is rigged and he must do all he can to survive.

Join Cinderella, Buttons and some funny new characters for a story that celebrates finding your thing! Sparkling with CBeebies’ stars,
this unique adaption of a pantomime classic is full of music, magic and festive fun for all the family - plus a song exclusive to cinemas!

A young boy is at the age where he's beginning to doubt the existence of Santa Claus. However, one Christmas Eve he hears a thunderous noise outside and, on investigating, finds it's being made by a huge train - the Polar Express. A kindly conductor asks him aboard and soon he and some other children are on a rollercoaster ride north to see the big man himself. Director Robert Zemeckis honed the use of "motion capture" technology when filming The Polar Express, and the technique perfectly suits this charming, fantastical nature of a film about the magic of Christmas.

Screening as part of our "Six for £6 Christmas Films Season"

Benedict Cumberbatch gives a magnificent performance in the highly anticipated screen adaptation of Max Porter’s award-winning Grief Is the Thing with Feathers.

A mother dies, leaving two primary school-aged children and ‘Sad Dad’. Before long, ‘Crow’ emerges from the pages of the book Sad Dad is writing, to peck at the open wounds and shepherd them through their grief, in the only way it knows how. Dylan Southern employs great visual flair to soulfully explore the chaos, pain and redemption of our most-feared emotion.

Todd Haynes’ homage to Douglas Sirk’s style of social critique by way of melodrama, masterfully tells the story of a well-to-do suburban couple in 1950s America, straitjacketed by convention, yet desperate to lead lives they are seemingly denied. In the autumn of 1957 in the affluent small town of Hartford, Connecticut, Cathy Whitaker (Julianne Moore) is a beautiful but sober mother of two, married to Frank (Dennis Quaid), a ruggedly handsome, former naval officer, now go-ahead executive at a television company. It is a blissfully happy family scene into which drama and tragedy have yet to intrude. It’s shattered when Cathy surprises Frank at work and finds him in the arms of another man. Unable to tell anyone in her social circle, she finds solace in their African-American gardener, Raymond (Dennis Haysbert). However, when they are seen alone together by Cathy's best friend - a social taboo in that era - the gossip begins, threatening to reveal all of the Whitaker's secret life.

The final film in our Melodrama Season.

Joe Dante's hilariously overblown comedy horror cheerfully pits man against beast in a cosy suburban setting. Zach Galligan is the hapless teenager who receives the oh-so-loveable Mogwai, Gizmo, for Christmas, completely disregards the instructions not to get it wet or feed it after midnight, and watches, along with his girlfriend Phoebe Cates, the mayhem unfold when the goggle-eyed cutie starts birthing evil sprites as a result. Played almost totally for laughs (even Cates' monologue on how she found out there's no Santa Claus has a vein of pitch black humour in it), this serves as a delightfully offbeat reminder of how inventive and witty blockbusters seemed when you were a kid.

Dante’s critters-run-amok-in-snowbound-Spielberg-suburbia satire takes the Christmas milieu of It’s A Wonderful Life (Screening as part of this season on 18th December) and splatters it with cartoony carnage, anarchic comedy and a stripe of gleeful subversion a mile wide.

Screening as part of our 6 for £6 each Christmas Films Season

Stanley's War (2018, Dir. Tim Curtis) dramatises stories of love, loss and sacrifice, following the lives of Suffolk people during WW1.The film recounts the true life-changing experiences at the Western Front of Stanley Banyard, a farm hand from Ramsholt, and how he saved the lives of his comrades lost in no-man's-land by using skills he learnt as a boy from a Suffolk gamekeeper. In contrast, the Pretty family of Ipswich (later of Sutton Hoo fame) suffer family tragedy.

The War Just Outside Ipswich (2020, Dir. Tim Curtis) For nearly two decades, Akenham’s purpose-built trench system has drawn filmmakers seeking to recreate the chaos of the First World War, from Downton Abbey and Journey’s End to Private Peaceful and the iconic Sainsbury’s Christmas advert. This fascinating behind-the-scenes documentary explores Suffolk’s own cinematic battlefield, where mud, history, and movie magic collide. 

Tim Curtis joined forces with manager Neil to make the film during Covid, and it has been updated in 2025. 

Following the screening there will be an on stage discussion with war historian Taff Gillingham of Khaki Devil and our manager, Neil.

The much-anticipated second part to last year’s global musical hit brings this chapter of Elphaba and Glinda’s adventures to a close. Now demonised as a wicked witch and living in exile, Elphaba desperately tries to pull back the curtains and reveal the truth about the Wizard, while Glinda has become the glamorous symbol of Goodness for all of Oz, living at the palace in Emerald City. Jon M. Chu’s fabulous worlds-creating blockbuster is a must for the UK’s largest screen.

Tickets on sale from 31st October

Fire Over Shingle Street—Fact, Fiction, or Propaganda?

A new documentary by Suffolk-based filmmaker Tim Curtis (Life on the Deben, Stanley's War) delves into one of Britain’s most persistent Second World War mysteries, asking: Has this enduring enigma been fully accounted for, or are there still unanswered questions?

For decades the Shingle Street ‘Mystery’ has divided the views of locals, journalists and historians alike with incredible and unexplained stories of the sea being set on fire, dead soldiers bodies on the beach and strange happenings in the night.

Was this remote stretch of Suffolk’s coast the site of a German invasion attempt? Did British forces set fire to the sea with petroleum weapons to repel the enemy? Or could it have been part of an elaborate wartime deception, designed to maintain national morale?

The film examines how the Suffolk coast was a hub of military secrecy—home to radar development and experimental weapons testing. Did these classified operations (with some still under wraps) combined with wartime propaganda help create the perfect conditions for rumours to fuel a wartime mystery?

The Shingle Street ‘Mystery’ gained renewed attention in the 1990s when the East Anglian Daily Times was contacted by an ‘MOD Whistleblower’ claiming to have a file—soon to be destroyed—detailing a horrific accident in which British soldiers had been killed in a training exercise.

The ensuing media frenzy led to the early release of classified documents from the National Archives at Kew. However, the files revealed little, sparking claims of a cover-up.

This gripping documentary takes viewers deep into Suffolk’s wartime history, and attempts to unravel a mystery that refuses to fade.

The Muppets perform the classic Christmas tale by Charles Dickens, the iconic Michael Caine playing Ebenezer Scrooge, with Kermit the Frog playing Bob Cratchit. Miss Piggy, Gonzo and Fozzie Bear take up supporting roles as Scrooge receives visits from the spirits of Christmas past, Christmas present and Christmas future. The Spirits do everything in their power to show him the error of his ways and to help him find redemption and lasting happiness.

Screening as part of our 6 for £6 each Christmas Films Season

There have been many contenders over the past twenty years, but ELF is clearly the first and best classic Christmas movie of the 21st century.  Buddy, a human orphan raised by Santa’s elves at the North Pole, learns that his father is still alive and on the naughty list. Determined to save his father from such a fate, Buddy travels to New York City to meet him for the first time and inspire some Christmas spirit, but the Big Apple is very different from the North Pole. Can Buddy save his father from the naughty list, but more importantly, figure out where Buddy truly belongs?

Screening as part of our 6 for £6 Christmas Season

In Walt Disney Animation Studios’ ZOOTROPOLIS 2 detectives Judy Hopps (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin) and Nick Wilde (voiced by Jason Bateman) find themselves on the twisting trail of a mysterious reptile who arrives in Zootropolis and turns the mammal metropolis upside down. To crack the case, Judy and Nick must go undercover to unexpected new parts of town, where their growing partnership is tested like never before. Oscar® winner Jared Bush (co-director/co-writer ZOOTROPOLIS, director/co-writer ENCANTO) is directing and writing; Yvett Merino (Oscar-winning producer ENCANTO) produces.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" -- or, rather, a homicidal boy in Stanley Kubrick's eerie 1980 adaptation of Stephen King's horror novel. With wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and psychic son Danny (Danny Lloyd) in tow, frustrated writer Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) takes a job as the winter caretaker at the opulently ominous, mountain-locked Overlook Hotel so that he can write in peace. Before the Overlook is vacated for the Torrances, the manager (Barry Nelson) informs Jack that a previous caretaker went crazy and slaughtered his family; Jack thinks it's no problem, but Danny's "shining" hints otherwise. Settling into their routine, Danny cruises through the empty corridors on his Big Wheel and plays in the topiary maze with Wendy, while Jack sets up shop in a cavernous lounge with strict orders not to be disturbed. Frightened by her husband's behavior and Danny's visit to the forbidding Room 237, Wendy soon discovers what Jack has really been doing in his study all day, and what the hotel has done to Jack.

Federico Fellini returned to the provincial landscape of his childhood with this carnivalesque reminiscence, recreating his hometown of Rimini in Cinecittà’s studios and rendering its daily life as a circus of social rituals, adolescent desires, male fantasies, and political subterfuge. Sketching a gallery of warmly observed comic caricatures, Fellini affectionately evokes a vanished world haloed with the glow of memory, even as he sends up authority figures representing church and state, satirizing a country stultified by Fascism. Winner of Fellini’s fourth Academy Award for best foreign-language film, Amarcord remains one of the director’s best-loved creations, beautifully weaving together Giuseppe Rottuno’s colourful Technicolor cinematography, Danilo Donati’s extravagant costumes and sets, and Nino Rota’s nostalgia-tinged score.

Screening as part of our Around the World in Technicolor Season

Basel Adra, a young Palestinian activist from Masafer Yatta, has been fighting his community's mass expulsion by the Israeli occupation since childhood. Basel documents the gradual erasure of Masafer Yatta, as soldiers destroy the homes of families - the largest single act of forced transfer ever carried out in the occupied West Bank. He crosses paths with Yuval, an Israeli journalist, and for over half a decade they fight against the expulsion while growing closer.

This film, by a Palestinian-Israeli collective of four young activists, was co-created during the darkest, most terrifying times in the region, as an act of creative resistance to Apartheid and a search for a path towards equality and justice.

????? "Powerful Israel-Palestine documentary is essential viewing" - The Guardian

Berlinale Documentary Award and Panorama Audience Award for Best Documentary Film