The Long Good Friday18

Directed by John Mackenzie | UK | 1981 | 1h 55m | Starring Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren, Paul Freeman, Patti Love, Kevin McNally

A cockney crime boss, with eyes on becoming a legitimate property mogul, plans to transform the derelict docklands of London into a possible venue for a future Olympic Games. However, a series of targeted bombings leave his plans in disarray. With Bob Hoskins’ commanding breakthrough performance, John Mackenzie’s crime thriller holds up as a searing state-of-the-nation portrait of Britain sliding into the rampant enterprise culture of Thatcherism.

Reviews

‘Although The Long Good Friday is firmly rooted in a very different era — early 1980s Britain is another country entirely — the film still feels fresh and uncompromisingly tough.’
★★★★★
Katy Muir, The Times

‘A superb script and great turns from Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren are the making of John Mackenzie’s classic London gangland thriller’
★★★★★
Mark Kermode, The Observer

Sorry - you missed it!

We showed The Long Good Friday between July 12, 2022 and July 14, 2022.

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What else is on?

Today (Monday 23rd March)

18:00

The Young Girls of Rochefort U
2h 5m | French w/ English subtitles
In a sun-drenched seaside town, twin sisters dream of love as artists and sailors drift through a weekend fair of romantic near-misses. Jacques Demy’s joyous musical, with Michel Legrand’s score, is a pastel-hued celebration of optimism.

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20:45

Sirāt 15
1h 54m | Spanish, French & Arabic w/ English subtitles
Oliver Laxe’s intense, hallucinatory road movie follows a father and son through Morocco as they try to find a missing relative at various sprawling, illegal raves. Winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival 2025.

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Tomorrow (Tuesday 24th March)

18:15

Iris Prize Film Festival Shorts 15
1h 3m
From a haunted tollhouse to a high-rise reckoning, from quiet self-discovery to a love song by the sea. Audience favourites and award-winning short films from the opening night of the 2025 Iris Prize LGBTQ+ Film Festival.

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20:00

The Secret Agent 15
£6 for Members
2h 41m | Portuguese w/ English subtitles
Carnival, communal resistance, political tensions, and a man's missing leg collide in Kleber Mendonça Filho’s slow-burning 1970s political thriller. The Oscar-nominated Wagner Moura stars in this gripping examination of Brazil’s turbulent past.

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Plan your visit

Our beautiful art deco inspired auditorium can be found just off East Oxford's Cowley Road.We are open 7 days a week. We open the cinema and box office 30 minutes before the scheduled start time of each film, and the Box Office then closes 10 minutes after the film starts. We only show a few adverts – less than most cinemas – and we only play a couple of trailers, so please don’t be late as the film itself starts very close to the advertised time!