Old-school Hollywood drama. Scandal in the suburbs. Love, obsession, and social tension, all in glorious Technicolor. This November, the UPP celebrates the vivid visual language, heightened emotion, and the rich pathos at the heart of classic film melodrama.
Melodramarama! is a month-long season showcasing some of cinema’s most celebrated melodramas from Hollywood’s Golden Age (1940s–60s), paired with modern counterparts in a series of double-feature events. Screenings will feature introductions, film quizzes, cocktails, cabaret performances, and live music. A limited number of discounted double-feature tickets are available for all back-to-back screenings (booking links below), alongside standard single-screen tickets.
Also, don’t miss our special season launch on Sunday 2 November with a one-off screening of Irving Rapper’s 1942 masterpiece Now, Voyager, introduced by national film critic and culture writer Lillian Crawford.
Melodramarama! has been co-curated in partnership between The Ultimate Picture Palace and Film Programmer & Writer Georgia Humphreys.
The season forms part of the BFI’s ‘Too Much: Melodrama on Film’, a major UK-wide celebration of cinema’s biggest emotions and boldest dramatics, presented by BFI Southbank and partner venues across the country in collaboration with the BFI Film Audience Network.
Full listings
NOW VOYAGER (1942)
Sunday 2nd November 2.30pm
Bette Davis shines as a woman breaking free from her tyrannical mother, discovering love and self-worth on a life-changing voyage. Blending sweeping romance with deep psychological drama, Irving Rapper’s classic remains one of Hollywood’s most moving tales of transformation. Season launch event featuring an in-depth introduction by freelance film critic and culture writer Lillian Crawford.
ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS (1955) + FAR FROM HEAVEN (2002)
Friday 7th November 6.15pm
Douglas Sirk’s 1950s melodrama of forbidden love meets Todd Haynes’ luminous homage, which reimagines its themes through the lens of race, sexuality, and repression. Together, these films reveal the aching beauty and offer a biting critique of American suburbia across eras. Double-feature screening plus film quiz hosted by Keepin’ It Reel.
LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN (1946) + GONE GIRL (2014)
Saturday 15th November 5.30pm
Two marriages unravel into obsession, deceit, and deadly consequence. Gene Tierney chills in Technicolor as a woman whose love suffocates, while Rosamund Pike electrifies as Amy Dunne, a wife gone missing. Hollywood’s lush noir and Fincher’s modern thriller expose passion’s darkest and most destructive extremes. Double-feature screening featuring an introduction by film writer Georgia Humphreys and cocktails at the bar.
BOOM! (1968) + POLYESTER (1981)
Wednesday 19th November 6.30pm
Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton spar in Joseph Losey’s flamboyant Tennessee Williams adaptation, while John Waters plunges suburbia into surreal meltdown. Glamour, camp, and chaos collide in this hysterical double bill, hosted by comedian and cabaret performer Jamie Mykaela, and featuring scratch ’n’ sniff ‘Odrorama’ cards for our screening of Polyester.
JOHNNY GUITAR (1954) + WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN (1988)
Saturday 22nd November 3.15pm
From Nicholas Ray’s feverish western of passion and paranoia to Pedro Almodóvar’s riotous farce of love and betrayal, this pairing delivers colourful chaos and volcanic emotion. Both films explode with style, showcasing the cinema of melodrama at its most unrestrained and subversive. Double-feature screening featuring a live music introduction by The August List.
ULTIMATE PICTURE PALACE YOUNG FILM CRITICS AWARD
In collaboration with BFI Film Audience Network
As part of this season, we are also launching a Young Film Critics Award. We are looking for 10 passionate young film writers and critics (aged 15–20) to take part in our UPP Young Critics Award, supported by the BFI Film Audience Network. Winners of the award will get press tickets to the whole season, submit a short review for one of the events (which will then be published on the UPP’s blog and Letterboxd account), and be invited to a 1hr masterclass/Q&A session with a national film journalist.
To enter, and for more information on the UPP’s Young Film Critics Award, click here.
This project is supported by the BFI Film Audience Network
