This summer, we’re celebrating not one but two major milestones in Oxford cinema history - 30 years of the Ultimate Picture Palace, and 50 years since the opening of our predecessor, the much-loved Penultimate Picture Palace. To mark the occasion, we’ve put together a...
The Magnificent Amberson's is showing as part of our 35mm Films on Film season on Saturday 9th May at 3pm. Citizen Kane screens on 35mm the following day, Sunday 10th May at 5.30pm. Click here to book tickets. How do you follow what you know is one of the most...
The Ultimate Picture Palace are delighted to partner with Ruskin School of Art, to exhibit a selection of their students’ short films. Last February, students were given the opportunity to showcase their films at The Ultimate Picture Palace during a two-hour...
Born from rebellion, the French New Wave changed cinema forever. Inspired by the release of Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague (screening from 20th February), a new comedy-drama that recreates the shooting of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless, this season revisits the...
Like so many things that happened over 50 years ago, it’s hard to believe that someone like Gene Hackman could have ever been a successful and popular leading man (and one of my favourite actors, ever). I saw him for the first time as wayward priest Rev. Frank Scott...
As you get older, you learn to love westerns all the more. I know there’s still them that say they can’t stand the genre. But for this grizzled, mean and melancholy son of a gun, who, to this day always sits facing the door in a bar, there’s nothing like ‘em. Any list...
As the year draws to a close, we’ve been looking back on the films that stayed with us long after the credits rolled. From boundary-pushing debuts to bold new work from filmmakers we love, these are the movies that sparked conversations at the bar, lingered in our...
This January, we pay tribute to five remarkable artists we lost in 2025 by bringing some of their most beloved films back to the cinema. It’s a rare chance to enjoy a handful of all-time great movies as they were meant to be experienced - together, in the dark, and...
As part of our recent Melodramarama! season, we were thrilled to launch a brand-new Young Film Critics Award, delivered in collaboration with the BFI Film Audience Network. The quality of submissions was outstanding, and we invited the award recipients to join us at...
This piece is adapted from an introduction given live by Georgia Humphreys at our Melodramarama! season double-bill of Leave Her to Heaven and Gone Girl on Saturday 15th November 2025. Throughout this November, we’ve been luxuriating in the many splendoured guises of...
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!