Coco Before Chanel12A

Directed by Anne Fontaine | France | 2009 | 1h 50m | French w/ English subtitles | Starring Audrey Tautou, Benoît Poelvoorde, Alessandro Nivola, Marie Gillain, Emmanuelle Devos

Young Coco Chanel works as a seamstress by day and a cabaret entertainer by night, then she meets a wealthy heir and becomes his lover and fashion consultant. Tired of the flowery hats, tight corsets and yards of lace that define women’s fashion, Coco uses her lover’s clothing as a starting point to distill an elegant and sophisticated line of women’s clothing that propels her to the top of Parisian haute couture.

The Oxford International Women’s Festival will host a post-screening discussion on Monday 13th March.

Reviews

‘Fontaine’s film is gorgeous, but its beauty is practical, almost textile, like a Chanel tweed.’
★★★★
Nina Caplan, Time Out

‘An epic story that gradually develops into a beautiful and beguiling homage to the first lady of fashion.’
Monisha Rajesh, Little White Lies

Sorry - you missed it!

We showed Coco Before Chanel between March 12, 2023 and March 13, 2023.

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What else is on?

Today (Friday 9th June)

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1h 20m | Arabic w/ English subtitles
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20:00

Beau Is Afraid 15
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Tomorrow (Saturday 10th June)

15:00

The Dam Cert-TBC
1h 20m | Arabic w/ English subtitles
Lebanese artist and filmmaker Ali Cherri’s quietly political first feature is an enigmatic and allegorical drama about Sudanese bricklayer who wanders into the desert to work on a mysterious construction.

Book here

17:00

Beau Is Afraid 15
2h 58m
Academy Award winner Joaquin Phoenix stars as a man in meltdown in this brilliantly baffling psychological epic from the director of modern horror classics Hereditary and Midsommer.

Book here

20:30

Master Gardener 15
1h 51m
Legendary filmmaker Paul Schrader continues his late-career resurgence with this potent tale of a man tormented by the ghosts of history and a country reckoning with its own troubled 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 don’t show adverts, just a couple of trailers, so don't be late as the film itself starts very close to the advertised time!