MirrorU

Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky | Soviet Union | 1975 | 1h 47m | Russian w/ English subtitles | Starring Margarita Terekhova, Filipp Yankovskiy, Nikolay Grinko, Anatoliy Solonitsyn, Ignat Daniltsev

In 20th-century Russia, a poet relives his past in the fading moments of consciousness. His memories unfold through vivid visions of childhood, wartime, and married life, blending personal moments with the broader sweep of Soviet history and the quiet beauty of everyday existence. Using a nonlinear structure rich with dreams and flashbacks, director Andrei Tarkovsky crafts a deeply personal meditation on war, memory, and time, drawing inspiration from his own experiences.

Join us on Sunday 25th May (3pm) for a screening introduced by Ally Pitts, host of A Russian & Soviet Movie Podcast (since 2017).

Classic Season: Dreamscapes

Reviews

‘Visually stunning, baffling and intensely personal, the result is also impossibly ambiguous – but stick with it. Cinema rarely gets this close to poetry in motion.’
★★★★
Jonathan Crocker, BBC

‘The Mirror deserves a big-screen viewing, with its smorgasbord of memories in dream, drama and newsreel form from the life of a dying poet.’
★★★★
Kate Muir, The Times

Sorry - you missed it!

We showed Mirror between May 25, 2025 and May 26, 2025.

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Today (Thursday 1st October)
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15:00

Late Fame 15
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17:30

The Incomer 12A
1h 42m
A man and his sister survive on a remote Scottish island, hunting seabirds and retelling ancestral stories, until a council worker arrives to move them to the mainland. Domhnall Gleeson stars in Louis Paxton's Sundance award-winning comedy.

Book here

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20:00

NTLive: The Misanthrope 15 TBC
2h
Sandra Oh (Killing Eve) stars in Martin Crimp's razor-sharp reimagining of Molière's The Misanthrope, playing a novelist who refuses to lie in a world built on it. Indhu Rubasingham directs this National Theatre production, filmed live on stage.

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Tomorrow (Friday 2nd October)
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15:15

Pressure 12A
Descriptive Subtitles
1h 40m
Dwight D. Eisenhower and Captain James Stagg have 72 hours to decide whether to launch the D-Day invasion, with everything ready except the one factor they can't control: the weather. Brendan Fraser and Andrew Scott star in this historical thriller.

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17:45

Bad Apples 15
1h 41m
A teacher at a struggling school kidnaps her most disruptive pupil and locks him in her basement, then watches the rest of the class flourish. Saoirse Ronan stars in this satirical black comedy about how doing the wrong thing sometimes gives the right result.

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20:15

Manhunter 18
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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!

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