Portrait of a Lady on Fire15

Directe by Celine Sciamma | France | 2019 | 2h 2m | French w/ English subtitles | Starring Adèle Haenel, Noémie Merlant, Luàna Bajrami, Valeria Golino

On an isolated island in 18th-century Brittany, painter Marianne is commissioned by a countess to paint a wedding portrait for her daughter, hoping it will find her a wealthy husband. Romance and art entwine in Céline Sciamma’s (Girlhood, Petite Maman) ravishing period piece, told with a distinctly modern feminist edge.

One-off screening part of our UPP Members Screening Day. 15-25 Five Pound Film Pass holders can purchase tickets to this screening for the specially discounted rate of £3.

Reviews

‘Sciamma has achieved something immense with Portrait of a Lady on Fire. It’s a film that shakes the dust off of the fusty period drama and unearths the forgotten lives of women.’
★★★★★
Katie Goh, Little White Lies

‘It could have been claustrophobic but the central story is so passionately involving you don’t want to look elsewhere at all.’
★★★★★
David Sexton, London Evening Standard

Sorry - you missed it!

We showed Portrait of a Lady on Fire between May 11, 2022 and May 12, 2022.

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What else is on?

Today (Sunday 29th March)

14:00

My Night at Maud's PG
1h 50m | French w/ English subtitles
A devout Catholic engineer’s orderly life is unsettled by an intimate, chance encounter with Maud, a confident divorcée. As philosophy, desire, and morality collide, Jean-Louis Trintignant shines in Éric Rohmer’s most celebrated Six Moral Tales film.

Book here

16:30

Sound of Falling 18
2h 35m | German w/ English subtitles
Across the twentieth century four teenage girls spend their youth in the same farmhouse decades apart, yet their lives echo each other. German director Mascha Schilinski interweaves generations of girlhood, revealing loneliness and lost innocence across a turbulent century.

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19:45

The President's Cake 12A
1h 45m | Arabic w/ English subtitles
During 1990s Iraq, schoolgirl Lamia is chosen by her class to bake a birthday cake for Saddam Hussein. With her pet rooster beside her she searches the town for ingredients in an award-winning debut about childhood resilience and life under dictatorship.

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Tomorrow (Monday 30th March)

18:00

My Night at Maud's PG
1h 50m | French w/ English subtitles
A devout Catholic engineer’s orderly life is unsettled by an intimate, chance encounter with Maud, a confident divorcée. As philosophy, desire, and morality collide, Jean-Louis Trintignant shines in Éric Rohmer’s most celebrated Six Moral Tales film.

Book here

20:30

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.

Book here


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!