What was the first film you saw at a cinema?

I’m pretty sure btw that back in the 70s and 80s cinemas were much less formalised in terms of when they stopped and started showing films. I remember stories of how you could go and see Star Wars if you traveled to the right cinema that was still showing it etc.

So if you have a memory of seeing something that doesn’t fit with the official release date it might not be a false memory.

Yeah, I definitely saw Star Wars in the cinema but I think it was on re release (or somewhere still showing it) before Empire came out.

I'm fairly sure it was The Little Mermaid in the then new UCI in Merry Hill. I was 4 or 5 so if there was anything before that I just don't remember / was asleep.

Little mermaid for me too!

I'm not sure. I definitely went to see Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade as my grandma took me, my brother and all the cousins to see it. I would have been 9 though and most definitely would have been to the cinema before then but I honestly can't remember. Looking at what was out... I'm wondering maybe Willow. I definitely saw that but again, not sure if it was the cinema or when it went to VHS.

Oh... Who Framed Roger Rabbit was earlier. That I think. I know my brohter went to see Labyrinth but at 5yo I was deemed too young. I remember him telling me about it when he got back though, weirdly (as in it's weird I have the memory, he didn't tell me about it in a weird fashion).

Fuck. I don't know for sure. The earliest one I actually recall with any certainty is Indy.

In more ‘things aren’t as good as they used to be’ news: we went to see Batman and they let me in because my dad made me rehearse my fake birthday but my brother was clearly too young and they wouldn’t let him in, so he went to see Last Crusade* with my mum.

Talk about having options.



*Id argue that it’s actually no less violent or scary for kids than Batman, tbh

He chose... poorly

Turtles was 90 apparently. I thought that might have been mine as well but the release dates say differently. I went to see it on my birthday. Think I saw the second one in the cinema as well.

I'm now wondering if I saw The Land Before Time in the cinema. Might have done.

The Explorers and Flight of the Navigator are possibles but I really doubt I would have been old enough to be taken to see them. So they were telly jobs. Surely.

I’m going to have to totally revise my answer because I’m almost certain I saw Turtles and Land Before Time at the cinema and they’re both a few years older than what I originally said

I've honestly no idea, I imagine it was some Children's Film Foundation thing (maybe featuring Cheggers) on a Saturday morning with a bunch of other kids who were left at the cinema so their parents could do something without the kids. This would have been around 1975.

Films I do remember seeing as a nipper were my first Bond with "The Spy Who Loved Me" which lead to me forever being in love with the Lotus Esprit, Star Wars of course, Grease, Close Encounters (on a rainy day during a holiday in Great Yarmouth) and even Can't Stop The Music which I'm pretty sure me and my sister were dragged along to by my Mum as my Dad had absolutely no interest in seeing it (it was actually quite fun).

One thing I really enjoyed seeing at the cinema was the pilot episodes for Battlestar Galactica as they got cut into a feature for the European market, it wasn't Star Wars but it was enjoyable.

My grandma (she of the Indiana Jones trip fame) had the Battlestar Galactica pilot film on tape. It was bloody good. No, it was no Star Wars, but it was bloody good anyway. The vipers are just as iconic as X-wings in my mind. Little me would have loved to have seen that on the big screen.

One can only imagine what those parents were doing without their kids there...

For me it was either Disney’s animated Peter Pan or a double feature of Mickey Mouse’s A Christmas Carol and Winnie the Pooh, at the Sunderland Empire.

I saw Condorman too, with my brother and neighbours Iain, Karl and Julie.

Kal is definitely right about reruns. I remember loads of old films come back during school holidays. During the summer they’d do double features, Sinbad, Star Wars, Superman always went down well.