‘And Where Did You See Star Wars?’ — Cinema-Going in Britain

Abstract

‘Cinema — the best place to watch a film’ was the clarion call of British Film Year, which ran from May 1985 to May 1986. It came at a time when cinema attendance in Britain had reached an all-time low, with three quarters of the population no longer going to the cinema at all, and only 1 per cent of the minority that was attending going every week. The total attendance at cinemas in Britain in 1984 was 54 million. This is about 3 per cent of the 1640 million that went to the cinema in the peak year of British cinema attendance —1946. In that year three quarters of the population attended the cinema at least once a year and one third attended at least once a week.