Tuesday 21 May 2024
What's On in May and June - click on an image below or scroll down for the daily listings throughout May
Browse through the June listings (click here)
OUR SECURE PAYMENT GATEWAY IS LIMITED TO ANY NUMBER OF TICKETS FOR ONE FILM PURCHASE PER TRANSACTION.
The Box Office, situated in the Arts Bar, is open 45 minutes before the start of each film.
The Arts bar is open for refreshments 45 minutes before each afternoon and evening screening.
Subscribe to our Sunday newsletter here. Review us on Google here.
ORDINARY ANGELS
2024 | Dir Jon Gunn | 118m | 
USA
Saturday 18 May 2024 at 2.00pm * – In association with Croydon u3a Film Group, there will be an informal discussion following the Saturday screening.
Wednesday 22 May 2024 at 7.30pm
A hard-drinking Louisville hairdresser becomes the unlikely guardian angel to a gravely ill young girl and her family.
Based on a true story. Sharon (Hilary Swank) is the part owner of a hairdressing salon, and a hardened drinker who is attracted to the story of a local 5-year old girl who is desperately ill. Sharon organises a fundraising event at the salon, and approaches the family with the money collected, but the girl’s recently widowed father is wary of her, especially when she offers more help, but feels powerless to stop her. Swank’s performance anchors what could have been an exercise in schmaltz, and the film has been praised by critics and enthusiastically embraced by audiences in the States.
ALL OF US STRANGERS
2023 | Dir Andrew Haigh | 105m | 
UK
Tuesday 21 May 2024 at 2.30pm *HOH
*HOH – Descriptive subtitles for those with hearing loss.
A ghost story set in Croydon. An orphaned writer begins a relationship with a troubled high-rise neighbour whilst searching for his childhood home in Sanderstead.
One night in his near-empty tower block in contemporary London, Adam (Andrew Scott) has a chance encounter with a mysterious neighbor Harry (Paul Mescal), which punctures the rhythm of his everyday life. As a relationship develops between them, Adam is preoccupied with memories of the past and finds himself drawn back to the suburban town where he grew up, and the childhood home where his parents (Claire Foy and Jamie Bell), appear to be living, just as they were on the day they died, 30 years before.
DRIVING MUM
2022 | Dir Hilmar Oddsson | 112m | 
Iceland | 
Estonia
Icelandic farmer Jon dresses up the corpse of his dead mother and drives her across Iceland to be buried in this happy-sad comedy-drama.
The latest Icelandic film to hit the David Lean will delight those who warm to that country’s dramatic landscape and droll sense of humour. Farmer Jon and his widowed mother live with their dog in a very remote part of the country, where they knit sweaters to sell. When his mother dies, he obeys her wishes, dresses her in her finest clothes, and takes her (and the dog) on the long journey to the other side of Iceland for burial. But although she’s dead, she’s still talking to him, criticising his past romantic choices. Icelandic with English subtitles.
THE TEACHERS’ LOUNGE
2023 | Dir Ilker Çatak | 98m | 
Germany
Thursday 23 May 2024 at 2.30pm
Thursday 23 May 2024 at 7.30pm
Young teacher Carla tries to find out who has been stealing in her school, but her investigations cause far more damage than she could have imagined.
Carla is an idealistic young woman who has recently started at a sixth-grade teacher at a large school. When she begins to investigate incidents of stealing amongst her students and in the staffroom, her good intentions backfire with drastic results for her and the school as a whole. This drama grips like a thriller while acting as a metaphor for wider society, and like next week’s Io Capitano was nominated for the Best International Feature Film Oscar. “This is really worth your time” (Kermode and Mayo). German with English subtitles.
PERFECT DAYS
2023 | Dir Wim Wenders | 124m | 
Japan | Germany
Saturday 25 May 2024 at 2.00pm
Hirayama cleans public toilets in Tokyo, lives his life in simplicity and daily tranquility. Some encounters also lead him to reflect on himself.
Wim Wenders is back on form with this story of a Tokyo public toilet cleaner. Hirayama lives a simple life with few of the modern appliances we rely on today. Every day he has the same routine but seems at peace with his lot, taking pride in cleaning the most modern, stylised, public conveniences. Not much interferes with his routine except for the few people he interacts with, and who intrigue and sometimes frustrate him. This film harks back to the director’s masterpieces Paris, Texas and Wings of Desire, with a perfect soundtrack featuring classics from Lou Reed, Patti Smith and many more. Japanese with English subtitles.
ALL OF US STRANGERS – Film Locations Walking Tour
Sunday 26 May 2024 at 2.00pm (meet at 1.45pm)
More info and booking
Sanderstead Rec, Sanderstead “Village” (Limpsfield Road), the house, the alleys – and everything in between including tea with Joanna Scanlan.
Join us for a volunteer led film location walking tour through Sanderstead, Croydon. The tour meeting point will be Riddlesdown station where two members of the David Lean Cinema will greet you. The tour will be stopping off at some of the main locations that were used for the filming of All of Us Strangers and finishing up with a hot drink with our patron, Joanna Scanlan. The tour end point will be Sanderstead Station around 4.30pm.
We estimate the walk to be 2 hours long, which includes walking and stopping time. Places are limited, with only 20 spaces available.
Participants should arrive 15 minutes before the scheduled start time, and make yourself known to the guides for registration with a copy of your ticket. More information and booking here.
If you are unable to secure a ticket for this event, but would be interested in other volunteer-led film location walks do share your feedback via our website contact form or social media.
THE BOOK OF CLARENCE
2023 | Dir Jeymes Samuel | 129m | USA
LaKeith Stanfield stars as Clarence, the twin brother of Apostle ‘Doubting’ Thomas, who like Brian before him, gets mistaken for someone much more important!
Jeymes Samuel’s take on the ‘mistaken Messiah’ idea pays its’ dues to Monty Python before taking its own hero, Clarence, the dope-dealing twin of the Apostle Thomas, through a parallel Holy Land at the time of the Crucifixion. On the way he runs up an enormous debt with the local Mr Big while falling for his sister, trying – and failing – to join the Apostles and get baptised by David Oyelowo’s John, and performing bogus miracles. LaKeith Stanfield makes a genial comic hero, and there are cameo roles from the likes of Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Benedict Cumberbatch.
WICKED LITTLE LETTERS
2023 | Dir Thea Sharrock | 102m | UK
Wednesday 29 May 2024 at 7.30pm
When people in Littlehampton–including conservative local Edith–begin to receive letters full of hilarious profanities, rowdy Irish migrant Rose is charged with the crime. Suspecting that something is amiss, the town’s women investigate.
A superb British cast shine in this comic dramatization of a real-life incident from 1920s Littlehampton. When exotically insulting poison-pen letters were sent to spinster Edith Swan (Olivia Colman), her fiery Irish neighbour Rose Gooding (Jessie Buckley) was quickly accused of libel. Suspecting there was more to this than met the eye, Sussex’s first WPC (Anjana Vasan) set out to find the true culprit… “Hilariously creative swearing [and] Thea Sharrock’s confident direction” make this “a cheeky pleasure that never tires” (Metro).
IO CAPITANO
2023 | Dir Matteo Garrone | 121 mins | 
Italy | 
Belgium
Thursday 30 May 2024 at 2.30pm
Thursday 30 May 2024 at 7.30pm
Matteo Garrone delivers a picture both beautiful and brutal of the migrant trail from Senegal to Italy as seen through the eyes of two young men looking for a better life in Europe.
“I’m the captain” repeatedly shouts Seydou, who has steered a ship full of similar refugees, including his injured cousin Moussa to the Italian shore, the last leg of a brutal journey from Senegal. Director Matteo Garrone’s filmography includes the violent realism of Gomorrah and the magic of Tale of Tales, and his new film has elements of both – a magic realist scene of a floating woman in the Sahara desert and a gruelling passage of torture in a Libyan prison. Through it all, actor Seydou Sarr holds the screen with a portrait of a young man looking for a better life and seeing humanity at its worst – and best. Wolof with English subtitles.