What's On

Jane Schoenbrun’s uncanny feature debut recreates the claustrophobic experience of the i nternet through the eyes of Casey, an i solated teen who takes part i n a mysterious online game and finds that reality and fantasy begin to blur.

Teenager Owen i s just trying to make i t through life i n the suburbs when his classmate i ntroduces him to a mysterious late-night TV show — a vision of a supernatural world beneath the ir own. I n the pale glow of the television, Owen’s view of reality begins to crack.

Rio Staff Selects presents ALMOST FAMOUS dir. Cameron Crowe | US | 2000 Rolling Stone Magazine unwittingly hires a 15 year old aspiring journalist after reading an article he wrote for Cream Magazine. ALMOST FAMOUS is the hilarious and touching story of this intelligent young man's journey into the world of Rock-and-Roll as he tours with "Stillwater", an up-and-coming band struggling with their r...

Doc'n Roll presents Music has always been a powerful form of protest This special double bill explores how music, activism and resistance intersect through two extraordinary true stories. From Aki Nawaz's uncompromising response to post-9/11 Britain to Satpal Ram's decades-long fight for justice, these films celebrate voices that refused to be silenced. + Q&A with directors Mos Hannan and Azeem ...

The blistered moon whispers a welcome to the eldritch abominations of a twisted internet. We’re wearing our love of all things cosmic horror on our shimmering sleeves tonight, this screening is a celebration of the myriad anomalous destinations digital culture has taken the otherworldly horrors popularised by the H.P Lovecraft’s Cthulu Mythos. We’ll be showcasing a blend of machinima, shorts, anim...

Have you got a black eyeliner pencil sitting in your room? Are you intimately familiar with the process of removing days worth of Schwarzkopf Got2B Glued from your hair? Do you consider yourself Not Okay? Then come along to Let ’s Go Emo ! A cross platform programme exploring how young people use digital media to express identity, creativity and community, Let ’s Go Emo ! combines early YouTube v...

Doc'n Roll presents HAKEEM (+ Q&A and Acoustic Set) dir. DEADHORSES | UK | 2024 Doc’n Roll is delighted to be part of The Music is Black Festival from East Bank and to bring a special event to the Rio Cinema celebrating one of London’s most distinctive contemporary musicians, Hak Baker. The evening will include a special screening of Hakeem, live Q&A, and an intimate acoustic performance by Hak ...

Join Never Watching Movies and Claire Harrison (usually found at Category H film club) for an evening screening of CAR WASH (1976). Follow the daily life of Dee-Luxe Car Wash employees, a tight-knit team who make the most of their minimum wage job, meeting eccentric individuals passing through the wash. The film features the iconic Rose Royce song of the same name, infamously written on a (fried c...

The ritual is in place, the village has assembled, an old god emerges from a hole in the ground, the JPEG stutters, they all turn at once, towards you, on the other side of the screen. We’re gathered here today to experience the echoes of oral traditions through the lens of the internet's own horrific folklore, the Chinese whispers persisting in the digital imaginations of a web culture that must...

The ultimate Halloween thrill ride, QUEER HORROR NIGHTS returns to the Rio with our spectacular midnight sing-along screening of THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) featuring a live Shadow Cabaret Cast performing in front of the film. A “phenomenal night” of "pure chaotic queer joy”, our shadow cast of kings, queens, and things from London's queer cabaret scene gives THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHO...

Classic Matinee LOCAL HERO dir. Bill Forsyth | UK | 1983 For our September Classic Matinee, we’re heading to the windswept Scottish coast with LOCAL HERO, Bill Forsyth’s much-loved comedy-drama about place, belonging and the value of what cannot be bought... When an ambitious American oil executive is sent to a remote Highland village to purchase the land for a new refinery, he expects a st...

After years of slapdash sequels and waning fandom, the Camp Miasma slasher franchise is handed over to an enthusiastic young director for resurrection. But when she visits the original's star, a now-reclusive actress shrouded in mystery, the two women fall into a blood-soaked world of desire, fear, and delirium.

From the producers of RuPaul’s Drag Race and the director of Hairspray comes the silliest, stupidest, and most chaotically funny comedy of the year. Inspired by classic spoofs like Airplane! and The Naked Gun , STOP! THAT! TRAIN! follows a catastrophic “Stormaganza” as it threatens to derail a runaway high-speed Glamazonian Express train. A plucky duo of train stewardesses from coach must join for...

Pink Palace presents the third part of Cocteau’s mysterious and otherworldly Orpheus Trilogy. Realizing he is not long for this world, an aging 18th century poet (Jean Marais) travels through time in search of divine wisdom. In a mysterious, possibly post-apocalyptic wasteland, he has a series of enigmatic and surreal encounters with symbolic phantoms with whom he muses about the nature of art an...

Pink Palace presents this outrageous, outlandish and totally out of the closet doc, Wigstock: The Movie is a heavily mascaraed look at New Yorks most extravagant celebration of drag! Colourful, flamboyant and extremely funny this uninhibited look at the annual Wigstock Festival takes you behind the scenes - and into the dressing rooms - for an uproarious play-by-play of the self-proclaimed Super B...

Pink Palace presents this gritty look at the seduction of a working class gay man by the bourgeois materialistic middle classes of 1970’s West Germany. Fox and His Friends is among the director’s most personal works and the first to tackle homosexuality in a direct manner. Fassbinder himself plays Fox, a sweet but naive working class man and former circus performer whose new relationship with wea...

Join us from 10.15am for craft activities, before the film screening at 11am! The Rio’s beloved and historic Saturday Morning Picture Club continues with MUPPET TREASURE ISLAND, a swashbuckling musical adventure packed with pirates, treasure maps and Muppet mayhem. Before the screening, we will have arts and crafts activities in the lobby led by Sophie, who as well as being a member of the R...

Saturday Morning Picture Club presents WALL•E (+ Craft Activities) dir. Andrew Stanton | US | 2008 Join us from 10.15am for craft activities, before the film screening at 11am! The Rio’s beloved and historic Saturday Morning Picture Club is back with WALL•E, Pixar’s imaginative and heartwarming tale of friendship, adventure and caring for our planet. Before the screening, we will have ar...

THE SUMMER BOOK follows an intergenerational family spending a transformative summer at their rustic vacation home on an unspoiled, remote island in the Gulf of Finland. Adapted from Tove Jansson?s beloved novel, the film explores grief, nature, and the delicate bonds between a young girl, her wise grandmother (Glenn Close), and her grieving father (Anders Danielsen Lie).

Don your sandals and set sail for Ithaca. Following the Trojan War, Odysseus embarks on a long and perilous voyage home, encountering the likes of Cyclops Polyphemus, the Sirens, Circe and others along the way. Christopher Nolan's adaptation of Homer's enduring epic reimagines one of the foundational stories of Western literature as a sweeping adventure of survival, temptation and homecoming. Led ...

Married to Maggie for over half his life, Jack works the mussel beds of North Wales alongside his younger brother, Dyfan, and Dyfan’s three sons. He has always assumed his own son, Tom, will join the family business, but Tom’s resistance creates growing tension. When itinerant deckhand Daniel arrives and makes known his feelings for Jack, he faces an impossible dilemma in this beautiful, sensual a...

Bouchra, a 35-year-old queer Moroccan coyote living in NYC, is wrestling with writer’s block. Whilst finishing the script for her autobiographical film Bouchra has a phone call with her mother in Casablanca. Their tender yet complex exchange leads to memories resurfacing and sparks a creative breakthrough, opening a journey through family bonds, unreconciled conflicts and the thrills of love and r...

After years of slapdash sequels and waning fandom, the Camp Miasma slasher franchise is handed over to an enthusiastic young director for resurrection. But when she visits the original's star, a now-reclusive actress shrouded in mystery, the two women fall into a blood-soaked world of desire, fear, and delirium.

From the producers of RuPaul’s Drag Race and the director of Hairspray comes the silliest, stupidest, and most chaotically funny comedy of the year. Inspired by classic spoofs like Airplane! and The Naked Gun , STOP! THAT! TRAIN! follows a catastrophic “Stormaganza” as it threatens to derail a runaway high-speed Glamazonian Express train. A plucky duo of train stewardesses from coach must join for...

Lady is an off-beat comedy about a lonely, narcissistic aristocrat who dupes a struggling, opportunistic director into filming her every move. But her obsession with the spotlight takes a surreal turn when she starts becoming… invisible. Blending mockumentary and magical realism, Lady satirises our desperate need to feel seen.

TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCE is a concert film in which Amyl and The Sniffers perform country-influenced versions of their songs, two unreleased tracks, and a cover of the Slim Dusty classic 'Lights On The Hill'. It was recorded and filmed in front of an intimate and increasingly rowdy audience at El Coyote in Los Angeles, by the band's long-time collaborator, John Angus Stewart. Screens with Amyl and T...

A bold, provocative, and wickedly funny erotic comedy-thriller from cult filmmaker Gregg Araki (Mysterious Skin, The Doom Generation). Olivia Wilde and Cooper Hoffman lead an irresistible ensemble cast featuring Charli XCX, Chase Sui Wonders, Mason Gooding and Daveed Diggs. Following its buzzy Sundance premiere, the film has continued to turn heads with its fearless exploration of sex, obsession, ...

Category H present THE WICKER MAN and NOROI THE CURSE (Double Bill) Category H’s Rio Forever/Rio Never Ever season continues with a night of Folk Horror, THE WICKER MAN X NOROI THE CURSE. This 21st August, starting at 20:30, experience two films which look at their countries' respective folklore and the myths which permeate their culture. With a full Category H themed lobby takeoverand special ...

Japanese Film Club presents THE NIGHT IS SHORT, WALK ON GIRL dir. Masaaki Yuasa | JP | 2017 Japanese Film Club returns to The Rio for an end of summer night out on the streets of Kyoto! Walk through an eccentric, colourful journey of love, life and youthful exuberance unlike anything you’ve seen before. From pub crawls to festivals, book fairs to impromptu musical performances, the night is sh...

Kino Polonia presents IDA dir. Pawel Pawlikowski | PL/DK | 2013 Poland, 1962. Anna, a novice nun preparing to take her vows, discovers a family secret that changes her understanding of her past. Together with her aunt, she embarks on a journey to uncover the fate of her family during and after the Second World War. Winner of the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. Ida is shown i...

Humorous, heartfelt and angry in equal measure, The Watermelon Woman was the first narrative feature film to be directed by an openly gay Black woman, and one of the foundational works of the New Queer Cinema. As part of our ongoing Rio Forever celebrations, we’re proud to screen it with an in-person introduction by music journalist, NTS radio star and fan of the film, Margeaux Labat. Written by,...

Pink Palace celebrates it's 4th Birthday with THE BIRDCAGE Come and join us for a cosy intro chat charting the history of the UK’s only weekly queer film club, the events, the premieres, the guests, the wonderful highs and (very) occasional lows over the past four years. Founder and curator Andrew Woodyatt will be in conversation with Darren Jones (BFI FLARE) in an illustrated fun chat about the ...

Contemporary 75 in association with Club des Femmes presents IN PROTEST OF THE BOMB Two milestone films of anti-nuclear activism from the 1950s and 1980s, as relevant today as ever. For four days during Easter, 1958, thousands marched from Trafalgar Square to the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment in Hampshire. The resulting film, MARCH TO ALDERMASTON , a voluntary work by anonymous film techn...

Described by Spike Lee as ‘one of the most underappreciated filmmakers of his time’, African-American playwright turned actor-writer-director Bill Gunn’s radical 1973 vampire movie Ganja & Hess returns as part of our ongoing Rio Forever celebrations marking the 50th anniversary of the cinema in its current form. The screening will be preceded by a contextualising introduction from author and curat...

RIO FOREVER: LITTLE WHITE LIES PRESENTS… A CELLULOID SURPRISE #2 ON 35MM Wed 16 September 18:00 Presented on a glorious 35mm film print and hand-picked by a member of the Little White Lies editorial team, satisfaction is all but guaranteed. Celluloid Suprise #1 was John Water's iconic SERIAL MOM, presented on a print from the Cinema Museum.. This time round, the only clue we can give you is that...

Pink Palace and Contemporary Films present THE TIMES OF HARVEY MILK (+ Q&A with Rob Epstein) dir. Rob Epstein | USA | 1984 Pink Palace joins forces with Contemporary Films to present this Oscar winning documentary, back on the big screen at the Rio. In 1978, Harvey Milk was elected to the San Francisco city council, one year later, he and Mayor George Moscone were shot and killed by Milk s fell...

As part of our ongoing Rio Forever celebrations, we’re delighted to welcome back Oscar-winning film director and homegrown Hackney hero Asif Kapadia to introduce another of his favourite films: Takashi Miike’s relentless, clinical horror masterpiece AUDITION . A (literally) piercing critique of Japanese masculinity featuring one of the most upsetting climactic sequences in movie history, Audition...

SEYTAN + THE FLY For this edition of Category H horror film clubs ongoing season Rio Forever/Rio Never, we investigate the nebulous world of horror Remakes with a late night double bill of SEYTAN X THE FLY. This 25th of September, 23:30-late, only at the Rio Cinema. So often, horror remakes cast a Western lens on non Western production. So, what happens when this is reversed and Hollywood is the...

Prepare to watch amazing brand new short films including award winning short film 'Two Black Boys In Paradise' and an exciting Q&A with BAFTA Winner and Acclaimed Poet Dean Atta. Get ready to be inspired, moved, and entertained by the unique perspectives showcased on screen. Don't miss out on this exciting gathering of innovative storytellers! This is a safe intersectional screening for neurodiver...

As part of our ongoing Rio Forever celebrations marking the 50 th anniversary of the cinema, we’re over the moon to welcome local resident, film enthusiast and one of the world’s finest living actors, Ben Whishaw, to introduce one of his own favourite films: Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang’s tender tribute to cinema spaces, GOODBYE, DRAGON INN (2003). In a crumbling movie house in downtown T...

As part of our anniversary celebrations, we take a detour into the Rio’s saucy 1970’s years as the Dalston Tatler, one of London’s highest grossing porn cinema clubs with an uncensored grindhouse programme and a full burlesque striptease extravaganza stage show. We delve into the lurid stories and legends of this era with a fully illustrated talk packed with scandalous details, and an overview of...

Ever wondered what it's like working in the UK's longest running cinema? Join Never Watching Movies for a special Rio Forever screening of EMPIRE RECORDS (1995) + Q&A! Follow the story of Empire records, the coolest music store in town. After one of the employees blows the store's cash, the team faces the threat of becoming a conglomerate. The young adults running the store come together to try t...