Oscar Nominated

My Dear Theo is an intimate and moving documentary by Ukrainian filmmaker Alisa Kovalenko, made in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Unable to continue making films in the conventional sense, Kovalenko instead creates video diaries and poetic letters addressed to a future grown-up Theo, that capture the devastating reality of war while reflecting on her choice to serve. It is a re...

The most glamorous night in show business comes to the equally glamorous Kingsland Road…the annual Rio Oscars Party is BACK for the 98th Academy Awards being held on the 15th of March 2026, 22:30 onwards! Come dressed to impress and ready to stun on the Rio’s leopard print carpet for what is sure to be an Oscar’s to remember. Get the answers to the questions on everyone’s lips this awards season ...

RZA presents THE MYSTERY OF CHESSBOXING Doors 18:00 Start time 18:30 The Rio are thrilled to welcome The RZA, legendary founder of the Wu-Tang Clan for an unmissable screening of the cult kung fu classic THE MYSTERY OF CHESS BOXING (1979), personally selected and introduced live in-person by RZA himself. A longtime champion of martial arts cinema, RZA has drawn deeply from these films in shaping ...

'Close your eyes and picture the perfect world’... Special screening with Writer/Director Alison Fairweather Murray in conversation with Philip Ilson, Artistic Director of London Short Film Festival. MOUTH TO MOUTH stars a young Elliot Page as Sherry, a teenage contradiction: she wants to be part of a group but doesn't want to let go of her fierce individualism. Sherry meets the radical street c...

Welcome to the 3rd and final screening of Dream Emulator’s very own LSD Season, a season of screenings + rave celebrating Osamu Sato’s cult classic (not)game, LSD: Dream Emulator, alongside the many pieces of art/film/video games that it inspired directly and indirectly as part of its lasting legacy in our digital imaginations. You’ve been riding high, but unfortunately, things are taking a turn ...

Murcof is performing at the historic Art Deco Rio Cinema in Dalston, making full use of the cinema screen with a live AV performance of Twin Color. Murcof Mexican-born musician Fernando Corona primarily records and performs under the name Murcof, creating ghostly compositions that fuse elements of classical music, minimal techno, ambient drone, and free improvisation, among other genres. His firs...

Following the decades-long friendship between two French women, Pauline (Valérie Mairesse) and Suzanne (Thérèse Liotard), ONE SINGS, THE OTHER DOESN’T explores the social and political struggle for women’s abortion rights in France across the 60s and 70s. This special screening will include an intro by Bells Kennedy-Compston, programmer of the Varda Film Club. This screening is shown in French w...

Puccini�s La Boh�me is one of the world's best-loved operas, and now a classic reborn in 21st-century East London. A tale of love and tragedy, beauty and decay, charting the ups and downs of a group of idealistic graduates... La Boh�me marks the feature-film debut of Olivier Award�winner Robin Norton-Hale, Artistic Director and CEO of English Touring Opera, and is all shot in locations a stone�s ...

With a loving lens on East London, this exploration of masculinity and Islamophobia is poignantly told by men facing an identity crisis at the intersection of the generational racism they’ve endured. Behind the loud and intimidating motorcycles of the "Bangladeshi Bad Boys" is a group of second-generation Bangladeshi men who find in their bikes a sense of identity and a way to overcome racism. ...

When Society Collapsed, Music Took Over. Late 80s. In an England suffocated by unemployment and Margaret Thatcher’s policies, a generation found refuge and a voice in music. In abandoned factories and secret fields, underground raves were born—explosions of light and sound where thousands of young people escaped social oppression to the rhythm of a new musical genre: breakbeat. Fusing the ra...

This is a screening of We Are Making A Film About Mark Fisher, made by an artist collective in 2025. The film tracks a fictional character from an M.R.James ghost story - played by Justin Hopper - as he encounters key events in Mark Fisher's writing and life. The film includes interviews with people who knew Mark Fisher, including Jodi Dean and Andy Beckett. Made with no budget, the film was made ...

Japanese Film Club returns with another exclusive, 4K premiere - Nobuhiro Yamashita’s incredible, LINDA LINDA LINDA. Originally released in Japan in 2005, the film received a 20th anniversary 4K restoration in 2025. IndieWire describes Linda Linda Linda as, “One of the best Japanese films of the 20th century'“, and the film has received adoration from fans and critics since it’s original release. ...

Press play on Japan’s Ongaku Kissa - listening cafés where music is treated with near-religious devotion. Visiting three shrines to sound, devoted to classical, jazz and rock, this film meets the obsessive audiophiles who run them and the loyal regulars who listen in silence. Tracing post-war Japan to the late ’80s, it’s a love letter to craft, culture, and turning it up by sitting very, very sti...

The Arabic Cinema Club returns for the London Premiere of A Sad and Beautiful World (2025) directed by Cyril Aris. Nominated as Lebanon’s official entry for the 98th Academy Awards and following its premiere at the Venice Film Festival, Cyril Aris' drama spans across three decades of passion, loss, and hope, Nino and Yasmina are bound by a magnetic relationship. Torn between love and survival, th...

This is a naturist film screening within a contained, safe space including the Ludski bar area adjacent to Screen 2. Please bring a towel to sit on and a bag to put your clothes in, the bag to be kept at your seat. A stylish and provocative erotic thriller from Brazilian filmmakers Marcio Reolon and Felipe Matzembacher with echoes of Brian De Palma and Paul Verhoeven. Matias (Gabriel Faryas) is a...

A stylish and provocative erotic thriller from Brazilian filmmakers Marcio Reolon and Felipe Matzembacher with echoes of Brian De Palma and Paul Verhoeven. Matias (Gabriel Faryas) is an ambitious actor who starts a secret affair with mayoral candidate Rafael (Cirillo Luna), and together they discover their fetish for having sex in public places. The closer they get to their dream of fame, the more...

The Judgement Hall Festival closes with a double presentation on the Rio’s largest screen, bringing together film, live sound, and site-specific curation. The event culminates in a newly commissioned live score by Neptunian Maximalism to THE LEGEND OF SURAM FORTRESS, directed by Sergei Parajanov. The film is presented in a special restoration, shown in collaboration with the Georgian National Fil...

This is a naturist film screening within a contained, safe space including the Ludski bar area adjacent to Screen 2. Please bring a towel to sit on and a bag to put your clothes in, the bag to be kept at your seat. When Benji encounters Jake at an airport gate, there is instant chemistry. Their relationship unfolds through monthly secret trips to Amsterdam. A must-see British comedy-drama that di...

When Benji encounters Jake at an airport gate, there is instant chemistry. Their relationship unfolds through monthly secret trips to Amsterdam. A must-see British comedy-drama that dissects a toxic relationship with humour and raw emotion. Inspired by real heartbreak. What begins as thrilling monthly getaways to Amsterdam soon unravels into a doomed relationship of convenience. Struggling to move...

To Top off our LSD Season offering, we invite you join us for a rave inspired by the cult classic game LSD: Dream Emulator, from which we get our name. This will be a party powered by the Dream Emulator Soundsystem, with visuals from LSD: Dream Emulator (1998), and some of the myriad experiences it inspired which you’ll have seen throughout the rest of LSD Season. Such an original game experience...

Queer Horror Nights: THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) with Shadow Cabaret at Rio Cinema (Saturday 02 May 2026 23:30pm to 02:00am) Described by our audience as a “phenomenal night” of "pure chaotic queer joy", THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) returns to the Rio with a live Shadow Cabaret Cast of drag kings, queens, and things from across London's queer cabaret scene. THE ROCKY HORROR PICT...

Doc’n Roll presents the UK Premiere of PARADISE (PARAÍSO), followed by a Q&A with director Daniel Mota and producers João Ervedosa and Maria Guedes. This exhilarating documentary dives into Portugal’s early 90s dance music explosion, with raves of epic proportions and a new sound which was then referred to as “underground house music from a paradise called Portugal”. Deftly knitted together by ...

“Dear Mr Manley…” These words begin the hundreds of letters sent from the trenches of the First World War to Ralph Manley, the dedicated secretary of Stoke Newington’s Mildmay Club, then known as the Mildmay Radical Club & Institute. Discovered several years ago in the Club’s building, the letters were written by soldiers thanking Manley for the care parcels of cigarettes and chocolate he sent th...

A moving new film commissioned by the Hackney Society to bring to life eleven women from Hackney's past whose stories are featured in our Women from Hackney’s History, books 1 and 2. Hackney-based filmmaker Barney Snow, worked with Nina Sprigge, the Tower Theatre and editor Sue Doe and filmed in many Hackney locations. Premiering on International Women’s Day, the film spans nearly three centuries,...

For our March Classic Matinee, marking Women’s History Month and celebrating it's 75th anniversary, revisit SUNSET BOULEVARD , Billy Wilder’s darkly glamorous Hollywood noir masterpiece. Gloria Swanson delivers an unforgettable performance as Norma Desmond, a former silent-film star clinging to dreams of past fame as the industry moves on without her. Stylish, unsettling and razor-sharp, SUNSET ...

For our April Classic Matinee, just in time for Easter, we’re raising the roof with SISTER ACT, the heavenly musical comedy that proves a little soul can go a long way. Whoopi Goldberg sparkles as Deloris Van Cartier, a lounge singer forced into hiding in a California convent after witnessing a crime. Disguised as a nun, she clashes with the formidable Mother Superior before being assigned to t...

For our May Classic Matinee, we present HARD TRUTHS, the most recent contemporary drama from legendary British filmmaker Mike Leigh, a fierce, compassionate and darkly humorous study of family life. Marianne Jean-Baptiste delivers a towering performance as Pansy, a woman consumed by anxiety, anger and physical pain, lashing out at her husband, her withdrawn son and strangers alike. In contrast ...

For our June Classic Matinee, we dive into blockbuster history with JAWS, Steven Spielberg’s era-defining thriller that forever changed the summer movie season. When a shark attack rocks the seaside town of Amity Island, police chief Martin Brody wants to close the beaches, but local officials fear the loss of tourist income. Teaming up with marine biologist Matt Hooper and grizzled fisherman Q...

For our July Classic Matinee, we’re heading to Sheffield with THE FULL MONTY, the beloved British comedy that strips away pride, prejudice and plenty of inhibitions. After losing his job at the local steelworks, Gaz is desperate to raise money and prove himself to his young son. Inspired by the success of a touring male dance troupe, he recruits a group of fellow unemployed men to form their ow...

From acclaimed Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho, director of Neighboring Sounds and Bacurau, THE SECRET AGENT is a bold, immersive political thriller that entertains as much as it provokes. Thoughtful, tense and politically sharp, it confirms Mendonça as one of Brazil’s most vital contemporary voices, delivering bravura filmmaking that respects its audience and delivers tenfold. Brazil...

Directed by BAFTA nominees Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, Broken English is a portrait of Marianne Faithfull, starring Tilda Swinton, George MacKay, Nick Cave, Suki Waterhouse and Courtney Love. Drawing on interviews, archival material and Faithfull’s final recorded performance, this genre-defying documentary traces a life shaped by fame and reinvention. Across 6 decades and 35+ albums, Faithfull ...

From the fallout of 2024's Brat Summer comes THE MOMENT, a sharp, chaotic mockumentary from the mind of Charli xcx that skewers fame at its most self-aware. Blurring satire and pop spectacle, it captures a superstar at the peak of cultural domination, asking what happens when the party refuses to end. As she prepares for her arena tour debut, Charli finds herself stretched between relentless al...

Pink Palace presents this silent cinema classic, now with a score composed by the Pet Shop Boys. A fixture in the critical canon almost since its premiere, Eisenstein’s film about a 1905 naval mutiny was revolutionary in both form and content. Battleship Potemkin is renowned for its dynamic compositional strength and editing of such frame-perfect precision that it’s hard not to be swept along. Th...

Meet them all! Hustlers, drag queens and pimps, pushers and S&M freaks, straight guys and girls all looking for thrills and one night stands! Andy Warhol never hired a young John Waters to make a sex-fuelled soap opera for $50. But if he had, it would have looked a lot like FLESHPOT ON 42ND STREET. Dusty, a street smart, but desperately unhappy prostitute who works in Times Square, uses her body...

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. This month we’re showing the enchanting family classic: MY NEIGHBOUR TOTORO, a magical animated adventure where two sisters discover extraordinary creatures and woodland spirits in the countryside. Before the screening, we will have arts and craf...

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. This month we’re showing the cracking claymation classic: CHICKEN RUN, a feather-ruffling adventure where a flock of determined hens plot their great escape! Before the screening, we will have arts and crafts activities in the lobby led by Sophie...

The cinematically visionary director of BOOGIE NIGHTS, LICORICE PIZZA, THE MASTER and THERE WILL BE BLOOD, Paul Thomas Anderson, unleashes an exhilarating comic blast based on Thomas Pynchon’s best-seller Vineland, the tale of a weird new America . Washed-up revolutionary Bob exists in a state of stoned paranoia, surviving off-grid with his spirited, self-reliant daughter, Willa. When his evil ...

From acclaimed Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho, director of Neighboring Sounds and Bacurau, THE SECRET AGENT is a bold, immersive political thriller that entertains as much as it provokes. Thoughtful, tense and politically sharp, it confirms Mendonça as one of Brazil’s most vital contemporary voices, delivering bravura filmmaking that respects its audience and delivers tenfold. Brazil...

From Academy and BAFTA Award�winning filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino, LA GRAZIA is a sweeping exploration of love, duty, and personal freedom. Toni Servillo � winner of the Best Actor Award at the 2025 Venice Film Festival � stars as Italy�s outgoing president, Mariano De Santis, navigating moral and personal crossroads with the help of his confidante and daughter, Dorotea (Anna Ferzetti). With Sorrent...

Anna, an artist, and Magnús, a fisherman, live with their three children and charismatic sheepdog in the quiet grandeur of the Icelandic countryside. As the fractures in their marriage come to the surface, the couple try to hold onto the afterimages of a life together and make sense of a deep and lingering devotion. Filmmaker Hlynur Pálmason (Godland) brings surprising humor and emotional weight t...

Directed by BAFTA nominees Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, Broken English is a portrait of Marianne Faithfull, starring Tilda Swinton, George MacKay, Nick Cave, Suki Waterhouse and Courtney Love. Drawing on interviews, archival material and Faithfull’s final recorded performance, this genre-defying documentary traces a life shaped by fame and reinvention. Across 6 decades and 35+ albums, Faithfull ...

The morning of February 8, 1977, Anthony G. �Tony� Kiritsis, 44, entered the office of Richard O. Hall, president of the Meridian Mortgage Company, and took him hostage with a sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun wired with a �dead man�s wire� from the trigger to the Hall�s head. This is the true story of the stand-off that took the world by storm as Tony demanded $5 million, no charges or prosecution, and ...

Science teacher Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) wakes up on a spaceship light years from home with no recollection of who he is or how he got there. As his memory returns, he begins to uncover his mission: solve the riddle of the mysterious substance causing the sun to die out. He must call on his scientific knowledge and unorthodox ideas to save everything on Earth from extinction� but an unexpected ...