Rio Cinema's 50th: RIO FOREVER autumn programme announced

The Rio Cinema in Dalston has been running for 50 years, and it’s throwing itself a party. Ben Whishaw, Asif Kapadia and a cinema-branded IPA are all involved.

The Rio Cinema exterior lit up pink and red at dusk on Kingsland High Street — The Rio Cinema on Kingsland High Street, Dalston.

Films have screened here since 1909, making it the UK’s longest-running cinema. 2026 marks 50 years of the Rio being run by and for its community, and the milestone gets a six-month programme: RIO FOREVER, running to November.

The season is built around guest curators rather than a straightforward retrospective. Ben Whishaw, Asif Kapadia, Ashley Clark, Margeaux Labat and Dionne Edwards each introduce a screening, alongside family events and queer parties threaded through the autumn.

Black and white archive photo of an audience queuing at the Rio Cinema for Bhaji on the Beach in 1994 — Audience queuing at the Rio for Bhaji on the Beach, 1994. Credit: Rio Archive.

A queer cinema season to open September

September opens with a season built around the Rio’s history as a home for queer cinema, a lineage that goes back to hosting the UK’s first Pride Film Festival in 1980. The Rio is teaming up with Pink Palace, the UK’s only weekly queer film club, for two events.

First, a party marking Pink Palace’s fourth birthday, with DJs and a screening of its most-requested film, The Birdcage. Second, a Q&A screening of The Times of Harvey Milk with director Rob Epstein.

Music journalist and NTS Radio presenter Margeaux Labat introduces Cheryl Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman, the first narrative feature directed by an openly gay Black woman and a landmark of New Queer Cinema.

Guest curators throughout autumn

Asif Kapadia returns to present Takashi Miike’s cult horror Audition on 35mm. Local filmmaker and Rio patron Dionne Edwards joins Criterion Collection curatorial director Ashley Clark for Bill Gunn’s Ganja & Hess.

Ben Whishaw introduces Tsai Ming-liang’s Goodbye, Dragon Inn, and Little White Lies presents A Celluloid Surprise, a mystery film screened on 35mm with the title kept under wraps until the lights go down.

Club des Femmes and Contemporary Films present a double bill of Carry Greenham Home and March to Aldermaston, with an on-stage discussion on the history of anti-nuclear protest and feminist activism on film.

A group posing outside the Rio Cinema under its marquee sign — Outside the Rio, under a marquee that changes almost as often as the programme.

Never Watching Movies celebrates the people who’ve kept the Rio running for five decades, with a screening of Empire Records and an on-stage conversation bringing together staff past and present. Exclusive staff-made zines are on sale alongside it.

There’s also limited-edition Rio Forever merchandise designed by Ching-Li Chew and made locally in Tottenham, and a bespoke Rio Forever IPA brewed with Five Points Brewing Co. Every headline screening doubles as a fundraiser for the Rio’s historic home.

The London x London take: anniversary programming can tip into nostalgia fast. This one leans on guest curators who actually know the place, an eclectic run of films, and a beer named after the building. Worth booking ahead for the Whishaw and Kapadia dates, screenings like these tend to sell fast.

Building out an autumn cinema calendar? The Barbican’s outdoor screenings are worth checking too.