Independent Cinema for Everyone

Plymouth Arts Cinema has screened 149 films in 2019, since moving to our new location at Plymouth College of Art in January. Unsurprisingly, cinema was one of the main topics of conversation at our Staff and Volunteers’ Christmas Party, and we took the chance to look back over the year and pick our favourite films.

We all voted for our top three films of the year. We obviously have a broad variety of tastes, or perhaps it reflects the wide range of films we have screened, as there was very little consensus!

Here are the results

19 participants chose 3 films each.

Only 6 films got more than 1 or 2 mentions:

1. Sorry We Missed You (4 mentions: 3 at rank #1 and 1 at rank #2)

Legendary British Director Ken Loach’s incendiary follow up to I, Daniel Blake. Rigorously researched via off-the-record interviews, Loach’s furious, vital and heart-breaking film shines a light on the gig economy that unscrupulously exploits the vulnerable, robbing them of dignity, agency and hope for change.

2. Green Book (4 mentions: 1 at rank #1 and 3 at rank #2)

The first film ever screened at Plymouth Arts Cinema, at our opening event, Green Book is an uplifting true story that demands to be told on the big screen and succeeds in making its crucial subject of racial division in the 1960s America into a smart, affecting and also charming film.

3. Bait (3 mentions: 2 at rank #1, and 1 at rank #2 )

A huge surprise hit with our audience this year, we welcomed the Director Mark Jenkin to introduce our first screening of Bait in September, and ended up bringing the film back for a second run in November due to popular demand! Stunningly shot on a vintage 16mm camera using monochrome Kodak stock, this remarkable film is a timely and funny, yet poignant tale that gets right to the heart of a Cornish community facing an unwelcome change.

Suspiria, Yesterday and Pain and Glory also got 3 mentions.

36 films were mentioned in total: Alien, Suspiria, Sheffield Adventure Film Festival: Riding the Dragon, Sorry We Missed You, A Private War, If Beale Street Could Talk, Eighth Grade, Bait, Border, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Green Book, Yesterday, Bohemian Rhapsody, Mary Queen of Scots, Wurlitza presents A Cottage on Dartmoor, Tolkien, Stan and Ollie, Pain and Glory, Jellyfish, Capernaum, By The Grace of God, Free Solo, Home, The Favourite, Rocketman, Amazing Grace, Birds of Passage, Marianne and Leonard, The Peanut Butter Falcon, The Old Man and the Gun, The Shiny Shrimps, Bel Canto, Styx, For Sama, Beautiful Boy, Wild Rose.

Thank you to all our staff and volunteers, and here’s to another year of great films at PAC! What films have you enjoyed at PAC in 2019? Let us know in the comments!

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