On Tuesday (probably), the cinema industry’s worst-kept secret will finally be confirmed: National Cinema Day will return after a year’s absence, with tickets for next weekend screenings at about £3. The event will be backed by a new campaign from Cinema First, but the timing is telling. Launching it just four days before it happens, it feels less like a celebration and more like a desperate plea. It is being forced upon exhibitors and audiences alike, rather than being presented as the thank-you it should be.
This is a world away from the first National Cinema Day 30 years ago, which had a huge marketing campaign and was genuinely about celebrating cinema. Back in June 1996, it marked the 100th anniversary of British cinema.
It had a strong marketing campaign running for weeks before, there was advert playing in cinemas for weeks before that included actors including Bob Hoskins, Prime Minister John Major and a woman who was going to be 100 on National Cinema Day Sunday 2nd June 1996.
Tickets were £1. Every cinema was packed wuth the highest admissions on a Sunday for decades 1.1m.. They showed a mix of current releases, classics, and previews. Even though I was working as a projectionist at Rank Preview Theatre that year, I planned my day like a military exercise, seeing about five films across Leicester Square.
That first event, and the ones that followed in 1997 and 1998, helped boost admissions significantly. UK admissions had dropped to 54 million in 1984, but over the following 11 years they increased steadily. There was so much optimism that admissions could top 200 million by 2000, with a longer-term aim of over 350 million. Admissions saw a huge increase in 1993 with Jurassic Park, and they had similar increases in 1996 and 1997 with National Cinema Day. Admissions continued to grow steadily until 2002, and then they increased just 1% over the following 16 years.
The 200 million admissions targets has been the industry’s stated ambition for over 30 years. In 2022, the UK Cinema Association repeated the long-term goal of reaching 200 million admissions. Yet that figure has never been achieved. The UK’s modern-era peak stays 176 million admissions in 2002. Meanwhile, France has regularly topped 200 million admissions, with 200.85 million in 2009 alone. In the first six months of 2026, France saw admissions return to pre-COVID levels. The UK has not.
The reason is clear: after 2003, the industry shifted its focus from admissions to box office revenue. The UK’s box office has returned to pre-pandemic levels, £990.5 million in 2026, up 1.2% year-on-year. But admissions stay a long way from 2019 levels. The revenue-per-admission gap is widening as premium pricing and PLF formats take a larger share.
Daniel Battsek, then chairman of the All-Industry Marketing Committee for Cinema, told the BBC at the time: “National Cinema Day is fast becoming an institution. On National Cinema Day 1998 we are toasting the success of British Cinema and its continued development.”
But 1998 was the last National Cinema Day for 24 years. The 1998 event was not as successful, they had brought in McDonald’s as a sponsor, and tickets were half-price rather than £1. Pathe believed it cost them over £1m from the opening of The Fifth Element in 1997. The industry lost faith.
When National Cinema Day finally returned in 2022, it felt like it was being forced upon exhibitors, several did not take part. That was also the case in 2023 and 2024, and likely the reason it was quietly cancelled in 2025. The UK cinema industry now thinks only short-term, not seeing the bigger picture as they did 30 years ago.
The new Cinema First campaign will surely be similar to the Love Cinema campaign they launched in August 2020, over a month too late. It should have launched ahead of cinemas reopening in July. Similarly, this campaign should have played during the summer, alongside Toy Story 5, The Odyssey, and Spider-Man: “You’ve seen these three, but there are many other fabulous films you should also see.”
National Cinema Day should be seen as a thank you, to the audiences who came back so strongly this year for Toy Story 5, The Odyssey, and Spider-Man, and for the unexpected hits like The Housemaid, Marty Supreme, The Drama, The Magic Faraway Tree, Backrooms, and Obsession. It should say: “This one’s on us. And by the way, here is what is coming between now and Doomsday. Come back.”
Instead, launching it just four days before feels like it is being forced upon exhibitors and audiences alike. A transaction, not a thank you. A tactic, not a tradition.
Meanwhile, France’s Fête du Cinéma, a four-day event held every late June, has been hugely popular for decades. The contrast could not be starker. One industry sees the bigger picture. The other cannot see past next weekend.
