By Qi Gong (PhD candidate at King’s College London), supervised by Andrea Ballatore and Paul McDonald
Walking around London, cinemas are easy to spot as a visible part of the cultural lives of neighbourhoods. Indeed, they are venues that show films, but also cultural spaces with distinct social, economic, and architectural identities. My doctoral research explores the sector by focusing not on the films themselves, but on the geography of the physical locations that show them and what their distribution reveals about culture, place, and access.
(How GPT imagines cinema types. Source: ChatGPT 5)
What exactly counts as a cinema? While the question may seem simple—it is a venue where films are regularly exhibited—it intersects building functions, organisational structures, target audiences, and cultural offerings. While the term classification is commonly used to describe how films are categorised by age rating, my doctoral research focuses on the geography of cinemas (or movie theatres, as they are called in North America) as physical venues—and that’s what I need to classify.
Understanding where cinemas are is important, even in an age dominated by streaming platforms. While the streaming giants have indeed altered film consumption, making it more individual and delocalised, they have not replaced the social and spatial dimensions of cinema-going. Despite the widespread difficulty in matching the pre-pandemic admissions and box office, cinemas remain a crucial cultural infrastructure, as they provide popular, collective, embodied experiences that streaming cannot replicate, acting as local anchors for social life, high streets, and night-time economies.
Cinemas in the UK
The UK offers a fertile environment for the study of cinemas and their geographical context. It has a large and diverse market, with more than 800 cinemas that include visible high-street commercial chains, independent cinemas, as well as community venues, varying widely in size, ownership, and audience composition (UK Cinema Association, 2025).
Categorising these cinemas is essential to understand their geographical distribution and their reach, for both industrial and academic purposes. From a practical standpoint, effective classifications can help film exhibitors and policymakers understand and respond to varied audience needs, enhance operational efficiency, and support industry development and cultural policies. For researchers, it provides an instrument for spatial, demographic, and economic analysis—I am using GIS and data science methods to investigate what factors influence the distribution and accessibility of venues. Yet, there is currently no official classification system for cinemas.
To fill this gap, I designed a multi-criteria framework in the context of Greater London, the area my project focuses on. I considered multiple criteria that are regarded as important by practitioners: the type and scale of exhibitors (such as large chains, small regional groups, and independent operators), audio-visual systems (e.g., standard digital, IMAX, or Dolby Atmos), and the number of screens (e.g., multiplexes usually have 5+ screens).
Emerging or unconventional cinema types present challenges for classification. Examples such as Love Theatre in Edmonton, hospitality venues such as The Soho Hotel, and seasonal outdoor cinemas like the Rooftop Film Club in Peckham and Stratford often operate under specific conditions and for limited durations. My analysis focuses on year-round cinemas with dedicated indoor screening halls hosting regular screenings open to the general public, thereby excluding pop-up formats from the core analysis.
From theories to categories
Without getting too philosophical, two main approaches can support a classification endeavour: classical and prototype-based, each with advantages and limitations. Classical classification, dating back to Aristotle, relies on clearly defined categories with necessary and sufficient conditions that can be expressed by explicit definitions—for example, a multiplex can be defined as having more than 4 screens. However, its rigidity often fails to capture the complex and overlapping nature of real-world, cultural constructs like cinemas, which are shaped by shifting social, economic, and technical contexts. Comparable definitional challenges have been explored in other corners of the cultural sector: Designing a typology for museums involves several difficulties, for example in relation to institutions that share some resemblances with museums, but may not fully match definitions, such as stately homes (Candlin & Larkin, 2020).
Prototype-based classification, by contrast, provides a more flexible framework. Drawing on Wittgenstein’s concept of family resemblances and psychologist Eleanor Rosch’s theory of typicality, this approach allows objects to be grouped according to their similarity to a “prototype,” even if they do not meet all conventional criteria. Prototypical birds can fly, but penguins are considered birds despite being unable to do so.
In the context of Greater London, grouping cinemas is not always straightforward. The boundary between independent cinemas and specialised venues is often blurred, as both may share similar programming and scale, but differ in ownership and management models. In this sense, a classical typology provides clarity, while prototype theory better accounts for the hybridity and diversity of independent and specialised venues. Drawing from theories, industry practices, and the grey literature, I identified the following eight categories, outlined in Table 1, with statistics about Greater London.
A multiplex is typically defined as a cinema with five or more screens (UK Cinema Association, 2023), and most multiplexes are owned by chains (Simpson, 2023), such as Vue and Odeon. By contrast, an independent cinema purports to act as a diverse and alternative cultural space that emphasises community engagement and dialogue (Independent Cinema Office, 2023). It often presents a more diverse and international film programme, with arthouse and indie productions, offering alternatives to mainstream commercial productions and supporting underrepresented voices in filmmaking—the Electric Portobello in Notting Hill is a good exemplar. Independent cinemas are typically operated individually and are not part of major or specialised chains. However, the type of programming is not neatly definable, and being independent does not necessarily imply a strong difference to multiplexes, as some independent cinemas also screen mainstream films.
Unlike multiplex and independent, the term specialised cinema is often loosely defined and can be harder to pin down. According to the British Film Institute, it generally refers to venues exhibiting foreign-language titles, documentaries, arthouse films, and works aimed at niche audiences (BFI, 2018). In the UK, cinemas like Curzon and Picturehouse are typical examples, although they also screen some mainstream films. Though Picturehouse is owned by the major multiplex chain Cineworld, it continues to exhibit some non-mainstream content and is widely seen as part of the specialised cinema landscape.
Fewer in number but often very prominent, cultural and arts centres are multi-purpose institutions that incorporate film screenings as one component of broader cultural programming, such as theatre performances, visual arts exhibitions, workshops, and community events. In London, notable examples include the Barbican Centre and the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, both of which integrate film within a wider array of cultural offerings.
Large-format and university cinemas form small but distinct segments of the sector. The BFI IMAX attracts audiences because of its architecture designed for costly 70 mm screening technology; Imperial College’s campus cinema and Birkbeck Cinema cater to student audiences and provide spaces for academic screenings.
In practice, interesting edge cases abound and call for prototype thinking. Venues such as Rich Mix in Shoreditch combine the functions of a community arts centre and an independent cinema, offering both live performances and a diverse film programme. The Barbican Centre similarly straddles the line between an arts institution and a specialised cinema, hosting regular screenings within a broader cultural complex.
Other cases blur the distinction between commercial and boutique experiences: Everyman Cinemas occupy an ambiguous position between independent and high-end categories; Curzon Soho is often regarded as a specialised cinema (part of a chain with a distinct arthouse identity), but it also has a strong local following and programming autonomy closer to an independent. Hybrid and temporary models complicate classification further: Backyard Cinema, for instance, evolved from a pop-up into a semi-permanent themed space that sits somewhere between a temporary and conventional venue.
| Category | Screens | Exhibitor | Film programming | Examples | Number | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Multiplex | 5 screens or more | cinema chain | mainstream, commercial films | Odeon, Cineworld | 62 | 38% |
| Independent | typically 1-5 | single site-independent | independent and foreign films | The Electric Cinema, BFI Southbank | 36 | 22% |
| Specialised | typically 1-5 | Specialty chains | niche films in specific genres | Curzon, Picturehouse | 45 | 28% |
| Cultural and Arts Centres (CAC) | fewer than 3 | multi-arts venues | Art-house and culturally significant films | Barbican Centre | 9 | 5% |
| University cinema | typically 1 | University or partner cinema chain | Curated film programming | Birkbeck cinema, Imperial College Union Cinema | 2 | 1% |
| Large format | no fixed range | Premium sub-brand of a cinema chain | data unavailable | BFI IMAX | 3 | 1% |
| Temporary | Pop-up or seasonal cinemas (e.g. summer outdoor venues) | 2 | 1% | |||
Table 1: Cinema classification. This table categorises 160 cinemas active in Greater London in 2025 into 8 different types based on several characteristics, including their size, type of exhibitor, and the types of films typically programmed.
Mapping accessibility
These cinema types can now be placed in their geo-demographic contexts, revealing how different venues reflect the social and cultural characteristics of their surrounding areas. My ongoing work builds on this classification to examine how different types of cinemas relate to London’s urban and social geography. Using the 15-minute city framework, I am analysing demographic differences around each cinema type to understand who benefits from easy access to film culture—and who is potentially excluded. By mapping these geographies, I aim to reveal patterns of accessibility and absence: areas where cinemas cluster densely, and others that might be described as “cinema deserts.”
These findings will have implications beyond academic research. For policymakers, they highlight questions of cultural equity and the distribution of public amenities across the city. For commercial exhibitors, they point to potential missed opportunities—neighbourhoods where there is clear demand but limited provision, and where new venues could serve both community and business objectives. Through this mapping, I’m exploring how cinema access reflects London’s wider inequalities, and where screens could make a real difference.
References
BFI. (2018). BFI statistical yearbook 2018 [Yearbook]. BFI. https://www.bfi.org.uk/industry-data-insights/statistical-yearbook
Candlin, F., & Larkin, J. (2020). What is a Museum? Difference all the way down. Museum & Society, 18(2), Article 2. https://doi.org/10.29311/mas.v18i2.3147
Independent Cinema Office. (2023). What we do [Website]. Independent Cinema Office. https://www.independentcinemaoffice.org.uk/about-us/what-we-do/
Simpson, D. (2023, November 7). Multiplex cinemas introduction. Cinema Theatre Association. https://cinema-theatre.org.uk/uk-cinemas/uk-multiplexes
UK Cinema Association. (2023, November 6). UK cinema industry infrastructure—Sites and screens. UK Cinema Association. https://www.cinemauk.org.uk/the-industry/facts-and-figures/uk-cinema-industry-infrastructure/sites-and-screens/
UK Cinema Association. (2025). UK cinema industry infrastructure—Sites and screens. UK Cinema Association. https://www.cinemauk.org.uk/the-industry/facts-and-figures/uk-cinema-industry-infrastructure/sites-and-screens/
Cultural Geo-Analytics Lab 