A Complete Unknown

Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan

After a successful Festive Screening of Perfect Days in December our next ‘First Thursday’ Film Club meet up is on February 6th after the 5:00pm screening of A Complete Unknown. Come along and watch the film with us, or see it anytime from the 31st January, and then join us in the bar around 7.45pm on the 6th to discuss it.

“Even a skeptic can be swept away by its heady mix of laidback assessment and genuine awe.” – Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair

“The wonder of A Complete Unknown isn’t just that it manages to be good anyway but that it finds an angle on Dylan as unexpectedly electric as that amplified Newport set.” – Alison Willmore, New York Magazine/Vulture

Films of 2024

As the Picture House staff and volunteers have announced their films of 2024 we thought it would be interesting to see what our members thought of 2024. Have they missed anything? Do you agree? What were your cinematic highlights of the year. Let us know in the comments below or use the contact us form to send us a message.

Number 4 in their list and one of our favourites is Perfect Days which is why we’ve decided to have it as our ‘Christmas’ Screening this year. We hope some of you can join us on Sunday 29th December for the 4pm screening and a chance to chat about the film, 2024 and what else you are looking forward to in 2025.

 All We Imagine As Light

A group of people dressed in blue sit in a theatre, attentively watching something.

Our next ‘First Thursday’ Film Club meet up is on December 5th after the 5:50pm screening of All We Imagine As Light. Come along and watch the film with us or see it anytime from the 29th November and then join us in the bar around 8pm on the 5th to discuss it.

All We Imagine As Light was the first Indian film to be selected in the Official Competition at Cannes in three decades. Payal Kapadia also made history as the first female Indian filmmaker ever to have a film in this prestigious section of the festival. A worthy winner of the Grand Prix and one of the best films released this year.

Centring on three co-workers and friends, Payal Kapadia’s film alights on moments of connection and heartache, disappointment and hope. Prabha, her husband from an arranged marriage living in faraway Germany, is courted by a doctor at her hospital; Anu carries on a romance with a Muslim man, which she must keep a secret from her strict Hindu family; Parvaty finds herself dealing with a sudden eviction from her apartment.

Kapadia captures the delicate intricacies of their lives within the bustle of the soaked metropolis and open-air tranquility of a seaside village, with equal radiance, articulated by her superb actresses and a stunning naturalism, which employs a European aesthetic to further enhance the film’s emotional core.

“It is both dreamlike and like waking up from a dream. This is a glorious film.” – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

“The film is a reminder of the transcendent power of cinema, even, and perhaps especially, when not all that much is happening” – Lindsey Bahr Associated Press

All We Imagine As Light is showing daily from the 29th November and tickets can be booked now.

First Thursday Film Club: Anora

For November’s ‘First Thursday’ Film Club on the 7th November we’ll be meeting in the bar after the 5pm showing of Anora in screen 2. Anora is the latest film from Sean Baker (Tangerine, The Florida Project) and won the Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival. It’s screening at the Picture House from Friday 1st November and is also one of the many films showing at the Leeds International Film Festival. If you can’t make the screening on the 7th and want to see the film some other time you’d still be welcome to join us around 7:30pm. Meeting at the end of the first week of the Festival should also mean we have plenty of other great films to talk about.

“Watching Anora is like riding shotgun alongside a reckless driver. Sean Baker is one of the brightest and most original filmmakers of his generation. He is one of a kind, and so is Anora.” – Leonard Maltin

“A wildly entertaining, modern-day screwball comedy set in 2018 that barrels through New York and Las Vegas. Mikey Madison is a revelation.” – Wendy Ide, Screen International

The film is showing every day from Friday so we hope you will get chance to see it and then join us on Thursday to talk about it.

Book Tickets

The Outrun (2024)

For October’s First Thursday Film Club we’ll be watching The Outrun at 5pm on Thursday 3rd and then gathering in the bar for a chat to share our feelings on the film, or about film in general, from around 7:30pm. First Thursdays are a new meet-up organised by the Friends of Hyde Park Picture House but open to everyone.

Starring and produced by Saoirse Ronan, and adapted from the bestselling memoir by Amy Liptrot, The Outrun is a life-affirming story about living on the edge, healing and what it means to return home.

“This is beautiful filmmaking. This is cinema where everything matters, where every little detail adds up to create something seriously exhilarating to experience in the theater.” – Alex Billington, FirstShowing.net

“The Outrun’s true tether, however, is Ronan, and here she works to all her greatest strengths. The film wraps entirely around her, yet she’s far too honest an actor to ever play up to the audience’s expectations of a woman in crisis.” – Clarisse Loughrey, Independent

The film is showing every day this week so we hope you will get chance to see it and then join us on Thursday to talk about it.

Book Tickets

‘First Thursday’ Meetup – Kneecap

Our new ‘First Thursday’ meet ups start on September 5th when a group of Friends plan to see the early evening film and meet in the bar afterwards to chat.

You may have had a trial run at this if you attended our successful Yorkshire Day screening on the first Thursday in August and shared your feelings about Lad, A Yorkshire Story on an exit post it. 

For September we’ve decided to focus on Kneecap, the “mostly true story” about the controversial Belfast hip-hop group of the same name, but there’ll be chance to talk about anything else you’ve seen.

We’ll be at the 6pm screening of Kneecap in Screen 2 on Thursday 5th September. The film is also screening every day at the Picture House so there are plenty of opportunities to see it before the 5th if you would just like to join us for the meetup, which will be around 8pm. 

The band have also just performed at the Reading and Leeds Festival and a 30 minute set is available to watch on iPlayer.

Come along, enjoy the cinema, meet other Friends and chat about films. 

A Yorkshire Day Celebration

Thank to all our members who took part in the recent vote for our Yorkshire Day screening. The winning film was Lad: A Yorkshire Story.

Two people, an older man and a young boy, are sitting and standing near a stone fence in a green rural field, conversing, both are holding mugs.


Eleven years on from its first release Lad has continued to defy expectations and reach new audiences around the world with its charming and heartfelt story of friendship and the landscape.

Documenting the story of a teenage boy, Tom, as he grapples with the heartache of grief until an unlikely friendship with a park ranger in the Yorkshire Dales offers an opportunity for healing.

Book your tickets now and join us in Screen 2 on Thursday 1st August at 6pm. If you come along early from 5:30pm there will be free hot drinks and some popcorn. Afterwards there will be an opportunity to share your feelings about Yorkshire and the film!


If you’re unable to attend this screening you may be able to meet up on future ‘First Thursdays’ starting on September 5th when a group of Friends plan to see the early evening film and meet in the bar afterwards.

The Damned (1969)

A Pervert Pictures Presentation on Sunday March 17th, 2pm

A man in a suit holds the hand of a reclining woman on a chaise longue,

As author Sara Shepard observed “Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it”.

In “The Damned” director Luchino Visconti takes us back in his portrayal of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. This is a disturbing film of beauty and decay, a heady mixture of sex, violence and intrigue, with a dysfunctional family enriched by arms sales at its core. Something for everyone!

We are so fortunate that the Hyde Park Picture House has worked with Pervert Pictures to bring this powerful tale of decadence to the big screen which will being with a short introduction.

Pervert Pictures is a Leeds-based film club for lovers of the erotic, the disturbing and the provocative, which aims to create a safe and social environment for the viewing of explicit and challenging films.

Herbert Thaliman (Umberto Orsini) says in the film “It does no good to raise one’s voice when it’s too late, not even to save your soul”. A vital lesson for our times? Agree? Disagree? Loved it? Hated it? Let us know. Leave a comment below, contact us with a review or join us in the cafe area after the film for a chat.

A Bunch Of Amateurs – Sunday 18th December 1pm


Hopefully you’ve already booked tickets to the various Christmas themed films which are being screened by the HPPH over the next couple of weeks. Unfortunately we’ve been unable to put on a Christmas screening for the Friends this year but some of the Committee will be joining Wendy for the screening of ‘A Bunch of Amateurs’ at 1pm on Sunday 18th December at Heart. Whilst this isn’t really a festive film, we felt that the subject matter and tone of the film really chimed with the Friends’ values. We will be in the café before the film, so come along if you can for a catch up. Bill and Wendy will be giving an update on progress at the Picture House and what’s been happening with the Friends.

“Joyous and heartbreaking celebration of film-making passion” 

Guardian 9th October 2022


Comes together as a wistful reflection on the power of cinema and community in the face of adversity.

Marina Ashioti Little White Lies

Lockdown Film Club

Our friends at HEART have been organising a weekly online film discussion club during the lockdown.

LOCKDOWN FILM CLUB with Gurj Kang meets on Zoom on Fridays from 7pm

We are a friendly group who discuss films that have been keeping us going through Lockdown. We have a theme each week such as comedy or rom coms and you are encourage to nominate two favourites in advance.

To give you an idea of the variety, rom com favourites included:

  • Bringing up Baby (1938)
  • Notting Hill (1999)
  • When Harry Met Sally (1989)
  • ChungKing Express (1994)
  • Her (2013)
  • Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down (1989)
  • Say Anything (1989)
  • Gregory’s Girl (1981)

The film club is organised by HEART, the arts, enterprise and community centre in the middle of Headingley run by the community for the community.  HEART will be the venue for Hyde and Seek family friendly films and for Memory Matinees (screenings inclusive for people with dementia) as the Lockdown ends. There is no charge but members are encouraged to support HEART’s work through Just Giving. https://crowdfunding.justgiving.com/heartheadingley

The theme for May 8th is music-related films. To get the Zoom link and password email centremanager@heartcentre.org.uk


Bill Walton