Glasgow Film Theatre reveal 2025 birthday programme

Last May, Glasgow Film Theatre celebrated its 50th birthday in a big way with a wide-ranging programme featuring classics, arthouse favourites and special 35mm and 70mm presentations. The celebrations proved such a success that the cinema is going to start having a similar shindig every May to mark its birthday.

GFT’s programme manager, Paul Gallagher, explains that this now-annual birthday celebration will give the cinema a chance to reminisce. “Cinema is so strongly tied up with memories, both for our audiences and our staff team,” Gallagher says, “and GFT's birthday gives us an opportunity to reflect on our programming over the years and bring back some of the films that have created unforgettable experiences.”

One figure who’s been a key voice in cinema for much of GFT’s existence is the great David Lynch, who died in January this year. Lynch visited the GFT in 2007, where he held a talk on transcendental meditation, and his films have always proved popular with the GFT audience, both on their first run and the GFT's various Lynch repertory screenings at the cinema over the decades. “This year it was obvious to all of us that Lynch had to be central,” says Gallagher, “as his incomparable visions have shaped so many Glaswegians' understanding of cinema through numerous screenings at GFT.”

The programme will include screenings of four of Lynch’s greatest films: Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet, The Elephant Man screening off a 4K print, and The Straight Story, which will be projected on 35mm. Talking of celluloid, the cinema will also be presenting Alfred Hitchcock’s giddy suspense film North by Northwest from a mint-fresh 70mm print (2-8 May) and Quentin Tarantino’s WWII flick Inglourious Basterds on 35mm – the latter of course features nitrate film prints set ablaze in its wish-fulfilment climax set in a cinema (17 May).

Other GFT favourites in the mix include musical Singin’ in the Rain (3 & 5 May), romantic drama Brief Encounter (16 & 18 May), and two masterpieces of modern French cinema: Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine (11 & 12 May) and Claire Denis’s Beau Travail (21 May), the latter screening from 35mm.

There’s also a sprinkling of cult cinema in the form of The Big Lebowski (23 & 26 May), which is screening as part of GFT’s new Coen Brothers of the Month season – Glasgow-based author Heather Parry will introduce the film on 26 May. And if none of these excellent movies appeal, there’s always the “Citizen Kane of Bad Movies”, The Room. This terrible film continues to be a crowd-pleaser at GFT, and it's back in all its spoon-throwing glory on 30 May, followed by a post-film Q&A and signing event with actor Greg Sestero.

Conspicuous among these well-known films is the Argentinian heist movie Nine Queens (date TBC), a twist-filled crime caper from 2000 that was well-regarded on its release but little-screened since. It’s well remembered by GFT CEO Allison Gardner, however. Nine Queens is one of Gardner’s favourites and its screening from a newly-restored 4L digital print as her special pick of the celebrations to mark her retirement from the cinema later in the year after working there for over three decades.

“I’m sad that this will be my last year celebrating our important and beautiful cinema as a staff member,” Gardner says, “but I look forward to coming back to watch films as an audience member next year. This organisation is driven by a dedicated staff who are passionate about ‘Cinema For All’ and I am extremely proud to have worked here for over 30 years. Happy Birthday, GFT.’"

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Tickets for most of the above screenings go on sale today from glasgowfilm.org and the GFT Box Office; tickets for Inglourious Basterds will go on sale later in Apr