Rio Cinema, Dalston
The Rio Cinema is an independent Art Deco cinema in Dalston, east London, at 107 Kingsland High Street, E8 2PB. It is a Grade II listed building with more than 100 years of history.
It opened in 1909 as the Kingsland Picture Palace in an old auctioneer’s shop, later becoming the Kingsland Empire in 1915. In 1937 it was redesigned in the Art Deco style by F. E. Bromige and reopened as the Classic Cinema Dalston. Today the building has two screens: the original main hall and a basement screen added in 2017, seating 28 with space for a wheelchair.
The cinema survived the Blitz in 1941 and has carried several names over the years, including Classic Cartoon Theatre (1958), Classic Continental (1960), and Tatler Cinema Club (1971). Since 1979 it has been run as a not-for-profit charity by local volunteers.
The Rio offers a varied program, with a main feature each week ranging from arthouse to mainstream films. There are regular late Saturday shows, Bargain Mondays, Tuesday discounts for Hackney Library Card holders, and Parents and Babies screenings. It works with festivals and partners such as the East End Film Festival, the London Feminist Film Festival, Doc’n Roll, Fringe! Gay Film Fest, and hosts the annual Turkish Film Festival, which began in 1994. The cinema runs outreach programs for schools and children and provides affordable tickets for community screenings. It screen about 1,300 films a year and is open most days.
The exterior retains its 1930s look, and in 2019 a basement bar, the Ludski Bar, opened in tribute to the cinema’s original owner Clara Ludski. In 2024 the cinema cancelled a Eurovision screening due to an Israeli boycott, which led to a Charity Commission investigation.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 20:42 (CET).