Prince Charles Cinema

The Prince Charles Cinema (PCC) is a repertory cinema located in Leicester Place, 50 yards (45 metres) north of Leicester Square in the City of Westminster. It shows a rotating programme of cult, arthouse, and classic films alongside recent Hollywood releases – typically more than fifty different films a week on two screens (300 velvet seats downstairs and 104 high back leather seats upstairs). It also regularly hosts a sing-a-long version of The Sound of Music, as well as The Rocky Horror Picture Show and The Room. The cinema has achieved a cult status amongst fans, and is the only independent cinema in Westminster.

Constructed between 1961 and 1962, the building was built by Richard Costain Limited for Alfred Esdaile and designed by Carl Fisher and Associates. The building, named for then-Prince Charles, originally functioned as a theatre with a distinctive 'satellite dish' curve to the floor of the stalls, meaning that audience members are sat at an upwards angle as they face the stage. In 1964 an edition of The Jack Paar Program was filmed there with a performance on the stage by Judy Garland.

After a short period supporting the dramatic arts, the venue was reinvented as a kind of soft porn cinema, and began showing European arthouse movies with "a level of nudity that British and American cinema wasn’t ready for". During this period it hosted the UK's longest continuous run of Emmanuelle, as well as Caligula (1979).

The UK premiere of Just a Gigolo was held at the Prince Charles Cinema on 14 February 1979, it was attended by David Bowie who starred in the film.

By the 1980s it also showed horror films, such as The Evil Dead, and in 1987 it hosted the world premiere of Hellraiser.

The Prince Charles was taken over by Robins Cinemas in April 1991, and it was then that it became largely a repertory cinema.

The cinema was used as the setting for a number of stunts in the British sketch show Trigger Happy TV in the early 2000s. Filming was facilitated by the cinema having a balcony at the time from which aerial shots could be taken, which was later converted into a second screen in 2008.

During the UK launch of Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004), Uma Thurman recorded a special video introduction for a double bill of both movies being held at the cinema. In it she welcomed the audience to "Quentin's favourite UK cinema". Quentin Tarantino has said, "The Prince Charles Cinema is everything an independent movie theatre should be. For lovers of quality films, this is Mecca." and "The day Kill Bill plays the Prince Charles is the day Kill Bill truly comes home." He further described it as London's "queen's jewel" of a grindhouse saying "I was so honoured when Reservoir Dogs hit so big there that they started playing it at midnight and all the lads would show up in the black suits with little squirt guns".