Phoenix Cinema
cinema in East Finchley, Barnet, London
The Phoenix Cinema is an independent single-screen community cinema in East Finchley, London, England. It was built in 1910 and opened in 1912 as the East Finchley Picturedrome. It is one of the oldest continuously-running cinemas in the UK and shows mainly art-house films.
It is distinctive on East Finchley's high road by its large neon sign on the side of the building. The cinema's patrons are Benedict Cumberbatch, Maureen Lipman, Judi Dench, Michael Palin, Bill Paterson and Mark Kermode. It is run by a charity as a community cinema.
History
The Picturedrome (1910–1923)
The Cinematograph Act 1909 introduced laws to make cinemas safer. As a result, more purpose-built cinemas began to appear from 1910 onwards including this one. The Phoenix Cinema was built in 1910 by Premier Electric Theatres, however the company went bankrupt before the cinema could be opened. In 1912, the building was purchased by businessmen who had been involved in setting up East Sheen Picturedrome.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Phoenix Cinema” as cinema in East Finchley, Barnet, London. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as cinema in East Finchley, Barnet, London. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7186809. Authority coordinates are 51.589, -0.164. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1910, 1912, 1923 and 1909.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Phoenix Cinema” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.