Nickel Cinema

Situated in the inner north London suburb of Clerkenwell, the Nickel Cinema was founded by Dominic Hicks. He had been presenting ‘pop-up’ screenings at various venues around the capital, including the Garden Cinema, in Covent Garden and The Cinema Museum, in Kennington (they both have their separate pages on Cinema Treasures), before setting up a crowdfunding appeal which enabled him to find a permanent home.

The premises had been home to Magma, a specialist design and graphics-oriented bookshop that also sold stationery, T-shirts, prints, lights and toys, and that had traded there for almost 25 years. That closed on 8th March 2025 (but has other branches at King’s Cross and Covent Garden.)

The Nickel Cinema name is derived from the early Nickelodeon movie theatres. It proclaims itself to be home to “the most subversive, bewildering, sensational, fearless, sublime, shocking, transgressive, death-defying, psychedelic, psychotronic, bizarre, rebellious, baffling, degenerate cinematic treasures – from the silent era to the digital age”.

In addition to modern digital projection, films will also be screened from 16mm prints and VHS tapes. The features will be supplemented by shorts, cartoons and vintage commercials.

The ground floor auditorium is reached via a foyer bar and a shop selling a wide range of film memorabilia.

The Nickel Cinema opened on Wednesday 11th June 2025 with John Waters' punk rock comedy “Cecil B. Demented”, introduced with a “video blessing” by the maverick director.

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