A Beginner’s Guide to UK Cinema

Cinemagoing isn’t quite as commonplace an activity in Britain as it is in the USA. With 171 million admissions in 2011 (the last year for which data is fully available; 2012 info should be up soon), we average around about 2.7 trips a year; the US population attends over 4.5 times per annum. We have around 750 cinemas in Britain; that equates to around one cinema per 80,000 people. A definitive, comparable US number is difficult to locate, but it’s roughly closer to one cinema per 45,000 people. In the US, there’s one cinema screen per 7,700 people; in the UK, it’s about one per 16,000. The UK’s relatively compact geography and high population density obviously plays a role in the variances, but it’s demonstrable that we simply don’t head out to the movies quite as frequently here.