Much missed - Somerset House and Film4's Summer Screen series of open air films in the courtyard

Edit: 3 August 2022

A cheering update! While the Film4 Summer Screen is no more, Somerset House have partnered with Everyman Cinema to screen open air films throughout August 2022 as part of the #ThisBrightLand festival. The daytime films are free, evening ones are pay what you can. Full listing here: https://www.everymancinema.com/this-bright-land

As part of #ThisBrightLand, we’ll be screening family-friendly films with @Everymancinema for free throughout August, every weekday at 13:00.

Come join us!

Wed 3 Aug - 101 Dalmatians (PG)
Thu 4 Aug - Mary Poppins (starts at 12.30pm)
Fri 5 Aug - Paddington (PG) pic.twitter.com/JjhoAzd8KW

— Somerset House (@SomersetHouse) August 2, 2022

We are over the moon to announce we partnered with #ThisBrightLand at @SomersetHouse

Starting today Monday 1st August we will present 21 days of open-air film entertainment at the festival, providing something for everyone 🌈🎉

🔗https://t.co/C9GWFhZvzR 👀 pic.twitter.com/FocutIrHOy

— Everyman Cinema (@Everymancinema) August 1, 2022

Original post

I am feeling slightly bereft. Somerset House have announced that they're no longer going to be screening the Film4 series of open air films in their courtyard. This was a huge fixture in my London summers and I've seen so many great films there and always looked forward to seeing what they'd screen while haunting their website for the new listings. With the pandemic it means I've not seen a film there since Summer 2019 as 2020 and 2021 were cancelled. And now no more. Wail!

Lovely to watch #BlackPanther at @SomersetHouse on @TheNorthbankBID :) We had the gentlest of rain making a visit, which was quite pleasant. (Vid taken incredits!) pic.twitter.com/FNXHhErRAm

— Jo Brodie (@JoBrodie) August 9, 2019

Somerset House's outdoor cinema is over for good Time Out (7 June 2022)

 

So there's going to be a big gap in the London 'season' but Somerset House is doing lots of other cool things and the Courtauld has re-opened. 

I nearly always went to these things by myself - the tickets sold out pretty quickly so I didn't want to hang around while others made up their mind! I'm sure I must have seen one or two screenings with friends though.

Big thanks to Somerset House and Film4 staff for keeping me entertained for 14 of the 15 years the film screenings ran (I didn't hear about it in the first year). I hope a cinema screen will sneak its way back into your courtyard one day in the future.

 

(There are lots of Summer Screen trailers on YouTube)

Below there is a complete listing of all known Somerset House / Film4 summer screenings - over 200 films screened at over 170 events. The last one I attended was The Piano. For a more visually appealing record of all the films (excluding duplicate films) Michael Leader has put together this Letterboxd page with the artwork for each film.

Other things that are much missed

This post is part of a series of me being a bit nostalgic about things, the other posts are as follows 

• Somerset House and Film4's Summer Screen series of open air films in the courtyard (9 June 2022) - this post
• The Bankside Frost Fair 2003 - 2008 (24 November 2020)
• Speechification, curated radio documentaries (9 January 2020)
• The National Geographic shop on Regent Street, London (4 January 2020)
• Much missed - MOMI, London's Museum of the Moving Image (2 January 2014)

All Film4 / Somerset House screenings

Google Doc version of the embedded info below. Plain text (for Google and searching etc) at the end. 

 

It's fair to say that the open air cinema screening market in London may well have reached saturation point - last year there were just over 980 screenings in and around the capital and the volume had certainly been trending upwards over the last few years. Currently in 2022 there are already 450 screenings and I'd expect another 150-200 to be listed before the end of the season. 

2022 London open air film listings
For the full 2022 listing of open air film events in London (updated every few days) please visit https://bit.ly/OpenAirCinemaLondon2022 for the text listing and https://bit.ly/OpenAirLondon2022MAP for the map. 

Somerset House / Film4 listing - plain text

Year    Date    Day    Film(s)
2005    16 August    Tuesday    Close Encounters of the Third Kind
2005    17 August    Wednesday    A Matter of Life and Death
2005    18 August    Thursday    Spirited Away
2005    19 August    Friday    Flash Gordon
2005    20 August    Saturday    Shaun of the Dead / Land of the Dead
2006    10 August    Thursday    North by Northwest
2006    11 August    Friday    School of Rock & Nacho Libre (Special Screening)
2006    12 August    Saturday    The Shining
2006    13 August    Sunday    The Outsiders
2006    15 August    Tuesday    The Night of the Hunter
2006    16 August    Wednesday    Howl's Moving Castle
2006    17 August    Thursday    Brazil
2006    18 August    Friday    Starship Troopers & Aliens
2006    19 August    Saturday    The Big Lebowski
2007    2 August    Thursday    Knocked Up
2007    3 August    Friday    The Descent / The Thing
2007    4 August    Saturday    The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
2007    5 August    Sunday    Rushmore
2007    6 August    Monday    Rear Window
2007    7 August    Tuesday    E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
2007    8 August    Wednesday    Walk the Line
2007    9 August    Thursday    Chak de India
2007    10 August    Friday    Hot Fuzz / Point Break
2007    11 August    Saturday    2001: A Space Odyssey
2008    31 July    Thursday    Hellboy II: The Golden Army
2008    1 August    Friday    Pan's Labyrinth/ The Exorcist with Peter and the Wolf (short)
2008    2 August    Saturday    Brokeback Mountain
2008    3 August    Sunday    O Brother, Where Art Thou?
2008    4 August    Monday    Léon
2008    5 August    Tuesday    Fellini's 8½
2008    6 August    Wednesday    Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
2008    7 August    Thursday    Singin' in the Rain
2008    8 August    Friday    The Elephant Man / Wild at Heart
2008    9 August    Saturday    Scarface
2009    30 July    Thursday    Pedro Almodóvar's Broken Embraces
2009    31 July    Friday    Alien / Poltergeist
2009    1 August    Saturday    West Side Story
2009    2 August    Sunday    Slumdog Millionaire
2009    3 August    Monday    The Shawshank Redemption
2009    4 August    Tuesday    Wings of Desire
2009    5 August    Wednesday    Don't Look Now
2009    6 August    Thursday    Strangers on a Train
2009    7 August    Friday    Cool Hand Luke / Road House
2009    8 August    Saturday    Raiders of the Lost Ark
2010    29 July    Thursday    Knight and Day
2010    30 July    Friday    Kill Bill Vol. 1 / Enter the Dragon
2010    31 July    Saturday    Team America: World Police / A Town Called Panic
2010    1 August    Sunday    Manhattan
2010    2 August    Monday    Goldfinger
2010    3 August    Tuesday    Black Narcissus
2010    4 August    Wednesday    Paths of Glory
2010    5 August    Thursday    Cabaret
2010    6 August    Friday    Mulholland Drive
2010    7 August    Saturday    Let the Right One In / The Lost Boys
2010    8 August    Sunday    Master and Commander
2011    27 July    Wednesday    Pedro Almodovar's the Skin I Live In
2011    28 July    Thursday    The Spy Who Loved Me
2011    29 July    Friday    The Big Blue
2011    30 July    Saturday    Die Hard / Attack the Block
2011    31 July    Sunday    The Apartment
2011    1 August    Monday    Thelma and Louise
2011    2 August    Tuesday    Chinatown
2011    3 August    Wednesday    In the Mood for Love
2011    4 August    Thursday    Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
2011    5 August    Friday    Serpico / Shaft
2011    6 August    Saturday    Gremlins / Troll Hunter / Tremors
2011    7 August    Sunday    The Princess Bride
2012    16 August    Thursday    On the Road
2012    17 August    Friday    The Birds
2012    18 August    Saturday    Enter the Void + Chemical Brothers: Don't Think
2012    19 August    Sunday    The Watch
2012    20 August    Monday    Apocalypse Now
2012    21 August    Tuesday    Bicycle Thieves
2012    22 August    Wednesday    Paris, Texas
2012    23 August    Thursday    Pretty in Pink
2012    24 August    Friday    Boogie Nights + Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
2012    25 August    Saturday    Sexy Beast + Drive
2012    26 August    Sunday    Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
2012    27 August    Monday    Lawless
2013    8 August    Thursday    About Time
2013    9 August    Friday    What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
2013    10 August    Saturday    Mean Girls + Carrie + The Loved Ones
2013    11 August    Sunday    The Untouchables
2013    12 August    Monday    Guys and Dolls
2013    13 August    Tuesday    The Way Way Back
2013    14 August    Wednesday    Kes
2013    15 August    Thursday    Throne of Blood
2013    16 August    Friday    Predator + Gremlins 2: The New Batch
2013    17 August    Saturday    Badlands + Raising Arizona
2013    18 August    Sunday    Crazy Stupid Love
2013    19 August    Monday    The Red Shoes
2013    20 August    Tuesday    Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
2013    21 August    Wednesday    Prince Avalanche
2014    7 August    Thursday    Two Days, One Night,
2014    8 August    Friday    Rosemary's Baby,
2014    9 August    Saturday    A Fistful of Dollars + Mad Max 2
2014    10 August    Sunday    Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
2014    11 August    Monday    Sense and Sensibility
2014    12 August    Tuesday    Annie Hall
2014    13 August    Wednesday    20,000 Days on Earth
2014    14 August    Thursday    The Great Beauty,
2014    15 August    Friday    Hairspray + Spring Breakers
2014    16 August    Saturday    Ghostbusters + Big Trouble in Little China
2014    17 August    Sunday    The Royal Tenenbaums
2014    18 August    Monday    The 400 Blows
2014    19 August    Tuesday    E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
2014    20 August    Wednesday    What We Do in the Shadows,
2015    6 August    Thursday    Gemma Bovery
2015    7 August    Friday    The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
2015    8 August    Saturday    Withnail & I + An American Werewolf in London
2015    9 August    Sunday    Princess Mononoke
2015    10 August    Monday    The Silence of the Lambs
2015    11 August    Tuesday    The Graduate
2015    12 August    Wednesday    The Second Mother
2015    13 August    Thursday    Aguirre, Wrath of God
2015    14 August    Friday    Do the Right Thing
2015    15 August    Saturday    True Romance + The Warriors
2015    16 August    Sunday    Roman Holiday
2015    17 August    Monday    The Last of the Mohicans
2015    18 August    Tuesday    West Side Story
2015    19 August    Wednesday    Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
2016    4 August    Thursday    Things To Come
2016    5 August    Friday    Bram Stoker's Dracula
2016    6 August    Saturday    Ex Machina + Robocop
2016    7 August    Sunday    Sunset Boulevard
2016    8 August    Monday    10 Things I Hate About You
2016    9 August    Tuesday    Walkabout
2016    10 August    Wednesday    Julieta
2016    11 August    Thursday    The Shining
2016    12 August    Friday    Jackie Brown
2016    13 August    Saturday    Galaxy Quest + The Final Girls
2016    14 August    Sunday    Funny Face
2016    15 August    Monday    Trainspotting
2016    16 August    Tuesday    Girlhood
2016    17 August    Wednesday    Captain Fantastic
2017    10 August    Thursday    An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power
2017    11 August    Friday    Victoria
2017    12 August    Saturday    Donnie Darko + The Omen
2017    13 August    Sunday    The Philadelphia Story
2017    14 August    Monday    Moonlight
2017    15 August    Tuesday    All the President's Men
2017    16 August    Wednesday    The Square
2017    17 August    Thursday    Bhaji on the Beach
2017    18 August    Friday    In Bruges
2017    19 August    Saturday    Jaws + Deliverance [double bill]
2017    20 August    Sunday    My Neighbour Totoro
2017    21 August    Monday    Cruel Intentions
2017    22 August    Tuesday    Blow-Up
2017    23 August    Wednesday    Patti Cake$
2018    9 August    Thursday    The Wife
2018    10 August    Friday    Inception
2018    11 August    Saturday    Labyrinth + The Wizard of Oz
2018    12 August    Sunday    Rebecca
2018    13 August    Monday    Being John Malkovich
2018    14 August    Tuesday    20 Feet from Stardom
2018    15 August    Wednesday    Carol
2018    16 August    Thursday    Blue Velvet
2018    17 August    Friday    La Belle et la Bête + Bride of Frankenstein
2018    18 August    Saturday    Total Recall + A Nightmare on Elm Street
2018    19 August    Sunday    Sleeping Beauty
2018    20 August    Monday    Call Me By Your Name
2018    21 August    Tuesday    Selma
2018    22 August    Wednesday    American Animals
2019    8 August    Thursday    Pain and Glory
2019    9 August    Friday    Black Panther
2019    10 August    Saturday    Mandy (double bill w Wild at Heart)
2019    11 August    Sunday    The Princess Bride
2019    12 August    Monday    The Matrix
2019    13 August    Tuesday    God's Own Country
2019    14 August    Wednesday    This is England
2019    15 August    Thursday    Straight Outta Compton
2019    16 August    Friday    Before Sunrise (double bill w Before Sunset)
2019    17 August    Saturday    Get Out (double bill w They Live)
2019    18 August    Sunday    Clueless
2019    19 August    Monday    Reservoir Dogs
2019    20 August    Tuesday    The Piano
2019    21 August    Wednesday    Inna de Yard

Somerset House announces its open air season

Somerset House by Aldwych does a lovely season in open air films. It's a beautiful venue and generally sells out pretty quickly.

Film4 Summer Screen at Somerset House
7-28 August 2014
http://www.somersethouse.org.uk/film
http://www.somersethouse.org.uk/film/film4-summer-screen-2014

Tickets go on sale 10am Friday 16 May 2014, not 2013 as they have on the website.

Here's what's on offer. I've tweaked the link for the Tenth Anniversary Screening vote so that it doesn't inherit my info.

Text is pinched wholesale from their email to mailing list subscribers, hope they aren't cross with me for reposting it, but if they are I'll remove it.

UK Premiere: Two Days, One Night (cert TBC) Thursday 7 August 2014 Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard stars in this riveting French drama about a woman fighting to keep her job. Tough yet tender, the UK premiere of the new film from acclaimed filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne kicks off Film4 Summer Screen in powerful style.

Rosemary's Baby (18) Friday 8 August 2014 A masterclass in suspense, director Roman Polanski's sophisticated horror hit stars Mia Farrow as a mother-to-be who starts to sense the presence of an evil influence on her life. Polanski's subtle approach to shocks makes for a film that will keep you gripped for the entire evening.

A Fistful of Dollars + Mad Max 2 (18) Saturday 9 August 2014 Two maverick heroes in a pair of films that redefined action cinema. Director Sergio Leone introduces us to Clint Eastwood's 'Man With No Name' in a stylised ‘60s Western, while Mel Gibson’s 'road warrior' Max returns to the screen in an adventure full of heart-stopping thrills.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (U) Sunday 10 August 2014 Need a Sunday night pick-me-up? Director Howard Hawks’ quick-witted screwball-musical is one of the most exuberant cinematic entertainments of all-time, its dazzling colours and sparkling comedy enhanced by the formidable screen presence of stars Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell.

Sense and Sensibility (U) Monday 11 August 2014 Writer Emma Thompson's take on Jane Austen's novel is a perfect literary adaptation, a romantic comedy of manners that won the BAFTA for Best Film. With a cast including Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman and Thompson herself, this tale of two sisters will transform a summer's night.

Annie Hall (15) Tuesday 12 August 2014 Hilarious and provocative, Woody Allen's 1977 classic has lost none if its romantic and comic spark. Diane Keaton is a delight in the title role, teaming up with Allen to play a pair of neurotic New Yorkers drawn to each other from their first meeting.

UK Premiere: 20,000 Days on Earth (cert TBC) Wednesday 13 August 2014 A unique and cinematic documentary film that constructs an imaginary day-in-the-life of writer & singer Nick Cave, following him from Brighton bedroom to Sydney Opera House as it explores the mysteries of the creative process, the nature of collaboration and, ultimately, what makes Nick tick.

I was at the Sundance Festival London a couple of weekends ago and saw a few snippets of this, as part of the biggest panel interview event I've ever attended (8 panellists plus interviewer). It looked really good.

The Great Beauty (15) Thursday 14 August 2014 The winner of this year’s Oscar and BAFTA for Best Foreign Language Film takes you on a dazzling trip through contemporary Rome, where the parties may be dizzying but the comedown can be hard. An extravagant cinematic experience that more than lives up to its title.

Hairspray + Spring Breakers (18) Friday 15 August 2014 Teenage rebellion comes in all shapes and styles in this double-bill featuring the subversive talents of directors John Water and Harmony Korine. The original 1988 version of Hairspray shimmies into Somerset House to shake up the squares, while former Disney starlets-turned-Spring Breakers find trouble in paradise with a deranged James Franco.

Ghostbusters + Big Trouble in Little China (15) Saturday 16 August 2014 Two supernatural spectaculars team up for one wild night of comedy and action. First, Bill Murray and the ghostbusting gang rid New York of paranormal pests, followed by Kurt Russell as a tough-talking truck driver sucked into a San Francisco underworld of monsters and magic.

The Royal Tenenbaums (15) Sunday 17 August 2014 Three child prodigies struggle to grow up in director Wes Anderson’s endearingly eccentric and emotional comedy, where each big laugh is accompanied by a hard tug on the heartstrings. Featuring a family-tree of famous faces including Gene Hackman, Ben Stiller, Bill Murray, Gwyneth Paltrow and Owen Wilson.

The 400 Blows (PG) Monday 18 August 2014 One of the greatest films ever made about being young, director Francois Truffaut’s debut tags along with a teenage tearaway as he comes of age on the atmospheric streets of late 1950s Paris. Beautiful black-and-white photography and the vivid New Wave style make this an essential big-screen experience.

Tenth Anniversary Screening Tuesday 19 August 2014 Best of Ten – 10 years, 10 films, 10 days to vote. The winning film chosen by the public will be screened as part of this year’s season. Voters will then be invited to an exclusive 24 hour pre-sale to see the winning film. > VOTE NOW for your favourite film from our highlights of the past 10 years.

UK Premiere: What We Do in the Shadows (cert TBC) Wednesday 20 August 2014 What happens when four ancient vampires become housemates in contemporary New Zealand? This hilarious mock-documentary, featuring Jemaine Clement from Flight of the Conchords, details all the comic complexity that arises from such difficult living (or not living) conditions. A closing night full of laughs and surprises is guaranteed!