The first films you ever saw in the cinema

[Stumpy Pepys]

Christ, false memory syndrome—aka watching films on TV—is a very real thing, but I'm pretty confident this is accurate.

Star Wars (1977)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977)
Superman (1978)
Hooper (1978)
The Cat from Outer Space (1978)

[wittoner]

Cliff Richard's Summer Holiday (1962) was definitely the first. Less sure of others. I certainly saw Goldfinger (1964) but there were probably others in between that have gone from memory.

[WOM]

I'm pretty sure it was On Any Sunday, the motorcycling documentary. At the Cedarbrae cinema, for sure.

And I saw Star Wars in the theatre in '77, too. Which, I'm 99% sure, was the first time someone ever phoned me and said "Hey, want to go see a movie?" He mentioned Star Wars, which I'd not heard of yet, and I said "Yeah, sure."

[Levin]

The Jungle Book and then The Great Mouse Detective.

But I'm confused by the dates. I always thought I'd seen it some time between 1985 and 1989 but it was re-released in 1983 and then not again until 1993. It wasn't 1993 but I'd have only been 3 in 1983 which seems too young and also we lived in the wrong place.

That was pretty much it for Disney growing up as well. No disney videos at home. My mum said that she saw it when it first came out which was why she took me and my sister.

[treibeis]

The Island At The Top Of The World (1974). The longest hour and a half of my life, even now.

I was six, my sister was seven. I don't know what my parents thought they were doing.

[Stumpy Pepys]

The first Star Wars film remains the most exciting thing I've ever seen.

[ursus arctos]

Father Goose at Radio City Music Hall (complete with a stage show featuring the Rockettes).

Followed by Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree at a Drive-In.

[Wouter D]

The Little Mermaid. I was four or five or somesuch.

Ursula freaked me out no end, so in the break my mum asked me if I wanted to switch to another movie. We didn't; I wanted to see how it would end.

[tracteurgarcon]

The first film I saw at the cinema was "Star Wars".

It was also the film I went to see the next nine times I went to the Stowmarket Regal.

[Giggler]

The Jungle Book and then The Great Mouse Detective.

But I'm confused by the dates. I always thought I'd seen it some time between 1985 and 1989 but it was re-released in 1983 and then not again until 1993. It wasn't 1993 but I'd have only been 3 in 1983 which seems too young and also we lived in the wrong place.

That was pretty much it for Disney growing up as well. No disney videos at home. My mum said that she saw it when it first came out which was why she took me and my sister.

I'm reliably informed that mine was The Jungle Book too, so it'd be the 1983 re-issue. It was at the Classic in Bury that my dad rejected the job of managing and which closed in the mid-80s to be replaced by a branch of the Halifax which closed two years ago.

[Stumpy Pepys]

I'm reliably informed that mine was The Jungle Book too, so it'd be the 1893 re-issue.

I guess that would have been the magic lantern version.

[seand]

Annie and ET, I reckon. Both are 1982 which would put me at 6 years old. Dundalk (population 30,000) had 4 cinemas at the time.

[San Bernardhinault]

I'm pretty sure the first two were Star Wars, and a re-release/re-play of Dumbo, although I'm not sure of which order.

[Patrick Thistle]

When we lived in Africa, my mum and dad was occasionally take us to the capital where very occasionally we would be allowed into the American Embassy to watch films on their big screen. the two I remember were Avalanche Express, about a train full of spies trying to outrun an avalanche or something, and The Great Muppet Caper, which I thought was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen. We didn't have a TV (or electricity most of the time) where we lived up-river, so this was magical.

The first film I saw in the cinema when we returned to the UK was Return of the Jedi in summer 1983. I went with just my dad at first, then he decided it was suitable for my little brother, so the next time he and my mum came along, and then we went a third time with my grandparents in tow as well. I can't remember what Grandad thought of it, but my Grandma said the first third was horrible (Jabba the Hutt and the Rancor), the middle third was boring (here's looking at you Mon Mothma) but the last third was wonderful. She loved the Ewoks.

[Patrick Thistle]

Later in the decade, my Grandma took me and my brother to see The Living Daylights, which she thought was hilarious, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which she enjoyed mainly because he was fighting Nazis.

[Giggler]

I guess that would have been the magic lantern version.

Fucking hell, I'm all over the place this week, aren't I?

[Jah Womble]

That I can remember - Mary Poppins in London around 1966.

The first almost certainly wasn't that, though.

[Ginger Yellow]

Last Crusade was definitely one of the first I remember. But rather embarrassingly Howard the Duck is the earliest I can actually remember.

[Benjm]

Star Wars is the first that I can remember too, and the memories are still pretty vivid.

[WOM]

Yeah, I got chills when I took the kids to see the 'classic lineup' Force Awakens a couple of years back. As soon as you hear that music, man...

[Amor de Cosmos]

The first film was a cartoon in a news theatre* in Sheffield, around 1950. I was around two or three years old and don't remember what it was, only that I was absolutely terrified. So far as I could tell I was in a big dark room with loads of people I didn't know, there were these massive coloured shapes on the wall and lots of loud noises. I think I started crying and had to be removed.

The first feature I remember by name was Lady and the Tramp (1955) but there likely others prior. Pinnochio in re-release I think, but not sure exactly when. The first non-cartoon was probably Reach for the Sky (1956) with Kenneth More. As a family we went to the cinema a fair bit back then — once every couple of weeks I'd guess.

*News theatres were common in large cities in pre-TV days. They showed newsreels, cartoons and other shorts, and were the type of place you'd go if you had half an hour or so to kill waiting for a bus.

[Benjm]

I sneaked off to see The Force Awakens and Rogue One on release day, full of the old time feelings, but couldn't for The Last Jedi and to this day haven't seen that or the young Han Solo one. Maybe it was the memories of the original occasion driving the enthusiasm rather than wanting to see the new films per se.

[elguapo4]

Pretty sure it was "snow white and the seven dwarves " I remember it being a big adventure to go to the pictures. As I previously mentioned on a different thread having to be removed from the cinema during "chitty chitty bang bang " due to a less than favourable response to the arrival of the child catcher and a woman telling my sister to "shut that child up he's laughing too loud " during "the love bug" were other early experiences.

[3 Colours Red]

Either a matinee screening of The Land Before Time on a school outing or a re-release of Back To The Future before Part II came out.
Definitely not Mac And Me. No, no, definitely... definitely not that.

[Squarewheelbike]

Bambi, some time in the mid 60's at the Regent Cinema in Redcar. The same cinema that featured in the Dunkirk sequence in Atonement.