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I am visiting London as a tourist and would like to go to a theater to watch a movie. In the US I'd use Fandango - just type in my zip code, see what's playing near me and go for the time indicated.

Is there a comparable service for London / UK theaters?

CGCampbell
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neubert
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    Bad question for travel but http://www.movietickets.com – Karlson Aug 08 '14 at 20:22
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    This question appears to be off-topic because it is about movies, not travel – gerrit Aug 08 '14 at 20:24
  • off-topic, anyway try IMDb. – Nean Der Thal Aug 08 '14 at 22:49
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    @gerrit Based on http://meta.travel.stackexchange.com/questions/1598/are-questions-about-shows-in-popular-tourist-destinations-on-topic/1600#1600 I would conclude it would be on topic. There is not a huge difference between schedules and tickets. – Bernhard Aug 08 '14 at 23:08
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    In the UK, I use http://www.myvue.com/ It tries to guess your locale based upon your IP, but you can override it with a postal code. There is also http://www.timeout.com/london which has more stuff about what's happening. – Gayot Fow Aug 02 '15 at 17:33
  • Is this question about movies, live theater, or both? – Nate Eldredge Aug 02 '15 at 22:31
  • @pnuts: So then maybe the reference to Fandango should not be there, because as far as I know they only do movies. – Nate Eldredge Aug 02 '15 at 23:01
  • The question was about movies. Sure, I'm not gonna travel all the way to London, from Texas, to see a movie, but if I'm there, it's something I might want to do, all the same. Like with http://travel.stackexchange.com/q/11594/4868 people aren't gonna travel to the US from Canada just to enter in their zip code into a gas pump, but if you are in the US, it may, none-the-less, be something you want to do at some point. – neubert Aug 02 '15 at 23:14
  • @GayotFow that would only show things happening at a VUE, surley though? – CMaster Aug 02 '15 at 23:53
  • @CMaster, yes. VUE has the franchises at Blue Water, Lakeside, Westfield, and the Brewery. That pretty much covers urban Essex. – Gayot Fow Aug 03 '15 at 00:19
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    I've occasionally had to travel as much as 60km to find a movie theater playing a certain movie. But it would not occur to me to ask on a travel site how to find out what movies are playing near me. Perhaps I'd ask how to get to the theater though. – Michael Hampton Aug 03 '15 at 01:10
  • For premieres in london you should check http://londonfilmpremieres.com – Marcogomesr Oct 02 '15 at 10:33

1 Answers1

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Sometimes a tourist in London may be interested in seeing a film which has been released in the UK, but will not be released in their own country until some point in the future. Alternatively, a business traveller may be 'stuck' in London for the weekend and may opt to spend part of their weekend catching up on the latest films. In both of these cases, the traveller would want to consult an authoritative and reliable source that listed what films are showing and their screening times.

London has an entertainment district centered around Leicester Square; it is roughly analogous to Times Square in NYC in that lots of movie theatres are clustered together within a few hundred yards of each other.

Leicester Square is the centre of London's cinema land, and one of the signs marking the Square bears the legend "Theatreland". It is claimed that the Square contains the cinema with the largest screen and the cinema with the most seats (over 1,600). The square is the prime location in London for world leading film premières and co-hosts the London Film Festival each year.9 Similar to Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, the square was surrounded by floor mounted plaques with film stars' names and cast handprints. During the 2010-2012 refurbishment, nearly all of the plaques were removed except for a few on the Vue West End cinema doorsteps.

Source: Wikipedia

If a given film is in the theatrical release stage, it's likely to be at one of the theatres there. While each of the theatres operates their own site, a popular strategy is to visit the square on foot and walk around between the hours of 1300 and 2100. The blockbuster films show on multiple screens and screening times are spaced about an hour apart.

For people wanting to access the exact showing times whilst simultaneously reading the reviews, a Londoner would invariably refer you to Time Out Magazine. It's usage as a canonical reference point for London entertainment predates the internet. The film listings are not restricted to the West End, but cover the whole of Greater London. The site will accept a search on "Leicester Square" and present all of their listings in that area.

As mentioned in the comments to your question, there is also VUE cinemas which (apparently) can accept a US ZIP code and/or a UK post code. VUE has the franchises at two of the largest shopping malls in the London suburbs: Westfield Stratford City and Westfield London. They also hold the franchise at what is arguably South East England's 'showcase mall', Bluewater, which has destinational status in its own right (trains depart from St Pancras).

Finally, if you wanted to attend a 'star-studded' theatrical release, possibly attended by the film's principals, there are specialist agents who can arrange this for you.

Disclaimer: I have no relationship with any of the commercial links given in this answer. Please also read Are internal tourists tourists?

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