Cinema Nova

Cinema Nova, the indie darling of Melbourne’s extensive cinema collection, is now over 30 years old and showing no signs at all of slowing down, so if you’re looking for arthouse films and eclectic screenings, please look no further. Starting off with a sparse 4 screens back in 1992, it’s now evolved into a 16-screen Elysium for movie lovers, and there are no questions as to why.

Showing the best of Australian, indie, and arthouse cinema, you’re probably not going to find the latest Marvel flick here (although that’s not to say they don’t show commercial successes). Instead, Cinema Nova celebrates more niche projects, less for the masses and more for the cinephiles. 

Whereas mainstream cinemas focus on how many people they can get to fill the seats per session, Cinema Nova has a slightly different approach. Those 16 screens vary in size and capacity, meaning they can show a huge variety of movies for longer periods of time, and with far more sessions. ‘Everything, Everywhere, All At Once’, as of March 2023, has been playing for a solid year with no end in sight.

Cult classics are taken care of too—each month there is a screening of the best-worst film in the world, ‘The Room’, and occasionally they’ll do overnight screenings of ‘The Twilight Saga’, in which all five movies are played successionally from dusk till dawn. 

The best kind of theatre is one that does a discount day, and Mondays aren’t complete without catching the latest release at Cinema Nova, with screenings that are $7 before 4pm and $10 thereafter. Double features are also commonplace, with back-to-back showings of your favourite films. Cinema Nova also houses plenty of film festivals throughout the year, as well as filmmaker screenings where you can meet and question the creators themselves. 

Located on the iconic Lygon Street in Carlton, Cinema Nova is one of the best cinemas in Melbourne based on its vicinity alone. Dinner and a movie is a timeless combo, and Cinema Nova has an abundance of restaurants right at its fingertips for all your date night needs.

Even better, the bar inside the theatre itself, Nova Bar, has a solid drinks list and even seating outside, so you can watch all the action of Lygon Street while sipping on an espresso martini or two. Their homemade choc tops are definitely some of the best you’ll find, with their chilli choc flavour reigning supreme in our eyes. 

Image credit: Cinema Nova (supplied)