Cinema in Athens: the back story

About Cinema in Athens: the back story

By the ULTIMATE Athens Editorial Team

Few cities have a love affair with the cinema quite like Athens. Every summer, dozens of open-air cinemas open on rooftops and in walled gardens across the city, and Athenians settle into deckchairs with a cold drink to watch a film under the stars. Behind this summer ritual lies a rich film history.

Cinemas under the stars

Long before air conditioning, Athenians discovered the perfect way to watch a film on a hot summer night: outdoors. Open-air cinemas, called therina, “summer” cinemas, spread across the city through the 20th century, set up in courtyards, gardens and on rooftops between whitewashed walls. Their great age came in the 1950s and 1960s, when almost every neighbourhood had one and families went several times a week.

With the arrival of television and later home video, many of them closed, and their plots became apartment blocks. But the best survived, and today they are among the most loved summer traditions in Athens: bougainvillea on the walls, the smell of jasmine, a little bar selling beer, popcorn and toast, and, at the most famous of them, the Acropolis glowing beside the screen.

Every summer, Athenians settle into deckchairs with a cold drink to watch a film under the stars.

The golden age of Greek film

At the same time, Greek cinema enjoyed its own golden age. Studios such as Finos Film, founded in the 1940s, made hundreds of comedies, melodramas and musicals that filled cinemas across the country, and stars such as Aliki Vougiouklaki became household names. Greek films reached the world too: Melina Mercouri won the award for best actress at Cannes for Never on Sunday in 1960, and Michael Cacoyannis’s Zorba the Greek, released in 1964, made the music of Mikis Theodorakis famous everywhere.

Greek directors on the world stage

Later, Theo Angelopoulos made long, poetic films that won some of the highest prizes in world cinema, including the Palme d’Or at Cannes for Eternity and a Day in 1998. In the 2000s a new generation of Greek film-makers emerged, led by Yorgos Lanthimos, whose Dogtooth was nominated for an Oscar and who has gone on to make some of the most talked-about films in the world. Athens hosts film festivals through the year, and the Greek Film Archive keeps the country’s film heritage alive with screenings of classics old and new.

Going to the cinema in Athens

Most films are shown in their original language with Greek subtitles, so visitors can enjoy the latest releases wherever they come from; only children’s films are usually dubbed. The open-air cinemas run from about May to October, with screenings starting after sunset, and indoor cinemas, from historic single screens to modern multiplexes and IMAX, are open all year.

Our advice: for the full Athens experience, choose an open-air cinema with a view, arrive early to pick a good seat, and bring a light jacket for late in the evening. The later screening is usually quieter and cooler. Check what is showing before you go, as each cinema changes its programme every week.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Cinema in Athens: the back story before you go.