Sydney's best cinemas

Cheapest
Randwick Ritz
You can thank Mel Gibson for the cheap-as-chips ticket prices at this heritage-listed icon built by C and JB Williams in 1937. A former Coogee ratepayer himself, Mad Mel stepped in when the 70 year old art deco building (owned by the Sisters of the Brigidine Congregation in 1962-1985) was threatened with demolition in 1984. Weighing in with heart and hip pocket, the future dual Oscar winning superstar recalled languid afternoons as a broke-as-abusted- arse actor soaking up cinema between Sydney casting calls, NIDA lessons at Kensington and drinking sessions at the Coogee Bay hotel. Today, Mel's legacy is a glorious art deco cinema with luscious curves, pastel yellow walls and a cool marble bar on the mezzanine doing beer on tap, decent vino and $7 cocktails. And with six screens and no movie ticket over $10, what's not to like?
Randwick

Airiest
Blacktown Drive-In
One of only two remaining drive-in cinemas in NSW, Blacktown Drive-In is a retro-styled reminder of why the modern multiplex can't compete with the ambient artlessness and pure fun-at-the-flicks feel of car-confined cinema. Ah, the crackling echo of the speaker clamped to the windowpane, the flickering light on the steering wheel, the erotic shadows cast in normally mundane corners of the car, and the scamper to the goody shop for choc tops, Twisties, Fantales and Jaffas (a run best attempted by kids in pyjamas) in between a double-feature. Happy Days indeed.
Blacktown

Biggest
George Street Multiplex
Back in days of yore, Sydney's was flooded with cinema houses with quaint, grandiose names like the Coogee Boomerang, the Rockdale Rex, the Hoyts Six Ways, the Rose Bay Wintergarden and the Parra Roxy. These days, with the compression and mutative forces of time, all those old school fl ick havens are housed in cineplexes like that on George Street. This arcane stretch of main drag with its dodgy book stores and bargain shops is still a magnet for teenagers from all over Sydney. The strip may be dominated by the neon fl icker of the George Street Greater Union Multiplex and its attendant temples of fast food and video games, but when the lights go down, it's still movie mecca.
Sydney

Artiest
Chauvel
This vintage cinema's proud history of challenging censors and the senses has cemented its reputation as the spiritual home of Sydney film culture. Built on the old Paddington Town Hall Ballroom (the fully sprung floor is still under the seats) and named for Charles Chauvel, the godfather of Aussie cinema (and discoverer of Errol Flynn), the "Shovel" has been operating as a full-blown art cinematheque since 1977. Now boasting Balmain beauty turned Hollywood darling Rose Byrne as its patron, the Chauvel's vintage vibe goes beyond the barrel-vaulted ceiling, proscenium arches and spiral staircases too. Old school cinema legends like WC Fields, Fellini, Buster Keaton and Orson Welles all get their dues here while the latest releases play next door.
Paddington

Luvviest
Hayden Orpheum Picture Palace
Cremorne's art deco picture palace is a stunning step back in time. Built in 1935 by the top theatrical architect of the period, George Kenworthy, the cinema is even glitzier than the original, thanks to $2.5 million worth of restoration financed by owner, exdaytime TV star Mike Walsh. Each of the six auditoriums has its own colour scheme and décor, but the 744 seat Orpheum is the true star of the show. It even has a genuine Wurlitzer cinema organ, which rises out of a stage pit on weekend evenings, complete with flashing lights and grinning organist. The Orpheum plays host to a heady mix of mainstream US, British and Australian films with arthouse special presentations and occasional cabaret shows thrown in.
Cremorne

More information on all Sydney's cinemas

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