The Nickel Cinema

WITH DVD-stacked shelves and chairs reclaimed from the closed-down Odeon in Covent Garden, the Nickel Cinema is a nostalgic departure from the reclining sofas and mega-screens of modern cinema chains.

But that is what the Nickel is supposed to be – a place for “bewildering, transgressive, bizarre, degenerate” films and the people who want to see them; a 37-seat homage to the grindhouse cinemas popular in 1970s New York.

Founder Dominic Hicks explained: “They were places of ill repute, melting pots of freaks and weirdos washed up into these grungy cinemas.

“I wouldn’t say we’re exactly that, but we try to keep the spirit of the grindhouse alive in the fact that we’re not afraid of subversive, provocative types of film in a culture that shies away from that a little bit.

“It’s almost a reversal, back to the pre-multiplex days where you’d have single-screen neighbourhood cinemas that had their own identity and personality, that were a bit more handmade.”

Founder Dominic Hicks and the Nickel [Charlotte Matheson]

Since opening in a red-painted former bookshop on Clerkenwell Road this summer, the Nickel has been packed out most nights with cinephiles in their early 20s, sentimental industry retirees and everyone in between.

“You get a real sense of community – people who are drawn to the same kind of thing, cinema that’s off the beaten track,” said Mr Hicks, a short film and music video director from Enfield who started the Nickel as a pop-up in 2023 before he set up permanently in Clerkenwell. Mr Hicks has a long list of films he wants to screen that isn’t running short yet, and regular customers have also started bringing their own suggestions.

The only criterion is that it’s something “a little bit more interesting” than movies being made today.

“My cynical view is that we’re in a pretty dire era of film,” said Mr Hicks.

The Nickel

“Everyone knows how to make a film now but that doesn’t mean anyone’s got anything to say. If you plough through the 120 years of cinema that we have, the sheer breadth and diversity of aesthetics and ideas is amazing.

“Streaming services promise a broad experience of cinema, they advertise themselves as having everything, but that’s not really the case.

“It gives you the illusion of choice but the things that are being lost are films that are a bit more ‘shaggy dog’, films that belong to an era where art was allowed to be a bit more challenging and imperfect – a little bit broken, really.”

As a micro-cinema in central London, the Nickel itself is similarly “trapped in time” – a “brand new old thing”, as Mr Hicks put it, a rebellion against the increasingly homo­geneous high street.

“My favourite places in London are the little ‘I can’t believe that’s still there’ places, where owners sit at the counter and they’re not attached to big finance,” he added.

Despite the proximity of nearby office buildings and cafe chains, the Nickel shares pavement with long-standing snack shops and the Little Italy landmarks of old Clerkenwell – so for a place that celebrates character over conformity, it is right at home.