The London Science Museum has announced four additional screenings in its current IMAX 70mm season, providing fans of the format who can get to the venue more opportunities to see some iconic films in the equally iconic format.
Having shown several films in the format over the last few months, the London Science Museum has added four additional dates, which are on sale now. The films and dates are:
For those wondering why this is a big deal, IMAX 70mm is considered by enthusiasts to be the very highest quality format to see films in a cinema, with renowned director Christopher Nolan, who established the use of the format for feature films, referring to it as the “gold standard of motion picture photography.”
Why IMAX 70mm?
While many directors consider film to ideal way to shoot movies, IMAX 15/70 is considered the greatest film stock of all, with its 15-perforation wide frame around 10x larger than a traditional 35mm frame. The larger area translates to more resolution and finer grain and less noise, making for an image packed with detail. In addition, the IMAX 70mm frame has a 1.43:1aspect ratio, resulting in an image that offers up to 40% more image than conventional widescreen.
This makes watching a film in IMAX 70mm in a GT theatre an incredible experience. The IMAX: The Ronson Theatre is only of the few theatres in the world that has an IMAX 70mm film projector and a giant 1.43:1 GT screen (24.3m x 16.8m) and for good measure also has a dual-laser IMAX projector, so it can also show IMAX 1.43:1 images using digital projection.
However, of the four films in the additional IMAX 70mm season, only two have sequences shot with IMAX film cameras. The Dark Knight, famous as being the first feature film to use the format, features 28 minutes of IMAX 15/70 footage that will expand to fill the screen in full, while Interstellar has 66 minutes of IMAX 70mm footage.
Stanley Kubrick’s seminal 2001: A Space Odyssey, released in 1968, was shot on Super Panavision 70 using 65mm film, while Nolan’s Inception (2010) was shot on 35mm film. Both of these have received so-called ‘blow-ups’, transferring the film to IMAX 70mm film stock.
Naturally, The Dark Knight and Interstellar are reference IMAX 70mm experiences (for me, the latter is still the ultimate cinematic experience) and it’s still very much worthwhile seeing both 2001: A Space Odyssey and Inception in the format.
Hunger Games IMAX 70mm
In addition to the four films above, on 11th February, the Science Museum is also showing The Hunger Games: Catching Fire in IMAX 70mm. With all sequences set inside the area shot on IMAX 70mm, this is the ultimate and very rare way to see the film. (Please note that as the event is 18+ only as it is part of the Science Museum’s February Lates programme.
The Ronson Theatre is also a great place to see IMAX 70mm, with the refurbished theatre offering, in my view, the most comfortable seats of any IMAX theatre I’ve been in, as well as huge 12-channel audio.
IMAX 70mm arguably came to mainstream attention with extended runs of Christopher Nolan’s Best Picture Oscar-winning Oppenheimer (40 minutes of IMAX 1570 footage). His next film, The Odyssey, is the first movie to be shot entirely in IMAX 1570 film stock, thanks to the use of new, next-generation film cameras. Scheduled for release on 17th July 2026, tickets for early screenings in select IMAX 70mm theatres were released an unprecedented year early, hinting that the movie will bring excitement around the IMAX 70mm to even greater levels.
