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I know we’re off to a bad start when Jean refuses to board a tube train bound for central London. She plants herself on the platform and will not be moved. In the end I have to pick her up and carry her – squirming in protest and heavy – over the threshold. When the doors slide shut the woman standing next to me in the packed carriage asks if my dog has ever been on a train before.
“No,” I say. “Can you tell?”
“How far are you going?” she says.
“Canary Wharf,” I say, “where we change trains, and then … ” The look of concern – or possibly scorn – on the woman’s face is such that I don’t finish my sentence: and then we’re going to the cinema.
To be honest, I’d rank pet-friendly film-going pretty low on my list of needs. Taking your dog to the cinema strikes me as a bizarre and counterintuitive bit of entitlement. I go to the cinema to get away from my dog.
Dog-friendly screenings first appeared in Britain a decade ago and have been spreading steadily since the end of Covid restrictions. Greenwich Picturehouse in south-east London, where we’re heading, schedules dogs-allowed showings for Sunday mornings, when people are already out with their pets. But why?
“It’s a community thing,” says deputy manager Mike Miles. “It gives people a chance to meet up with their dogs, and come and chill out. For us it’s about providing that experience. And obviously we get to look at the cute dogs as they come in and make a fuss of them.”
I won’t lie: the idea filled me with such dread that I rang up ahead of time for some reassurance. How did it work? Did I need to buy a ticket for my dog, next to me?
“It’s unallocated seating, just choose a seat when you arrive,” the customer service representative said. “And you don’t need to book one for the dog.”
This summer, the photographer Irina Werning, who is from Argentina, wanted to spend a month focused on a very British story. “It had to be dogs,” she says. To her, dog-friendly cinema represents a level of canine indulgence you just don’t see in other countries. “There are 18 cinemas that offer this just in London,” she says, “and more across the UK. I think there is one in Paris.”
Some cinemas restrict dogs to the floor, but the Picturehouse chain allows them on the seats, as long as you use one of the fleece blankets provided. On dog days they restrict sales to half capacity to make sure there’s plenty of space. They also lower the volume of the film slightly and keep the house lights dimly lit, making this not unlike the baby-friendly or “relaxed” screenings cinemas often schedule for autistic people or those with dementia. It opens up film-going to people who might not otherwise have access to it, and is an opportunity to fill cinema seats on an early weekend morning.
Werning spent August photographing dog-friendly screenings, often shooting on her knees to capture the dogs’ perspective. To minimise disruption, she took pictures only in the 15 minutes before the film started and the 15 minutes after it finished. In between, she took a seat and waited. “I saw The Fantastic Four twice, Jurassic Park twice,” she says. “I saw Superman … ”
My dog and I, frazzled after our journey, arrive in good time for the 11am showing of The Fantastic Four: First Steps. There are dogs and owners outside, waiting to be let in. Because we are both still mildly hysterical, we keep a respectful distance until the doors open.
“It’s our first time,” I say to the woman on the refreshment stand.
“Exciting!” she says. I shrug.
“She knows nothing of the Marvel Cinematic Universe,” I say. I don’t say: neither do I.
Picturehouse launched dog-friendly screenings in 2017 and half their sites regularly hold them; here in Greenwich they do one or two a month.
“The next one is The Materialists,” says the man checking tickets.
“Oh, great,” I say.
We walk in as the adverts are beginning. There are about 15 dogs in the room, and I pick two seats as distant from anyone else as possible – fourth row, far right aisle. But the place is filling up; there will be about 30 dogs by the end – mostly poodle crosses and sleepy lurchers. As I predicted, my dog is beside herself: she can’t believe she’s in a room full of dogs, without a ball in sight. I pat the seat beside me and she climbs on to it. Leaning in close, I speak to her in the quiet but commanding tone I plan to adopt for the next two hours.
“I should warn you,” I say, “there might not be any dogs in this film.”
It’s a question I’ve been asking myself: is dog-friendly cinema just for the owners? Do the dogs get anything out of going, apart from not being left home alone?
“It’s for the humans, obviously,” Miles says. “If it’s got a dog in it, great, that’s cute. But you’re bringing your dog along more for the socialising aspect of being around other dogs and doing something new. It’s fun to put a dog-themed film on now and again, but we do find they sell the least tickets, because people are just like: why would I want to come and watch Beethoven?”
But according to Werning, a dog angle can make a real difference. “Superman has a lot of scenes with dogs and people were going wild,” she says. “The dogs were all barking and people were laughing like an orchestra together, looking at each other and enjoying it.”
Just before the lights go down in Greenwich, a couple with a tiny lapdog sit down behind us. Jean, a labrador cross, immediately tries to bound over the seats to introduce herself. The little dog growls. I grip the lead tightly. I want to explain to the couple that they have chosen their seats poorly; that my dog’s interactions with other dogs – especially tiny, hostile dogs – are characterised by a kind of doomed optimism. She will not give up trying to be friends just because the other dog hates her. Unless one of us moves, I want to say, we are in for a long afternoon.
But the film has started and, for the moment at least, it’s blowing my dog’s mind. The opening montage of the Fantastic Four’s past heroics is probably the biggest, strangest thing she has ever seen. She sits bolt upright, her eyes darting all over the screen: explosions, music, people shouting. We’re both gripped, and neither of us has the slightest idea what’s going on.
The dog remains rapt for almost a full minute before turning to look at me in perplexity, and whining softly.
“The woman and the stretchy one are married,” I say. “That’s all I know.”
Jean wheels round and sticks her snout between our seat backs. The little dog behind growls. I pull on the lead. Jean jumps off the seat and prowls around under my feet. The other dogs are silent and still. It’s actually one of the best behaved cinema audiences I have ever seen. There is an occasional yap from the back – perhaps three in all – but that’s it. It occurs to me that all these dogs have been to the cinema before. It feels as if Jean and I are the only ones not following the plot.
Half an hour in, I produce a dog treat, unintentionally letting the dog see that I’ve brought the whole packet with me. For 15 minutes Jean is entirely fixated on my rucksack, until the treats are gone. Then she curls up in her seat and falls asleep. A little later, so do I.
As I’m drifting off, I think: this must be what dog-friendly cinema is all about – a chance for you and your pet to sit in the dark together and sleep through loud noises. Then again, we could do this at home. We often do. Why pay to take your dog to the movies?
“Lots of people I asked why they brought their dogs said: because it’s cheaper than daycare,” Werning says. “And I’m like, what? You leave your dog in daycare every time you leave your house? And they said yes, because the dogs suffer. This, I think, is also something our generation is carrying, this overprotection of pets.”
I am woken by a sharp constriction in my left ankle – the lead is wrapped once round my leg and the dog is in the aisle, trying to get to a lurcher one row up and six seats over. The lurcher has some kind of soft toy, and Jean wants it. I try to calm her down, to coax her back to her seat, but she’s having none of it. After a blissful five-minute nap I’m suddenly back to wondering: what’s the worst thing that could happen, and is it about to?
“There are occasions where dogs don’t get on with each other, little tiffs, shall we say,” Miles tells me later. “But we’ve never had to break anything up, which is good. It’s enough dealing with humans.”
Jean will not retake her seat, or settle anywhere else. At about the hour and 10 minute mark, with my arms aching from holding the lead, I decide we both need a break from the film. I take the dog into the empty lobby, where we sit for a moment to collect ourselves.
“Did you notice that the big stone guy was cousin Richie from The Bear?” I say. The dog stares up at me with a look of boundless urgency, and I decide we are never going to find out how The Fantastic Four ends.
Marmaduke
One seasoned canine cinemagoer is Marmaduke, a 12-and-a-half-year-old pug. “He is very well behaved, sitting on our laps,” says Nick, watching with him at the Curzon in Canterbury, but he is choosy about his films: “If it’s bad, he’ll go to sleep; if it’s good, he’ll watch attentively.” His favourites? “Anything with fish, fruit or other dogs. He has good taste.”
Blue and Elias
For Lynne, a trip to the Hackney Picturehouse isn’t complete without her five-year-old shih-tzu Blue, a “very chill dog” who typically sleeps through films. Superman wouldn’t normally be their first choice, but the promise of Krypto the Superdog sealed the deal for them, as presumably it did for Elias, too. The two-year-old Italian greyhound never arrives at the cinema underdressed. His outfit here is just one of many his film buddy Nick has styled for their cinema trips: “When we went to see Wicked, he wore a little witch hat.”
Brugo
Brugo came to the Chiswick Cinema in London with Lino and his wife, Anika, who found out about dog-friendly screenings through a blogger in 2024. They are now a favourite outing for the laid-back 11-year-old Pomeranian Japanese spitz mix, who usually snoozes through the action or snacks on popcorn, stirring only when another dog barks: “He’s a very good boy.”
Additional reporting: Sundus Abdi
