EMPIRE 30 at FACT, Liverpool

Tom Grieve, Cinema Editor

Book now

EMPIRE 30

FACT, City Centre
11 August-1 September 2019

Always double check opening hours with the venue before making a special visit.

Book now

The Picturehouse Cinema chain and film magazine EMPIRE come together to mark their 30th birthdays this year. This joint celebration reaches across the country and the digital sphere, with screenings, podcasts and print features dedicated to thirty of the filmmakers they deem the most adventurous of the past three decades. We’re told to expect hat tips to Steven Spielberg, Kathryn Bigelow, James Cameron, Peter Jackson, Quentin Tarantino and Patty Jenkins, amongst others.

In Liverpool, at Picturehouse at FACT host a series of four films across August and into early September, starting with Martin Scorsese’s blistering mafia saga, Goodfellas. Excitement is high for the director’s reteaming with long-time muse Robert De Niro in Netflix-funded The Irishman later this year, but audiences can sate themselves with one of the pair’s most iconic collaborations on Sunday 11th August.

Scorsese’s film is followed by Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon on Sunday 18th. A surprise blockbusting phenomenon on release in 2000 that helped make stars of Michelle Yeoh and Chow Yun-fat, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon ranked at 497 in EMPIRE’s 2008 list of the 500 greatest films ever made. Lee’s adaptation of Wang Dulu’s novel also sparked international interest in wuxia films with its elegant use of wire-work and flying swordplay in service of an epic drama.

This joint celebration reaches across the country and the digital sphere, with screenings, podcasts and print features

Screening on 25th August, the next film in the series was actually released in 1982, but there is no doubt that its director has continued to make his presence felt over the last thirty years. Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark perhaps needs no introduction, but a big screen opportunity to catch Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones is a welcome one. Of course, Nazi’s remain stubbornly prominent in society and there is some catharsis to be found in watching them take a punch in the nose.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia rounds out the season on Sunday 1st September. The director of Boogie Nights, There Will be Blood and Phantom Thread, Anderson is one of the most recognisable new auteurs to have emerged in the lifetime of EMPIRE and Picturehouse. In weaving together multiple character threads – including a seldom-better Tom Cruise as a cultish, self-help guru, William H. Macy as a former child prodigy and Philip Seymour Hoffman as a nurse – towards grand, cosmic ends, Anderson may overreach, but Magnolia remains one of his most wildly ambitious works.

Where to go near EMPIRE 30 at FACT, Liverpool

City Centre
Café or Coffee Shop
Garden Cafe FACT

FACT Liverpool gets back to its coffee-with-creativity roots thanks to a foliage-full new café.

Liverpool
Restaurant
Next to Nowhere Café

Food From Nowhere is a weekly vegan cafe held in the basement space of much-loved radical bookshop News From Nowhere. It’s open every Saturday from midday to 5pm.

library
City Centre
Shop
News from Nowhere

News from Nowhere is a radical community bookshop selling texts on important current issues as well as leading social justice initiatives.

food and drink
City Centre
Restaurant
BAM BOO

BAM BOO delivers a slice of paradise right in Liverpool city centre, with indulgent meals and delicious cocktails.

City Centre
Café or Coffee Shop
Bold Street Coffee

A super cool cafe at the top of Bold Street, Bold Street Coffee in Liverpool serves a range of specialist coffee, cakes and sandwiches.

Liverpool
Restaurant
Maray

Much-loved Liverpool restaurant, specialising in forward-thinking small plate dishes.

City Centre
Café or Coffee Shop
LEAF on Bold Street

Keeping Bold Street a hub of creativity, LEAF is more than a tearoom, it’s also a bar and thriving event space with a packed schedule of upcoming happenings.

City Centre
Music venue
Arts Club Liverpool

Based in Liverpool’s old Royal Institute of Arts and Science building, Liverpool Arts Club is a great spot to catch small touring acts.

food and drink
City Centre
Bar or Pub
Cafe Tabac

Cafe Tabac is the longest running café bar in Liverpool, serving food and drinks to arty locals and curious newcomers.

What's on: Cinema

Two young women dance in a nightclub, smiling next to each other.
CinemaManchester
The Last Days of Disco + Q&A at HOME

Director Whit Stillman presents a 35mm screenings of one of the best films of the nineties, as a group of twenty-somethings navigate The Last Days of Disco.

From £7.95
CinemaManchester
YANK at Cultplex

Thirteen movies to get to know the United States of America. Cultplex presents a season of film exploring America through its own lens.

From £7.50
Grease outdoor cinema
Cinema
Outdoor Cinema at Tatton Park

There’s movies under the stars again at Tatton Park this summer as the open air cinema returns for the August Bank Holiday Weekend.

From £14.99

Culture Guides

Theatre in Manchester
Theatre in the North

Summer signals theatre festivals, world premieres and open-air spectacle - from MIF25 to comedy, outdoor circus and beyond, here’s what we’re looking forward to.

Harry Baker
Literature Events in the North

From environmental to experimental, our poetry and prose picks from around the North are focused on the unusual and the fun.

Exhibitions in the North

Captivating, urgent and intimate - we bring you our top exhibition picks, with even more art festivals, artist-led shows and new venues.

Helena Hauff
Music in the North

Shape-shifting bands, scorched-earth techno, and off-grid festivals. Our latest music picks catch the live scene at its most urgent, inventive and alive.

Cloudwater Production One
Tours and Activities in the North

Go forth with wild abandon to dance the pavements, dabble with the paint and down the pints in this month's tours and activities guide.

Classical Music in the North

Read our latest highlights from the live classical music offer in Manchester and the North, taking in a number of the region's most cherished orchestral forces and venues.

A young boy with a white sash around his left arm cries.
Cinema in the North

Outdoor cinema announcements, a major retrospective at HOME, and the best of indie cinema.