The cinema with no blockbusters
The IFI is where you go in Dublin to see the films nowhere else will show – independent, Irish and foreign-language cinema, restored classics and curated seasons, and not a single superhero franchise on the bill. It’s Ireland’s national film institution, and home to the only 70mm projector in the country, which is the one practical tip worth acting on: 70mm screenings in the main screen sell out, so book them early.
It isn’t a tour attraction in the usual sense. You experience the IFI by watching something, or by sitting in its café and courtyard – there’s no ticketed exhibit beyond the films and the free archive screenings. If you’re after a museum, this isn’t it; if you want a couple of hours of good cinema and a coffee in one of Temple Bar’s calmer corners, it’s hard to beat.
A Quaker meeting house full of film
The building started as an 18th-century Quaker Friends’ Meeting House on Eustace Street. The institute itself goes back further: the National Film Institute was founded in 1943 under the patronage of the Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid, and after years in other premises it moved into this renovated Temple Bar home in 1992.
Upstairs is the IFI Irish Film Archive, the reason the place matters beyond its screens. It holds over 30,000 cans of film, along with tens of thousands of posters, stills and documents and the Tiernan MacBride reference library, with material reaching back to 1897. The collection isn’t sealed off: free Archive at Lunchtime screenings run on the first Tuesday of each month, putting digitised newsreels and early Irish films in front of anyone who turns up. If you can’t get in, the archive’s Gael Linn newsreels from the 1950s and 60s are free to watch online through the IFI Archive Player.
The screens and the programme
There are three screens – two of 106 seats and a smaller 58-seat room – and between them they handle everything from 8mm and 16mm celluloid to digital and 3D. Screen 1 carries the 70mm projector and takes the premieres and big restorations; the smaller rooms suit subtitled foreign films, documentaries and the long-running Mystery Matinee, where you don’t know what you’re seeing until it starts.
The calendar is built around seasons and festivals rather than a fixed weekly grind. The IFI French Film Festival has run for over a quarter-century; the East Asia Film Festival Ireland and a steady run of curated ‘Odysseys’ and Irish-focus seasons fill out the year. IFI Family puts on weekend screenings and workshops for children, and Wild Strawberries is a club for the over-55s, with a classic film and a free tea or coffee.
The café bar
The café bar and its glass-roofed courtyard are a genuine draw in their own right – an indoor space that ‘pretends to be outdoors’, plus a quiet beer garden at the back on the way to the archive. It’s open daily, the food is decent and well-priced, and you can take a drink in with you to your seat. One honest note from regulars: the toilets are tired and not quite up to the standard of the rest of the place.
Visiting
- Tickets: general admission is around €10.50, with concessions about €8.50 and lower rates for students and members; special screenings, festivals and 70mm shows can cost more. Book online, on the IFI app, or at the box office, which opens about 30 minutes before the first film.
- Membership: discounted tickets, priority festival booking and members-only screenings; worth it if you go more than a handful of times a year.
- Accessibility: step-free throughout, with a lift to all floors and hearing loops in the screens; guide dogs welcome.
- Getting there: it’s in the heart of Temple Bar, a short walk from Dame Street and the quays. Tara Street is the nearest DART station (about ten minutes on foot), and both Luas lines stop within walking distance. Driving in is awkward; Park Rite offer a discounted rate at the nearby Fleet Street Car Park for IFI customers.
- Nearby: Dublin Castle and Christ Church Cathedral are both within ten minutes’ walk, and the IFI backs onto Meeting House Square in the middle of Temple Bar.