'Moviedrome' ran, intermittently, on BBC2 from May 1988 to June 2000. The format was simple, hosts Alex Cox (series 1-7) and Mark Cousins (series 8-12) introduced a 'cult movie', or two, of the sort that were almost never shown on British TV and, in those halcyon years, long before the arrival of the internet, were often unheard of by those of us growing up in more remote parts of the country, with little or no access to any sort of 'arts' cinema, and it quickly became a Sunday night staple for my circle of friends, with each film taped and dissected over the following week.
The film below is an affectionate celebration of the series made in 2025 by the BFI and featuring contributions from Cox, series creator Nick Freand Jones and fans Samira Ahmed and Stewart Lee.
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One Sunday night in 1988 I sat myself in front of the TV to watch myself a film. In those pre-internet days and with the mass reissuing of old horror movies on video still a while off and so, especially in the type of backwater I grew up in, getting to watch an interesting film was pot luck and deciding if a film was worth watching in the first place called for careful disecting of the newspaper listings and maybe a cross reference or two with a handy copy of Denis Gifford's 'Pictorial History of Horror Movies'. The newspaper listing for this particular movie would have said something along the lines of - Horror starring Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee, and Britt Ekland. A policeman investigates a missing child on a remote and sinister Scottish Island. It was a film I'd seen some years before that myself and a friend had become obsessed with watching again and it was every bit as fantastic as I'd remembered.
The film marked the beginning of a new 'series' on BBC2 called 'Moviedrome' whereby filmmaker Alex Cox would introduce a different cult movie every week starting with 'The Wicker Man'.
Moviedrome soon became my absolute favourite thing.
For 11 series Cox and then Mark Cousins introduced amazing movie after amazing movie peppered with chances to rewatch ones I already loved and more than a few stinkers but mostly amazing movie after amazing movie.
A full list of the films shown as part of Moviedrome can be found here.
It's a real shame that a series like this is no longer showing. When I talk to my students it depresses me that they have no idea about most of the wonderfulness that has gone before them which is unfortunate as there's much they'd love and taking folks out of their comfort zones and showing them something mad, fun, dangerous and inspirational has to be a good thing. And Moviedrome for doing exactly that was a very good thing indeed.
Finally, here's an interesting little retrospectives from The Quietus.
If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain
Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.
