The same BFI membership costs £44 or £60. The £16 difference buys you a booklet in the post.
Pay by card: £60 for a year, which does not renew.
Direct Debit with printed programmes sent to your address: £54.
Direct Debit, paper-free: £44.
The BFI’s own wording on the cheapest tier is unambiguous: “the only difference is you won’t get printed programmes sent to you.” Every other benefit is identical. You can still pick the programmes up at the venues or read them online.
So the choice is £44 and fetching a guide from the foyer, or £60 and not setting up a Direct Debit. That is £16 a year, which is six IMAX tickets’ worth of discount, for the convenience of paying by card.
Member Row is the only priority you get at the IMAX
Worth understanding properly, because the membership page gives with one hand and takes with the other.
“We’re not currently able to offer Members’ priority booking on new first-run releases.”
That is the big one. If a new blockbuster goes on sale at the BFI IMAX, your membership does not get you in first. You queue with everyone else.
What you do get is Member Row: an exclusive area of seats at BFI IMAX reserved for members for the first 24 hours of general sale.
Read those together and the shape is clear. Members cannot book early, but for the first day a specific block of seats is theirs alone. So the membership does not help you get a ticket at all; it helps you get a particular seat, on day one, if you are quick.
Priority booking does apply to BFI festivals, BFI Southbank and special events, and to standard BFI programming at the IMAX. It is first-run releases that are carved out.
The discount covers four people, not one
The detail that changes whether the membership is worth it.
“Up to £2.50 off BFI Southbank and BFI IMAX tickets for you and up to three guests (four tickets total).”
That is £10 off a booking of four, from one membership. At £44 a year, the paper-free membership pays for itself in five group visits, or considerably fewer once you add the other savings.
No booking fees, which on a four-ticket IMAX booking is not nothing.
Two free tickets for standard BFI Southbank screenings, included in the year. Note the venue: Southbank, not IMAX.
10 per cent off food and drink. 15 per cent off the BFI shop, BFI Player rentals and Sight and Sound annual subscriptions. Plus a discounted annual BFI Player subscription offer.
The UK’s biggest screen, and it opens half an hour before the film
BFI IMAX is the UK’s biggest cinema screen, in the roundabout outside Waterloo.
It opens 30 minutes before the first screening of the day.
That is a shorter window than most cinemas and worth knowing if you were planning to arrive early and sit somewhere. There is no all-day foyer here in the way there is at the Prince Charles, whose box office runs 2pm to 8.30pm, or at BFI Southbank, whose box office runs 11am to 8.45pm.
The programme runs from IMAX blockbusters to what the BFI calls world-class alternative content and educational presentations. The entire auditorium can be hired.
The two BFI venues are not the same place
A regular confusion, because both are on the South Bank and both are the BFI.
BFI IMAX: London SE1 8XR. The drum-shaped building in the middle of the roundabout at Waterloo.
BFI Southbank: London SE1 8XT. Under Waterloo Bridge, five minutes away.
Your membership works at both, but the benefits split between them. The two free tickets are Southbank only. Member Row is IMAX only. The £2.50 off and the four-ticket rule apply at both.
Box office for both: 020 7928 3232.
Getting hold of the membership team
More specific than most venues publish, and useful if something goes wrong with a booking.
The membership team are at BFI Southbank in person, Monday to Thursday, 11am to 5pm. You ask a box office member of staff for help.
You can also call the box office and request a call-back from the team during those hours, which is a better route than email if you need an answer the same day. Email replies are quoted at around two working days.
Note the window: four days a week, six hours a day. Nothing on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday.
Membership renews itself, unless you paid by card
An inversion of the usual trap, and in the customer’s favour.
Direct Debit memberships renew automatically every year.
The £60 card payment does not renew, so it lapses silently after 12 months and you have to buy it again.
So the expensive option is also the one that will quietly stop working. If you buy by card, put a note in the calendar.
Gift memberships are available and include all member benefits.
The Odyssey is still playing in 70mm
A lot of coverage reported the run as sold out, or as having finished in September. The BFI’s own booking site lists IMAX 70mm screenings of The Odyssey as now playing across October 2026, with no published end date, so check the calendar rather than the write-ups.
Reported figures put the opening 24 hours at 28,000 tickets and about £750,000, and the run beyond 101,000 tickets and £2.63 million, which makes it the venue’s biggest film ever, ahead of Avatar. Those numbers are from press coverage rather than the BFI, but they explain why availability is thin and why the half hour before doors matters more than usual.
The rest of the October programme included Digger, the Alejandro G. Inárritu film with Tom Cruise in the title role; Queen Budapest, the Népstadion concert remastered in 4K IMAX with Laser and a new 12 channel audio mix; a Moonlight tenth anniversary screening with a recorded introduction and an in-person panel; and an IMAX exclusive preview of Studio Ghibli’s Arrietty. London Film Festival screenings are listed on the festival calendar instead of this one.
How to plan it
Joining: £44 paper-free by Direct Debit. Identical benefits to the £60, and you pick the programme up in the foyer.
Booking a new blockbuster: membership will not get you in early. First-run releases have no members’ priority booking.
Wanting the best seats on day one: that is Member Row, reserved for members for the first 24 hours of general sale.
Going as a four: one membership covers all of you, up to £2.50 off each, which is £10 a visit.
The two free tickets are for Southbank, not the IMAX.
Arriving early: the IMAX opens 30 minutes before the first film, so there is nowhere to wait before that.
Paid by card: diarise the renewal, because it will not take itself.
BFI IMAX
- Address
- London SE1 8XR, in the roundabout outside Waterloo station
- Nearest
- Waterloo
- Hours
- Opens 30 minutes before the first screening of the day. Box office 020 7928 3232
- Booking
- Online. Members have priority booking on BFI festivals, BFI Southbank, special events and standard BFI programming, but not on new first-run releases here
- Price
- Tickets by screening. BFI membership 44 pounds a year paper-free by Direct Debit, 54 with printed programmes, or 60 by card. Members get up to 2.50 off for themselves and up to three guests, four tickets in total, and no booking fees
- Standing
- The UK’s biggest cinema screen, programming IMAX blockbusters alongside alternative and educational content. The whole auditorium can be hired
How to get in
The same membership costs 44, 54 or 60 pounds depending on how you pay, and the only difference between the cheapest and the dearest is whether printed programmes are posted to you. There is no members’ priority booking on new first-run releases, only Member Row, a block of seats held for members for the first 24 hours of general sale. The two free tickets included with membership are for BFI Southbank, not here. A card membership does not auto-renew while a Direct Debit one does.
Where to go next
The Prince Charles Cinema is the other great London cinema membership, at £15 a year with a different set of trade-offs.
The Southbank Centre covers the rest of the river walk, and London at night covers getting home from Waterloo.
Questions we get asked
How much is BFI membership?
It depends how you pay. A card payment is £60 for the year and does not renew. A Direct Debit with printed programmes posted to you is £54. A paper-free Direct Debit is £44. The BFI states that the only difference with paper-free is that programmes are not posted, so the cheapest tier carries identical benefits.
Do BFI members get priority booking at the IMAX?
Not for new releases. The BFI states it is not currently able to offer members' priority booking on new first-run releases at BFI IMAX. Members do get priority booking on BFI festivals, BFI Southbank, special events and standard BFI programming, and they get Member Row on first-run releases.
What is Member Row at BFI IMAX?
An exclusive area of seats at BFI IMAX held back for BFI members for the first 24 hours of general sale. It does not let members book before anyone else, but for the first day those particular seats can only be bought by members.
How much do BFI members save on tickets?
Up to £2.50 off BFI Southbank and BFI IMAX tickets, and crucially that applies to the member and up to three guests, four tickets in total. That is up to £10 off a booking of four from a single membership, plus no booking fees, 10% off food and drink and 15% off the BFI shop, BFI Player rentals and Sight and Sound.
What time does BFI IMAX open?
30 minutes before the first screening of the day. That is a shorter window than most London cinemas, so there is nowhere to wait inside before then. BFI Southbank, the separate venue five minutes away, runs its box office from 11am to 8.45pm.
Is BFI IMAX the same as BFI Southbank?
No, they are two venues about five minutes apart. BFI IMAX is SE1 8XR, the round building in the roundabout outside Waterloo station, and holds the UK's biggest screen. BFI Southbank is SE1 8XT, under Waterloo Bridge. Membership works at both, but the two free tickets are Southbank only and Member Row is IMAX only.
Does BFI membership renew automatically?
Only if you pay by Direct Debit, in which case it renews every 12 months. The £60 card payment does not renew, so it lapses after a year and has to be bought again, which makes the more expensive option the one most likely to run out without warning.
Is The Odyssey still showing at the BFI IMAX?
Yes. The BFI's own booking site listed IMAX 70mm screenings as now playing across October 2026, with no published end date, despite coverage reporting the run as sold out or finished.
Written by Robert J Wills, no. 327 in the guide.
Last checked 6 October 2026 against the venues' own published information. Nobody pays to appear here and we take no bookings.
