BFI Southbank

Even for non-cinephiles the BFI South Bank is fabulous, with its brutalist architecture and 3 bars, including one on the balcony with one of the best views in London. For cinephiles? Forget about it. Featuring a library with every book one can imagine on film and television (including many, many out of print), where they will let you sit and read to your hearts content and where the librarians answer your questions with delight (I was reminded of my youth when I would sift through the film section of my local library and spend all day there, only times a thousand). There is a mediatheque, with booths with wired headphones and a selection of thousands of artifacts of British film and television. While there, waiting for my film to start, I watched the first ten minutes of Powell and Pressburger's Black Narcissus, the first ten minutes of the hard-to-find documentary on early 70's David Bowie, Cracked Actor, some snippets of the television work of the great Allen Clarke, and a rare interview with Alfred Hitchcock (pictured, above) reminiscing about growing up in London.

And there are four huge, state of the art cinemas, capable of projecting in all formats, including 70mm. I was there to see a 35mm print of Antonioni's La Notte, and, on a Wednesday night, every one of its hundreds of seats were filled with butts. For an early 60's black and white Antonioni film with a watching-paint-dry pace. London is just different when it comes to movies.

The BFI South Bank is 4th on this list.