It's official: Summer of British film is most popular since 1967

The wettest British summer since records began in 1914 appears to have helped British cinema going reach it's highest admissions in 40 years, up some 25% over an average year, and up 44% on 2000.

50.8m visits were made in June to August, according to the Film Distributors Association, with the 5.5m admissions recorded during The Simpsons' opening weekend being possibly the busiest in history. The Summer of British Film was a promotion by BBC2 and UK Film Council to encourage people to watch British films at the cinema, with digital prints of seven classics accompanied with BBC2 documentaries.