Love the cinemas, hate the multiplexes (although even some of those can be OK at a push).
My first favourite cinema was The Focus in Hereford, a lovely old Art Deco cinema bulldozed in the 80s to make way for a shitty retail development called Maylord Orchards. I saw all three Star Wars films there as well as many others.
Coming to London, I fell in love with the club and rep cinemas. There was a time in the late 80s/early 90s when it felt like whatever film you wanted to see could be seen at some point over the month. There are a lot fewer cinemas now and that isn't true anymore.
I loved The Scala, especially for the all-nighters of themed films. I loved the fact that you could both buy and drink beer in there and also watch several cinema cats (I think there were at least two) jump from seat to seat in search of food or curl up and fall asleep in front of the screen. It also showed some stuff I don't think I have ever seen anywhere else (Cafe Flesh, Thundercrack etc, etc).
The Everyman in Hampstead was fantastic, used to show brilliant themed double and triple bills at an incredibly low price. It's because of the Everyman that I have seen Bladerunner in the cinema at least ten times, as it was often in a bill with something else good (and always worth seeing again anyway). Sadly it got renovated and stopped showing the great themed double/triple bills and just became a bit crap.
Loved the Renoir and the Lumiere for the art house fare. The two Plaza cinemas were great for first run films, both having a decent sized main screen, both now gone I think.
The Phoenix in north London isn't bad but I think the last of the fun cinemas has to be the Prince Charles.
If I won £Squillion on the lottery I would buy, renovate and run an old Art Deco cinema, showing a mixture of great old films and new releases. I would keep doing that at a loss until the money ran out.
Half of the fun would be working out the double bills - I used to run the film society at uni and I used to love the double bills and the all nighters. There's an art to putting together a great selection of films that complement each other. Could very happily spend the rest of my life doing that were it not for the lack of £Squillion (true for everyone's dreams I'm sure).
