It is the kind of announcement that stops a certain type of film fan mid-scroll: a genuine, newly struck 35mm print of Akira, heading to a screen near them for the first time in living memory. According to Variety, the print — pulled from the film's 4K master and the first of its kind in decades — will make its debut at BFI Southbank in August before beginning a wider tour of UK and Ireland cinemas.
Ôtomo Katsuhiro's 1988 adaptation of his own manga has spent nearly forty years accumulating the kind of cultural weight that gets stencilled onto bedroom walls and sampled into music videos. Neo-Tokyo's neon sprawl, Kaneda's red motorcycle, the film's influence on everything from The Matrix to contemporary anime — the reference points are so embedded they barely need listing. What audiences have rarely had, at least in recent decades, is the chance to see it projected the way it was originally intended.
The 35mm format is the hook here. Digital restorations have made Akira readily available, including in 4K at home, but a theatrical print carries a different weight — grain, light, the particular flatness of a projected frame that streaming cannot replicate. The BFI is trading squarely on that distinction, and cinephile audiences have shown repeatedly in recent years — through sell-out runs of restored prints from Alien to Amadeus — that they will turn up for it.
Specific venue dates beyond BFI Southbank had not been announced at time of filing. The August London opening is confirmed.