‘I barely breathed’: Tilda Swinton, Emma Thompson, Steve McQueen and more on their most memorable moments at the movies

From transformative nights in the grubbiest of fleapits to spellbinding screenings under the stars, film-makers and critics recall the communal thrill of going to the cinema• Walter Murch: why movies need cinemasIn my days as an impecunious young cineaste, there was the Tolmer cinema in Euston, the cheapest picturehouse in London, or anywhere – two shillings a time.

A converted church, it was filthy, decrepit and gloriously eclectic.

It showed whatever they could find, new prints and old.

The Leopard – the original version, no subtitles; Hellzapoppin’; Rashomon; Svenska Flickor I Franska Sexorgier.

Incomplete prints, sudden random reels from other films, frames catching fire in the projector.

Wonderful.

An education in cinema.

But you didn’t sit where the tramps peed themselves.

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