Dendy Portside

As far as cinemas go, I have always been a fan of Dendy.
You get your arthouse you won’t find elsewhere, and still all the blockbusters. You can have a wine, and the popcorn and drinks are reasonable for a cinema.
It’s not budget priced tickets, but certainly no worse than Event cinemas. And if you hate the allocated seating… they don’t do that.
We went as a bit of an impromptu Sunday afternoon movie session, and were pleasantly surprised to find 2 for 20 tickets after 4pm. Bargain!
The cinema itself was clean and comfortable, the sound was good, the picture was good, although my popcorn was possibly a little stale and not quite buttery enough.
If you’re a big cinema goer it’s worth joining their club and getting cheap tickets. Me? I don’t go to the cinema enough for that.
Also, if you park in the underground carpark, make sure you get your ticket validated when you buy your tickets.

Dendy Portside — how do I love thee? Let me count the ways…
1. Very small queues. Never have to wait more than a few minutes to get your tickets and most of this waiting time is due to oldies who aren’t quite sure how to work their paypass
2. Comfy seats, plush furnishings, great sound — I love Balmoral, I really do but it’s pretty shabby these day and my 40+year old bum needs a comfy, non sagging seat to sit in and enjoy the movie
3. Licenced — say no more
4. Cinema Club — if you join the cinema club for 2 years for a very modest $ 20, you get tickets for $ 11.50 each. That’s a small price to pay to enjoy 1,2,3

What a cute little cinema! Oh and they serve alcohol, even better! Not just drinks and popcorn.
I went with a friend to see Divergent, it was a great movie. If you haven’t seen it, well you have to see it. I didn’t pay for the ticket, it was my friend’s treat.
It’s a medium size cinema and screen. The chair was comfortable, big space for my legs. Some of the chairs don’t have arms, so if you want to cuddle? You can. I think it’s designed to make it feel like home.
The area is nice with the view of the water and many little cafés, shops, and restaurant. This place is great to hang out and don’t forget to go for a movie after ward.

Portside Restaurants and shops is just a great place to take a stroll, shop, eat, or head to the cinemas. This movie theatre is a cute and quaint one with only five screens. The chairs are very comfy as everyone has mentioned. Even though the theatre size is much smaller than your typical ones like in South Bank, I really liked it.
If you live in the area, purchasing a membership would be worth it. The movies being shown were a mix of unique and blockbuster.
I liked the waiting area where I could pick up several brochures or magazines while I wait on my friend to arrive. They were kind when I went to pick up my tickets and had no problems there.
They had plenty of candy, popcorn, and ice cream behind the counter. You can also purchase adult beverages as well!
I had a great experience and think this would be a great place to take a date! If your date isn’t too familiar with Brisbane, showing off this part of town and taking a walk along the river before the film would be so sweet.

What’s not good about Dendy??? I can’t think of a complaint at all. All your big-​hitting movies are here, you get the added choice of art-​house films and exclusive screenings of ballet, opera and cult films, free accessible parking and very rarely are the theaters crowded and they are always tidy. The cinemas are licensed, and they sell a decent selection of wines, beer, & ciders that you can take into the theater with you. YAY! Plus, you’ve got all that the Portside precinct offers before or after your film if you want to linger longer. Additionally, you don’t have that silly nonsense of having to pick /​book into a particular seat upon purchasing a ticket.
They have here a very small, intimate, purely digital theater onsite, too. If you get a chance to catch a show on that screen, do. It’s like being invited to your rich uncle’s house for movie night… IF you have a rich uncle with a private movie theater in his house. Or if your rich uncle decided to rent out a theater for a private screening. (Dendy Portside does this as well. I had the distinct pleasure to catch a certain Channing Tatum flick here in this small theatre when a girlfriend hired it out. Delightful!)
We recently became Dendy members (for free!!) and now have access to Adult tickets for $ 11ish dollars. We prefer Dendy as it is and now we are incentivised economically to prefer Dendy. Win for us!

Great cinemas! Expensive ($ 17.50 for adult! Whoa!) but that’s what the movies cost nowadays. The cinema was super nice: plush seats that were also large and not a large cinema so kinda unique. I will definitely be back.

Smallish cinemas but still a good size. Great idea to actually be able to have alcohol and tea and coffee with you in the movie too. They have a great selection of movies.
The only reason I am not giving this 5 stars is for two things (1) the foyer and stairs were absolutely filthy and needed a really good clean and (2) I think the sound was a bit too loud for such a small size cinema. We could not hear ourselves properly for about 2 hours after the movie.
One more thing — and this is just a pet hate of mine — I hate that cinemas call the snack bar the «candy bar». If we were in the USA, that would be absolutely fine.

Dendy Portside is a great cinema to swing by if you’re on a date. You can dine at one of the restaurants either before or after your movie, and the atmosphere at Portside is conducive to a kind of upper-​market romance.
As the only remaining Dendy in Brisbane now (vale, filthy city Dendy now turned Tribal theatre), Dendy Portside offers a great range of cult, art house, and foreign films. It has one up on the Palace cinemas because the Portside cinema experience is a much more intimate one.
If you’re travelling via CityCat, Portside is a fair way out in Hamilton, so less people are inclined to make the trip. But it’s well worth it if you’re after a more obscure film. When Miyazaki’s ‘Ponyo’ was released in Australia, Dendy Portside was the only cinema in Brisbane that screened it.
The cinema itself is very classy and popular among more mature viewers. They have olive oil popped popcorn here, as well as delicious home made ice cream flavours, like rose water. The cinemas themselves are very clean and spacious.
Drop by here if you’re after a special cinema experience; it’s pretty much guaranteed you won’t have your seat kicked or popcorn thrown at the back of your head.

Combining reasonable prices with free parking, excellent location and an innovative programme of blockbusters, festival films and live opera, it’s no surprise that Dendy Portside is a popular cinema destination.
I’m not a Dendy club member but as a Queensland Writer’s Centre member, I receive discounted prices for tickets. Once my QWC membership expires, I’ll most likely join the Dendy club to receive $ 10 tickets. Annual membership is only $ 11 and if you join online, you get a free movie ticket anyway so it costs nothing but a little effort.
Asides from broadcasting the Met Opera and the Russian Ballet, a new season of NT Live performances will start in January 2012. These are live broadcasts of the best British theatre including Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors and John Hodge’s Collaborators.
If ballet, opera and theatre is not your cup of tea, the Dendy kicks off the season for European films starting with the Windows on Europe Film Festival in February. Ralph Fiennes makes his directorial debut in Coriolanus and those who like period dramas will love ‘Bathory’, the story of the legendary Countess Elizabeth Bathory, known as the greatest murderess of all time.
So for all your cultural and entertainment needs in 2012, look no further than Dendy Portside.

I saw a movie here when it first opened and it was very nice. Very decent. Very proper as my friends’ mother would say.
The cinemas aren’t huge and commercial like the Event Cinemas and the seats didn’t smell (well they were new after all) and the seats were comfortable as any couch seat would have been and they were big. In fact I may have made the comment to my husband that ‘this was better than Gold Class’ (shock horror) and for only $ 10! Oh my goody goody goodness. How cheap is that for the quality of show you receive.
We have since been back a whole bunch of times, sure it’s further to drive to, but it’s $ 40+ cheaper than Gold Class where the seats smell and look old.
What I love about this cinema is that it doesn’t just show art house movies, it has commercial movies here too. They don’t screen the whole range, but it’s worth a visit for a movie if you want to treat yourself without spending too much money.