Cineville (subscription service)

Cineville is a Dutch subscription-based movie ticketing service. Users pay a monthly fee which allows them an unlimited amount of visits to select movie theaters using their "Cineville pass." Originally founded in Amsterdam, the service expanded into the rest of the Netherlands by 2011. The service expanded into Belgium by 2022 as a separate entity: Dutch users cannot utilize their pass in Belgium and vice versa. As of June 2024, Cineville was valid in 69 cinemas across 40 Dutch cities, while Cineville Belgium was valid in 15 theaters across six cities.

History
Cineville was founded by a group of four students working at Kriterion cinema; they were motivated by a desire to change the "old-fashioned" image of arthouse movie theaters in The Netherlands. The company was originally a "collective" of 13 arthouse cinemas in Amsterdam, uniting in part due to the perceived hegemony of commercial multiplex film theaters.

By 2019, the service launched an app. During the COVID-19 lockdowns in The Netherlands, Cineville founded a temporary platform for streaming arthouse film called "Vitamine Cineville." They credit this platform with retaining over 75% of their membership during the lockdowns.

Cineville Belgium was started in 2022 as a subsidiary. It was an iniative of five Brussels arthouse movie theaters that had suffered significant losses of income during the COVID-19 pandemic in Belgium. The Belgian Cineville pass expanded into Wallonia in May 2023, though it has yet to find partners in Flanders.

Membership
By 2019, over half of Dutch Cineville users were between the ages of 20 and 39. On average, they visited the cinema 30 times per year. In Belgium, the average age of visitors is also between 20 and 30.