I saw a number of films at two theaters in Calcutta, which I'll write about first, and I also visited many historic single screens which I'll write about further down.
If you’re in Calcutta, I would recommend at least considering going to the theater to see a Bengali movie. I wish I could say this was a highly recommended activity, but unfortunately the chances of seeing something really good aren't especially high. Check out some trailers and see if anything looks decent. I believe the films mostly have subtitles. The guy at Nandan cinema told me that everything they show has subtitles. The people at INOX South City Mall told me that nothing has subtitles, but everything had subtitles. I've seen some people say that Bengali movies usually have subtitles all over India, but I don't know if it's true. I didn't have any issues with a bad audience in Kolkata, which is really unusual in India. Maybe I just got lucky. What also stood out was how, at the multiplex I visited, the staff ran in as soon as the lights came on for the interval and went through the aisles shouting "pani puri, sev puri...", but only for the Bengali movies I saw, which always had a mix of young and old audience members. This didn't happen for the one Hindi movie I saw which was a mostly young to middle aged audience.
Nandan is the state run film center in the same complex as some other cultural spaces for art, music, and theatre. It’s fun and worth checking out even if you aren't going to see a movie, and it's well located for visiting, centrally located and right by a metro stop. They exclusively screen Bengali movies and the tickets are super cheap. I went on a weekday afternoon and it was packed! I don't know if that's typical or not. You can buy tickets in person or on bookmyshow. The projection was alright, not great but better than most single screens I’ve been to and decently watchable for most contemporary Bengali movies. The seating arrangement was odd, the lower section is too far below the screen, and I usually don't like being in the balcony section which I find to be too far away (this was their main screen, they also have a smaller screen). Also, when I went they didn’t give an interval even though the movie had an interval. This was upsetting. I had to pee. This was for a relatively short movie, around two hours, so maybe for longer movies they give them. Overall I'd recommend going here, it was a fun experience despite my quibbles. I mean, if you're reading this you're probably the kind of person excited by the idea of visiting West Bengal's government run film center, so you should go. It's nice that they are dedicated to showing contemporary Bengali films, but I really wish they'd show some classics.
The only other place I saw a movie was at INOX South City Mall, a typical upscale multiplex at the city's nicest mall. The laser screen was excellent, one of the best I’ve been to in India, better than Inox’s laser screens in Mumbai for some reason. The other auditorium I saw (screen 2) was decent, not great but above average. Acceptable for most Bengali movies, at least. My biggest issue was that the light from the exit sign hit the screen.
Another theater I wanted to go to is Nazrul Tirtha, another cultural center with a cinema. It's in the newer eastern part of the city which didn't seem that interesting from what I saw.
As for historic single screen cinemas, I didn’t see a movie at any but I visited at least a dozen and they were great to see.
The best cluster of them is around Esplanade, though many are gone. Two highlights are the Elite (sadly also now gone) and the Metro (designed by Thomas Lamb, now a modern Inox, too new looking now but I appreciate the restoration work, once run by MGM just like the Metro cinema in Mumbai). I believe the facades are still there on the Globe (once the opera house), New Empire, and Lighthouse cinemas. There’s another cluster up north with the Star, the Minar, and a few others on that road that have shut but were still standing. The Minerva not far from there is now a respectable theatre establishment. Down south the standouts are the Menoka, the Priya, the Indira, and the Bijoli, which all seemed like nice establishments where respectable family audiences see movies, unlike some of the ones I checked out up north and most of the ones I've seen in Mumbai. I would like to see a movie at these next time, if there's subtitles.
Nandan also holds a film festival in the winter which has great programming. I thought I'd rather spend my time exploring the city than attending a film fest, but I decided to sign up for the hell of it since it might be a good experience to check out the fest. It was, kind of. The festival is free, but to sign up I had to fill out paperwork and stand in line to submit it in person. When I got to the front of the line they asked if I had my form from the previous year. I told them I haven't attended before, and they said they are mostly only accepting applications from people who have previously attended, but I can hand-write a letter to the festival president requesting them to accept my application. I didn't think this would work, and I didn't care that much about attending the fest to bother, but I thought I might as well finish the application to give my story some conclusion. Later in the week I wrote the letter and came back to submit it. I never heard back, nor did my wife who also submitted. We told this story to some friends who live in in the city and they offered to make some phone calls to get us into the festival. We said we didn't care that much, it's just a funny story. They told us that this is very typical of Calcutta. Anyway it was, in fact, a good experience. Communism may have fallen in Bengal in 2011, but its legacy lives on!
Speaking of film festivals, I saw lots of posters around town for an anti-fascist film festival. That felt very Calcutta.
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