Cinema Nova is the long-standing art-house cinema of Lygon Street, a fifteen-screen independent multiplex tucked into the Lygon Court arcade. It runs a programme of new releases, festival films, foreign-language work and second-run revivals, and the famous Monday-morning cheap tickets — under ten dollars before 4 pm — have been a Melbourne institution for decades.
For the older Carlton Moviehouse single-screen tradition, the building still standing further north on Faraday Street is worth a look from the outside; it operated as a repertory cinema from the 1960s into the 2000s and has had several lives since. Combine an evening film at Nova with dinner on Lygon Street for the classic Carlton night out.