The So Long, Thanks For Everything Award goes to The Projector, Cathay and more

SINGAPORE – 2025 was the year of the cinema-pocalypse. Three institutions imploded, brought down by changing consumer habits, Hollywood labour action and a host of other woes.

Indie cinema The Projector at Golden Mile Tower and Cineleisure entered into voluntary liquidation in August. Less than two weeks later, in September, storied cinema chain Cathay Cineplexes also closed its doors for good.

Earlier in 2025, Filmgarde closed its last cinema at Leisure Park Kallang.

What makes these endings award-worthy is how they started with a compelling backstory.

The Projector was a labour of love, launched in 2014 by founders pouring affection and money into a forgotten set of halls at Golden Mile Tower. It used to be part of Golden Theatre, a 1,500-seat palace opened in 1973 as one of the island’s largest cinemas.

For a decade, The Projector flourished. It was an oasis not just for cinephiles, but also music and comedy fans. It thrived on its sales revenue and donations. While it existed, Singaporeans could point to it and say with pride: “See that? It survives without government funding. Who says Singaporeans have no soul?”

Cathay’s fall was no less dramatic – like The Projector, it was gut-wrenching. In its various incarnations – first as a standalone icon in Handy Road and at its peak in the 2010s, operating as many as eight locations around the island – it has been a part of everyone’s memories since 1939.

It survived World War II, the advent of television and home video, but was brought down by streaming, rent, and the lingering social and financial effects of the Covid-19 pandemic – the same reasons that took down Filmgarde’s last outlet.

The companies served separate markets, so their closures signal that, perhaps, both the art-house and mainstream movie businesses find it hard to keep the lights on.

That three mainstream cinemas closed in the past two years – Filmgarde and Cathay in 2025 and WE Cinemas (formerly known as Eng Wah) in 2024 – shows just how tricky turning a profit can be for those relying on Hollywood output. It is why existing chains Golden Village and Shaw Theatres have diversified into Asian titles, including Japanese anime and South Korean and South Asian films.

This award honours the lost cinemas and the people who laboured to keep them going for as long as they did. But it is also a way of saying thank you to the people who ran the now-defunct cinemas. They fought to keep the Republic’s fun places alive. So even if locals visited only once a year for the can’t-miss movie, the cinemas were open.