18-rated night of horror and dark comedy short films from the Norwich Film Festival 2026 at the historic Phoenix Picturehouse.
Late Night Shorts returns to the Phoenix Picturehouse on Friday 27 November, as part of the Norwich Film Festival 2026. It's a new selection of horror and dark comedy shorts, the kind of night that aims to send shivers down your spine and leave you laughing in the dark. The whole thing runs for 90 minutes and is certified 18, so it's definitely for the adults rather than a family outing.
If you've never been, the Phoenix is one of Oxford's real landmarks. It's a century-old cinema on Walton Street that first opened in 1913 as the North Oxford Kinema, designed by local architect Gilbert T Gardner for Richard Henry John Bartlett, W Beeson and Charles Green. It was renamed the Scala in 1920 and went on to become one of the most important art-house cinemas in the UK outside London. In 1970, the single auditorium was divided into two screens, Studios One and Two, and after a change of ownership in 1977, it took the name it still has today. It became the first of the Picturehouse family of cinemas in 1989, and a bar was added in the 1990s.
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So, on the night, you've got a 90-minute run of horror and dark comedy shorts in a cinema that's been showing films in North Oxford since before the First World War. It's part of the Norwich Film Festival 2026, and the 18 certificate means it's not holding back on the darker side of things. If you're into shorts that lean into the macabre and the unsettling, this is the one to keep on your radar. Friday 27 November at the Phoenix Picturehouse.
