It's exclusively focused on the really big films

Nick James, Sight And Sound

Cinema admissions in the last quarter of 2001, when the films were released, rose 3.6% on the previous quarter - and were up by 17% on the same period a year before.

There has been a resurgence of cinema-going in the UK in recent years, after a period in which home video recorders and DVD players made large impact on the business.

The audience figures hit a low during an economic recession in 1984, but have improved almost every year since then.

'Major product'

But the improvement in the cinema business's fortunes is not evenly spread, according to the editor of film journal Sight And Sound.

UK cinema visits

1999 - 133.8m 2000 - 137.1m 2001 - 141.0m

"I think it's exclusively focused on the really big films, and in fact there were some problems before these blockbusters came along of finding major product for the multiplexes," editor Nick James told BBC News Online.

"Film distribution in the UK concentrates on such a narrow range of films now - so it's fortunate for that end of the business that these blockbusters have all performed very well."

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: A major foreign-language hit

But Mr James said there was good news for the independent and foreign-language sector too.

"It was always an industry nonsense that people can't deal with sub-titles - and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon proved that was a nonsense.

"And now there's a Film Council initiative to aid the smaller distributors with publicity and film print costs."

"This will help us get a tighter network of small screens, as well as more art house and foreign language films going in to spare screens in multiplexes," he added.

Britain now has 440 cinemas with a total of 2,574 screens, according to the Office for National Statistics.