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On its modest scale, the reissue business appears to be in rude health, and its films generate high levels of appreciation from audiences, as well as routinely generous praise from critics.

This may seem counter-intuitive, in an era in which technological advances allow us to watch films on ever-smaller screens, from televisions to laptops, all the way down to smart phones. Yet is that really a useful advance?

"You don't get the same experience," Varley insists. "To take Lawrence of Arabia as an example – when David Lean shot that film, he shot it big. That's how he wanted it to be seen.

"And yet it's not just about films shot on a grand scale. With Casablanca, for instance, everyone thinks they've seen it. And maybe they have, on television. But when you watch it in a theatre with an audience, it's totally different. The script is so clever and witty, you find yourself feeding off the audience's emotions and laughter."

Varley and his Park Circus colleagues are purists when it comes to the big-screen exhibition of classic movies; they are not in the home entertainment business, and their cinema reissues are events in their own right, not merely marketing opportunities for DVD sales.

Other companies take a different approach. One is StudioCanal, whose head of UK theatrical distribution John Trafford-Owen says the company's policy is rooted in a number of factors: "We have the third-largest film library in the world, with 5,000 titles. It's our responsibility as owners of that library to show those films to new audiences and see how they engage with them.

"But there's another part of our responsibility that's important. We have a restoration expert, and we work in conjunction with the British Film Institute and others to restore our films."

StudioCanal releases reissued films cautiously – typically, says Trafford-Owen, two to five titles every year. It entered the reissues market under its former name, Optimum Releasing, late in 2009 with The Queen of Spades (1949), a supernatural drama starring Edith Evans, adapted from a Pushkin short story.

Its latest reissue sounds a treat: Plein Soleil (August 30), a 1960 French-language noir thriller, was the first screen adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's Mediterranean-set novel The Talented Mr Ripley, four decades before Anthony Minghella's version. In the lead role as murderous con-man Tom Ripley, 24-year-old Alain Delon became an overnight star. Featuring a score by Nino Rota and the vivid sun-drenched camera work of Henri Decaë, it's arguably director René Clément's best-loved film.

^{Alain Delon in Plein Soleil, 1960 (Rex Features)}

Plein Soleil has been restored by StudioCanal in association with the Cinémathèque Française, and the restoration had its world premiere at the Cannes film festival this year. Unlike Park Circus, StudioCanal also has a home entertainment arm, which will release Plein Soleil on DVD this September. "We decided to release it now because it's the centenary of René Clément's birth," says Trafford-Owen. "We like to find a reason like that to time a release. Later this year we'll be reissuing The Wicker Man." That makes sense: it's the 40th anniversary of the British cult horror classic's original release.

Clearly, timing also contributed to this weekend's reissue of Roman Holiday, in which Hepburn plays a princess who goes Awol on an official visit to Rome and falls for a journalist (Peck). The film played its part in making Rome a chic post-war tourist destination, and also boosted sales of scooters like the one which Hepburn rides through the streets of the Eternal City.

"There's sometimes a perfect time to release a film," Varley says. "Roman Holiday wasn't a major restoration, but it's a great summer movie, which was actually shot in summer. Audrey Hepburn always brings in a crowd, and it has a feelgood quality."

Re-issuing can also unearth neglected or under-appreciated classics. Of course, the BFI does this all year round, often isolating a single title from a season for theatrical release. This is the formula for Satyajit Ray's 1963 film The Big City (August 2) about a Calcutta housewife who defies traditional norms by going out and getting a job. Less celebrated than Ray's landmark Apu Trilogy (1955-59), its release highlights the BFI's two-month season of Ray's work.

Park Circus's release of Bonjour Tristesse also falls into this category of forgotten works; recently, the company also reissued a lesser-known Jack Nicholson film, The King of Marvin Gardens (1972), and the road movie Scarecrow (1973), starring Gene Hackman and Al Pacino.

No one in the film business expects vast wealth to accrue from reissues, but the financial model for this small corner of the market seems sufficiently robust for other companies to try their chances.

Two years ago, the UK distributor Metrodome acquired Hollywood Classics, which represents the film libraries of several Hollywood studios. The first fruit of that deal can now be seen in cinemas: the re-release of the digitally restored Cleopatra, the legendary spectacular starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Again, the timing is significant: this is the 50th anniversary of the film's original release. Cleopatra is being rolled out on 30 screens – quite a vote of confidence in a four-hour movie.

^{Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra, 1963 (Rex Features)}

Yet reissues can go bigger. When StudioCanal brought back Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, in 2011, its run extended to more than 100 sites. "It looked simply fantastic on the big screen," Trafford-Owen says. So, according to Varley, did Lawrence of Arabia; it remains one of Park Circus's most popular titles. The moral seems to be: your laptop and your smart phone might represent remarkable advances in technology – but sometimes, when it comes to watching movies, only a big screen will do.

Roman Holiday is out today. For further details see: parkcircus.com