National CineMedia, Inc.

Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures. The Company maintains disclosure controls and procedures as defined in Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”), that are designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed in the Company’s reports filed under the Exchange Act is recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time periods specified in the SEC’s rules and forms, and that such information is accumulated and communicated to management, including the Company’s Chief Executive Officer (principal executive officer) and Chief Financial Officer (principal financial officer), as appropriate, to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure.

Management, with the participation of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chief Financial Officer (CFO), performed an evaluation of the effectiveness of the Company’s disclosure controls and procedures pursuant to Rule 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e) of the Exchange Act as of January 1, 2026, the end of the period covered by this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Based on such evaluation, the CEO and CFO concluded that the Company’s disclosure controls and procedures were effective. In accordance with guidance issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission allowing for the exclusion of an assessment of an acquired business's internal control over financial reporting from the registrant's final assessment of internal control over financial reporting for the fiscal year in which the acquisition occurred, management has excluded Spotlight Cinema Networks from our 2025 evaluation. Spotlight Cinema Networks was acquired on November 14, 2025 and constituted 2.7% of total assets as of January 1, 2026 and 1.0% of total revenue for the year ended January 1, 2026.

Management’s Annual Report on Internal Control over Financial Reporting. Management is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting as defined in Exchange Act Rules 13a-15(f) and 15d-15(f). Management evaluated the design and operating effectiveness of the Company’s internal control over financial reporting based on the framework in Internal Control- Integrated Framework (2013) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO). Based on that evaluation, the Company's management concluded that the Company's internal control over financial reporting as of January 1, 2026 was effective.

In designing and evaluating our disclosure controls and procedures, management recognizes that any control, no matter how well designed and operated, can provide only reasonable, not absolute, assurance of achieving the desired control objectives. Due to the inherent limitations in all control systems, no evaluation of controls can provide absolute assurance that misstatements due to error or fraud will not occur or that all control issues and instances of fraud, if any, within the Company have been detected.

The effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of January 1, 2026 has been audited by Grant Thornton LLP, our independent registered public accounting firm, as stated in their report, which is included in “Item 8 — Financial Statements and Supplementary Data.”

Changes in Internal Control over Financial Reporting. There were no changes in our internal control over financial reporting that occurred during the quarter ended January 1, 2026 that have materially affected, or are reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.

Board of Directors and Stockholders National CineMedia, Inc.

Opinion on internal control over financial reporting

We have audited the internal control over financial reporting of National CineMedia, Inc. (a Delaware corporation) and subsidiaries (the “Company”) as of January 1, 2026, based on criteria established in the 2013 Internal Control—Integrated Framework issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (“COSO”). In our opinion, the Company maintained, in all material respects, effective internal control over financial reporting as of January 1, 2026, based on criteria established in the 2013 Internal Control—Integrated Framework issued by COSO.

We also have audited, in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States) (“PCAOB”), the consolidated financial statements of the Company as of and for the year ended January 1, 2026, and our report dated February 26, 2026 expressed an unqualified opinion on those financial statements.

Basis for opinion

The Company’s management is responsible for maintaining effective internal control over financial reporting and for its assessment of the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting, included in the accompanying Management’s Annual Report on Internal Control over Financial Reporting("Management's Report"). Our responsibility is to express an opinion on the Company’s internal control over financial reporting based on our audit. We are a public accounting firm registered with the PCAOB and are required to be independent with respect to the Company in accordance with the U.S. federal securities laws and the applicable rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the PCAOB.

We conducted our audit in accordance with the standards of the PCAOB. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether effective internal control over financial reporting was maintained in all material respects. Our audit included obtaining an understanding of internal control over financial reporting, assessing the risk that a material weakness exists, testing and evaluating the design and operating effectiveness of internal control based on the assessed risk, and performing such other procedures as we considered necessary in the circumstances. We believe that our audit provides a reasonable basis for our opinion.

Our audit of, and opinion on, the Company’s internal control over financial reporting does not include the internal control over financial reporting of Spotlight Cinema Networks, LLC (“Spotlight”), a wholly owned subsidiary, whose financial statements reflect total assets and revenues constituting 2.7 and 1.0 percent, respectively, of the related consolidated financial statement amounts as of and for the year ended January 1, 2026. As indicated in Management’s Report, Spotlight was acquired during the year ended January 1, 2026. Management’s assertion on the effectiveness of the Company’s internal control over financial reporting excluded internal control over financial reporting of Spotlight.

Definition and limitations of internal control over financial reporting

A company’s internal control over financial reporting is a process designed to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements for external purposes in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. A company’s internal control over financial reporting includes those policies and procedures that (1) pertain to the maintenance of records that, in reasonable detail, accurately and fairly reflect the transactions and dispositions of the assets of the company; (2) provide reasonable assurance that transactions are recorded as necessary to permit preparation of financial statements in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, and that receipts and expenditures of the company are being made only in accordance with authorizations of management and directors of the company; and (3) provide reasonable assurance regarding prevention or timely detection of unauthorized acquisition, use, or disposition of the company’s assets that could have a material effect on the financial statements.

Because of its inherent limitations, internal control over financial reporting may not prevent or detect misstatements. Also, projections of any evaluation of effectiveness to future periods are subject to the risk that controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions, or that the degree of compliance with the policies or procedures may deteriorate.

/s/ GRANT THORNTON LLP

February 26, 2026