Movie theaters have done a masterful job of turning a visit to them into a bad experience. From the initial high ticket price, to the now mandatory "convenience fee" when buying a ticket, the 30+ minute of full volume commercials prior to the show so you can't even converse with your friends before the show, to the push for subscribing to a paid service to get slightly lower ticket prices or concession discounts.

All of this is before the problems about who you're sharing the theater with. At a minimum watching a movie today is one big screen in front of you and at least two small screens to the sides of other patrons txting or watching Tiktok during the show.

Last time I went to a theater they played so many ads past when the movie should already have started that I very nearly left, thinking I was in the wrong room. My hand was literally on the door when the movie actually started.

Never been back. Fuck you. Start the fucking movie when you advertise the start time.

Drop copyright to 5 years and theaters will be huge again showing older movies and shows at reasonable prices you either can't get on streaming or prefer in a community setting. 100+ year copyrights owned by corpo monopolies are choking both independent and smaller project artists and theaters.

I used to be an avid cinema go-er.

The truth is they just don't make movies I want to go and see anymore. Everything is a big tent sequel, and all the smaller movies get no advertising and by the time word of mouth hits they are already out of theaters and on streaming. What got me into the theater was the foreign films, the second run stuff, and the b horror movies. None of that goes to cinema anymore, most is straight to streaming. if it's in cinema it might be there one week and then it's gone.

I feel like it's 3 weeks between a movies premiere and streaming accessibility. 3 more weeks and you can watch it for free on a streaming service with no bullshit ads or trailers before it. I just paid 10 bucks for disney+ and watched all three marvel movies from this year, and frankly they were all pretty bad. very glad I didn't shell out $50 to see them in theatres. I already canceled the subscription.

What is the cinema offering me that I can't get at home? It used to be a great picture, a quiet dark environment, and people with other people who were there for the movie... none of that applies in my few attendances of the past few years. The 20 dollar ticket price doesn't help either.

Honestly, the best experience I have with film these days is going to my local library and borrowing DVDs. They have a broad selection of 1000s of titles and it's super fun to just browse the shelves and pick up some random movie that looks interesting and bring it home, watch it, and return it. No cost, no alogarithms, no bullshit.

but when I tell people I do this IRL they think I am mentally ill or something.

2026 will be even worse.

I have no interest in going to theaters. I'm happy to wait months to watch whatever on my TV at home. Theaters could have more draw, but their ONLY advantage anymore is first run, everything else about the experience has gotten worse over the past 20 years.

To add to all the other responses: My partner and I went to see Wicked For Good last week. We paid a few quid extra per ticket for the 'Xplus' screen that Showcase offer, so a screen that was a good 100' across, and Dolby 360 sound. Plus comfy reclining seats. My partner has limited mobility, so we booked the accessible seats so they didn't have to climb up the stairs.

The picture quality on that enormous screen was absolute shit. There was this distracting, swirling noise over it the entire fucking time. The sound might have been good, but the way they construct the auditoriums means that there was a fucking wall behind our seats, so the rear speakers essentially didn't get to us. And because they put the accessible seating so close to the screen, I got neck ache from looking up at it for two hours.

Oh, and the first seat I tried, the reclining buttons didn't work. Fortunately, there was almost no one in there, so we were able to switch.

We paid £45 (including some extra snacks to add to what we were smuggling in) for an experience that was demonstrably worse in every way than just waiting for the same movie to be available to rent (or more likely, when it turns up on the high seas) and watching it on our 55" OLED TV with Atmos-compatible soundbar.

I used to adore going to the cinema. Some of my most fond memories are going with my dad at the weekend to see that week's big release. Add to that that most of the movies that can justify wanting to see on a huge screen look boring as shit and at this point I genuinely can't see any argument for giving them any of my money.

Movie theaters can’t compete in part because movie studios own the streaming channels. Why would they bother releasing their movies in theaters when they make more money showing them at home?

I love theaters, and still do, but holy crap the prices are insane. It helps if you can find a rural theater, but even then it can be expensive. I can think of a whole lot more things and experiences I’d rather spend $150+ for a family (tickets + concessions).

Plus, most movies only stay in theaters for a few months or weeks, whereas it used to be close to a year between theater and home release, so the desire to see it — maybe even repeatedly — is greatly diminished.

That, and now that everyone has a huge screen and surround sound at home, there isn’t a lot of reason to go just for the features.

One of the best things I did at home was to buy one of those 12oz popcorn popper machines. Now I can make popcorn nearly identical to the theaters. It’s awesome. While it was a large initial investment, it will easily pay for itself in concession savings going to a theater.

2025 was also a really bad year for the economy in general.

Cinemas are almost peak predatory capitalism. Unsurprisingly I'm not super keen on going. Sort your act out, cinemas, or piss off.

As a result I've got a small home cinema setup in my home. It's only 5.1.2 Dolby Atmos but it's a far cry from VHS on some 28" CRT on the other side of the room.

I haven't been to a movie in a theater in years, but the horrible little cineplex-owned theater down the block from me was recently purchased by a local rep theater, and their opening week lineup is kind of insane, so I might come out of retirement to see Wings of Desire, In the Mood for Love, Ikiru, or Paris Texas somewhere that's a 2-minute walk from my house.

I don't get why movie theaters don't diversify.

I understand they pretty much only make profit off of the concession stand because studios rob all the ticket sale profit.

But the chain theaters especially could "easily" offer other options.

Basically turn the theater building into a mini mall:

build a restaurant that serves good food (not talking about dinner and show type restaurant although maybe offer that too)

have a gift shop (especially for the kid movies).

Take some of the massive amount of parking most of them have and turn it into a park/playground.

Hell even a small arcade.

Just other things to attract customers/offer other profit opportunities.

With babysitting costs added in, we would spend €100 to go to the cinema without snacks and not going anywhere afterwards with friends. I can't think of any film worth that when I can see it at home in comfort with no ads and no assholes.

The classic cinemas near me is fantastic, nice heated recliners, you can bring in a bag with blankets, and whatever else really, and I can take a family of 4 get popcorn and drinks and it's under $55 usually, and the kids always love going to the theater. But a standard amc is lacking to say the least.

In 2024, I've been at the cinema almost every week, but this year I just didn't feel like it. I watched a few movies, for sure, but the excitement wasn't there.

I don't know if that's just me, but I also think movies have gotten too long. I don't want to sit at the cinema for 3.5 hours and watch a movie that doesn't even have an ending (looking at you, Killers of the Flower Moon). I get my popcorn and my drink and after 2.5 hours I need to pee and having to get up is just annoying, having to endure my full bladder for another hour even more so.

It's really weird why filmmakers have decided to make such long movies in this day and age. The Whale was under two hours and the room was flooded with tears afterwards, you don't need to put a whole series worth of story into one single movie.

I am also tired of the endless remakes and re-remakes. Jurassic World Rebirth was terrible, just let it die already - and what the hell was that "I Know What You Did Last Summer" movie? The first one was bad already, it didn't need a sequel.

Maybe 2026 will be better, but I don't have a lot of hope.

Consolidation fucked them. Optimal economics through the 90s meant maximized seating per screen, and one ticketing / concession apparatus for as many screens as possible. If the theater was in the mall and you were already at the mall, this worked out perfectly. Aaand then everyone bought a big flat television right as Netflix-as-DVD-rental and Netflix-as-streaming-service made home viewing basically effortless... and online shopping finally worked. By 2015 you'd go to a dead mall to sit in a half-empty theater and balk at prices that would nowadays seem quaint.

Small theaters should be doing okay. But small theaters are mostly dead. Anything old was driven out by the push for growth, and anything new is some boutique horseshit that's somehow even more expensive.

You've turned the movie-going experience into an event, and people act accordingly. Even when movies were struggling against color television, going to the theater was still dirt cheap and down the street. It's no longer a convenient way to kill an evening. It's a commute to a distant box full of strangers, so you can see an overhyped entertainment product that'll be accessible from your couch in two months.

The only positive innovation has been purchasing assigned seating in advance

I wanted to see running man but it was out of theatres before I had the free weekend 🤷‍♀️ only the big hits stick around apparently

Sitting through the ads, listening to people eating their overpriced popcorn, getting distracted by idiots who really have to check their social media in the middle of the movie.. yeah, I'll just stay home.

It's the economy, stupid.

I still go for movies that I feel need to be seen in a theater. I bought tickets and went opening night for The Running Man, because that’s one that I think should be seen on the big screen with surround sound. But they release a lot of disposable junk today. I’m not paying ticket & concession prices for some cookie cutter movie that will be streaming within a month.

yea i remember that scene. it was at that point i asked my family

“this script was AI generated, yea? like weren’t we in a hostage situation in an underground bunker that turned into a high speed shoot out through infinite garage tunnels resulting in a horrific car crash like literal 2 seconds ago? is the third main villain being an AI a little on the nose? DOESN’T THE MAIN VILLAIN NEED HUNT NOT DASHED INTO THE ROCKS BECAUSE HE HAS THE MCGUFFIAN? WHY DIDN’T THE BOMB DIFUSAL EXPERT DO THAT AT THE BEGINNING OF THE MOVIE?!? WHERE DOES THE MAIN VILLAIN KEEP PULLING THESE NUCLEAR BOMBS FROM?!?! WHY IS THAT NOT THE MAJOR CONCERN, HOW DID HE MOVE THESE MASSIVE THINGS AROUND?!?! HOW DID THE AI PREDICT HUNT GETTING THE PROTOTYPE AI FROM THE SUNKEN SUB WOULD DISTURB IT ENOUGH THAT WOULD CAUSE THE SUB TO FALL INTO A TRENCH THAT WOULD HAVE NEARLY KILL HIM, BUT NOT ALSO HAVE THE MAGICAL FORESIGHT TO SEE HE WOULD SURVIVE IT? WHY DID WE ESTABLISH THE HARD NOSED MILITARY GUY WHO DOUBTED HUNT AND BLAMED HIM FOR HIS FATHERS DEATH ONLY TO HAVE HIM BE COMPLETELY INEFFECTUAL THE WHOLE MOVIE?!?!??! WHY ARE THEY SHAKING HANDS AT THE END AS IF THEY RESOLVED ANYTHING?!?!?

this was scripted by AI right?”