movies

Consistently crappy theaters, other customers who don't care about the movie, on their phones and talking, and staff that are both not paid enough and told not to deal with those problems.

All of that for now 20 per ticket, double that if you want snacks. My local indie house shows movies with none of those problems.

My spouse has gone all in on the gd rumble-seats in Cinemark theaters. Even dumb movies we’d never go see, they’re like “does it have rumble seats? ‘cause I’m there.”

For me it’s just the comfy-ass recliners. One of the Regals near me swapped out all of the chairs with comfy recliners and— my god— sitting through a 3 hour movie was a comparative cakewalk to how it used to be.

I haven’t got any AMCs near me, but it sounds like they haven’t put in the same efforts on seat situations. You can have all the Dolby, XD, THX etc stuff you want, but the chairs are a big part of it.

—that said, we also have a lovely historic theater near us that’s oozing character and ambience, so… it’s an uphill battle for all chain theaters in our area afaic

More annoying that AMC bought out basically every local theater and then shot themselves in the foot, so there's not many alternatives.

Local theaters usually do community events and have a play theater for live productions that keeps the business going.

AFAIK AMC only does latest releases and sometimes reruns during low traffic.

I regularly go to the theater. There hasn't been a movie released in months that I'm willing to go pay for

$28 ticket might have something to do with it. That's what I just paid for a ticket to Project Hail Mary.

Every one will have their reasons, but for me it was

• No movie interested me enough
• High prices
• I live in a different continent

Not in that order

My usual Christmas routine is to get a group of friends together for a restaurant meal and then a movie. Usually we'll pick something like Jumanji or Aquaman or Anchorman II.

Last two years, no one wanted to see any of the movies playing. Not 'I don't feel like going to the theater today' it was that none of the movies showing appealed to anyone.

Announce what time the movie actually starts and pay ushers to enforce good behavior and you’ll fix those attendance drops right quick. There’s still demand but the movie theater experience is so awful even cinephiles won’t brave it anymore.

AMC had exclusive distribution rights to Arco in my area and decided to make zero screenings available with the original French dialog audio, just the English dub.

So I'm waiting for streaming, avoiding traveling across town, paying to park, paying a premium for mediocre snacks and drinks all for the pleasure of sitting through 30 minutes of ads before the movie I paid $20 to see in a language not fit for the movie. 👍

Okay, I could get in my car, spend $3 in gas driving to and back from a theater, $30 on a ticket, $40 on popcorn and a soda, to watch The Continuing Adventures Of Scarlett Johanson's Very Tight Pants, once, for maybe 2 hours? Or spend $15 on Stardew Valley and receive over a decade of content.

Why'd we even bother manufacturing projectors after 1977?

Melania

For me, it was when I finally started to go back to the theaters after COVID and I found out all of the sudden, I have to actually pick a seat and if I don't show up early enough or pick the seat early enough, the seat is going to be absolute hot garbage and then I just paid 20-some odd dollars for a ticket for absolutely nothing. and then have to pay another $60 or $70 for a soda, popcorn, or maybe nachos for me and the kids.

For less than that, I bought a professional gourmet popcorn maker, made popcorn that was actually fresh. I took all of the savings and used it to buy a NAS.

Bummer, I like going to the movies.

I went to an amc for the first time in about seven years last week and despite there being a giant “Dolby” logo out front that made me think they’d at least have decent sound, the soundtrack in the theater I was in was hardly stereo, with the voice channel coming from the upper left of the screen and the music and sound effects from the lower right. Was not a good experience.

Is anybody else a bit surprised by the pessimism surrounding seeing movies in theaters?

I'm not surprised to see people shit on AMC specifically, given some of the moves they've made with acquiring smaller theaters and hiking prices. But, I'm also seeing a lot of people hating on the very idea of seeing a movie outside the comfort of their home.

I guess I love movies more than most. Enough to go to the movies and see three movies back-to-back-to-back in an evening. I mean, over the course of 2025 I saw over two dozen movies and only two or three of them were a bad experience (loud/distracting audience members, poor seating or outdated audio / visual infrastructure). The vast majority of the time, my experience was much better than watching it on my 60" TV screen at home. I can honestly say that my most tranquil and relaxed moments of last year were when I was free from all distractions and enjoying a cinematic moment with a crowd of other people.

I guess it's just sad to see streaming services get rewarded for pumping out a ton of slop. While creative and unique movies only sell a few tickets on opening weekend. The people that fund movies definitely have to be noticing those trends, which I'm sure is why we're seeing fewer and fewer interesting movies each year. We ultimately end up with endless sequels, live-action-remakes of successful animated movies/video games, and endless waves of things we've already seen before.

What a shitty time to live in: We live our lives with less money than our Grandparents. We see a constant stream of sad, frustrating, or disheartening news 24/7. Then, we try to take a second to relax and step away from the madness. But, many of our beloved hobbies are in a nosedive so it's hard to truly get away from it all:

• Video games are crashing with crazy numbers of studios shutting down or laying people off. We have to lean on Indie games, and a few hit games to keep the medium bearable. Not to mention AI is making gaming far too expensive.
• Great movies are getting way less attention, and instead we're getting Five Nights at Freddy's 2 because it'll sell tickets to the kids.
• And it gets continuously harder to watch good TV without being subscribed to a dozen different subscription services. No wonder people are sailing the seas like it's the 1700s.

Long story short: Anybody else frustrated right now?

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

I haven't seen any movies worth watching on streaming in the last 6 months. I dont know what people are finding to watch in theaters right now.

Scrolling the list right now I guess all the money was from: Avatar Sinners Bugonia Zootopia 2

I dont see Goat making good money and Send Help will probably do decent streaming but poor theater numbers.

I dont see enough for a strong Q1, and as lame as AMC is, I dont think its their business as much as the product available right now.

It's more than 20 usd for a ticket in sweden (snacks unreasonable priced here as well) and amc is the same chain just with another name to make people belive it is national (Filmstaden). How is it in other countries?

Say no to franchised theaters !

Ain't nobody going to watch one movie for 16-20 bucks when they can pay the same price per month to watch a bunch of horrible movies and shows and free video streaming sites

Every time I see a new movie trailer I like, seeing "Only in Theaters" immediately kills all interest I may have had in that movie.

I'll just look it up again in a few months and stream that shit for free. Thanks.

The last movie I saw in an AMC theater was Avatar: Fire & Ash in IMAX ($20 for the 3D, which imo was worth it for the 3 hours), and before that was Way of Water a couple years before.

I have little to no interest in going to a movie theater. Not just now, but very likely ever again.

I just don’t see the appeal—the crowds are so consistently awful, unless you wait until a given movie’s theatrical run is almost done and no one else is there. But by then, sometimes the movie is already in streaming and I can watch at home.

I CAN be convinced to support business models which seem innovative, however.

For instance, theaters have offered different ticket prices for both age (children/seniors) and time of day (matinees). I would ENTHUSIASTICALLY support a theater which innovated on those points.

For instance, keep early movies cheap for kids. However, retain special “child” pricing throughout the day. I would love to see ticket pricing for children increase by lower ages and later times.

Take a 2-year old to an 11a movie? 5-bucks.

Take a 2-year old to a 9p movie? 500-bucks.

Also, usher enforcement of etiquette should become more aggressive. I wouldn’t mind a police detail enforcing that shit…just be clear with the tickets.

You want a police detail enforcing a ”quiet” theater—buy that ticket and pay the higher price.

You want a cheaper ticket and watch with a bunch of people playing on their phones and talking, go cheap and don’t complain.

Some people love the theater—it’s big, it’s loud, it’s fun. If you like it, go for it. In my opinion, anyone with even a modestly decent modern TV and sound system can wait a bit to catch their movie on streaming and always have a better experience.

I won't even go to AMC at all anymore because they're the only (non-indie) theater around that still has crappy seating.

Nevermind how few movies are worth seeing, paying $20+ to see a movie, how the concessions are expensive garbage, and shows have 20-40 minutes of ads before they begin.

Give me an Alamo Drafthouse or similar and better movie selection, and I'll be at the movies nearly every month.