The last movie we attended people were incredibly disruptive throughout the film, to the point that it was difficult to focus on the film. Some people enjoy screaming, laughing, and talking as part of the experience, but it's apparently been normalized beyond my tolerance threshold. Add in the cost and overall movie quality decrease of Hollywood productions, and it's difficult to justify.

Presently, we watch foreign movies at home 95% of the time and maybe a Hollywood production when they manage to find their roots and create something worth watching.

Most if not all the ticket price goes directly into the studio's pockets.

So the theatres stay alive by selling concessions.

I'd wager everyone here complaining about prices would also wax poetic about how theatres don't "pay a living wage" to the kids scooping popcorn and would immediately drive home in their $100k Rivians or Teslas so they can give a one star review on Yelp or complain on Reddit about the bathrooms or floors being dirty or sticky.

These same people wouldn't bat an eye at paying $14 for a food truck grilled cheese and leave a tip.

You can't have it both ways.

Where is that? Tickets here are only $7-10 each (except maybe some IMAX or similar showings) and two drinks and popcorn would be $15-25 for two people (size dependent). This is in Colorado.

EDIT: I was going off of memory, but matinee/child/senior pricing is apparently $9.75 at the theater I usually go to, evening is $13.25 (I never go in the evening, had forgotten what that price was). They have a two drink and popcorn combo for $22.10. So the worst case of evening prices (again, not considering IMAX, just regular screens and seats) for two with that combo is $48.60. That's not cheap, but it's not $86 either. And if you're willing to share the drink and go to a matinee you can cut the price to $34.80. This is a Cinemark, a pretty big theater chain.

Then I guess you aren't familiar with the 20 minutes of trailers, 1 minute of Cocacola ad and 2 minutes of other completely irrelevant content before the movie actually begins.

I don't know where people get these crazy prices. Try to find a little hole-in-the-wall theater. I like the local Landmark Cinema. It is about $8 a ticket and I skip on the junk food.

There is another theater on the other side of town that does midnight showings of Rocky Horror Picture Show. Those kinds of places are also cheap.

What theater is that at? Sounds like a mega chain like AMC or Regal. The local indie theater we go to in one of the 5 largest American cities has never been over $15 per ticket and adding popcorn and a drink is maybe $10 more on top.

Support small theatres, you won’t get charged like this.

I still go to arthouse movies regularly, mostly because it forces me to give them undivided attention

Although, I’ll admit I go way less often than two years ago when I was full time WFH. Which begs the question if I just went for a reason to leave the house

Where I go it's about $33 for two tickets bought online and probably $20 for those snacks, though we usually share a drink and a popcorn. The theater is still usually empty.

The market-clearing price is nearly zero except for some new releases. Oppenheimer was sold out in its first weekend, for example.

Anyone who went to movies before about 1999 remembers them being a lot more popular.

For a long time now I've felt that there's only situation where it makes sense. That's movies where it is something about it would make it much more enjoyable on IMAX or similar with a professional sound system. So something in the visual spectacle category.

For any normal movie I'd rather just watch it from my couch. But for the once in a while, over the top, blockbuster I'll still go to a theater.

You can see live theater (albeit without concessions) for less than that.

I'm not sure who is going to the theater or why, but I hope they are enjoying themselves!

> 2 tickets, 2 sodas, 1 popcorn. > $86 dollars. > Don't know if I'll ever go to a conventional movie theater again.

We almost never go to regular theaters anymore. IMAX feels worth it for something like F1 or Top Gun where it’s all about the visual spectacle, otherwise meh.

We go to Alamo Drafthouse a lot tho. A little pricey but the experience of watching a movie in comfy seats over a fairly decent restaurant dinner is fantastic for certain kinds of movies. Peaky Blinders was the most recent. Tommy Shelby paired with a good cocktail or two, fantastic.

Also I don’t know how Alamo achieves this, but people there are really good about noise and other bullshit. I think it’s because they do in fact kick people out for being annoying.

Our local AMC theater would be $13 a ticket, $8 a drink, and $11 for popcorn (rounding up and assuming the largest sizes, although the prices are in a narrow band so the price difference between the least and most is under a dollar).

So, we’re looking at $53. Which is $33 less than wherever you’re at.

I also don’t know how standardized prices are across all AMC venues. So while Pokopia costs $70 everywhere, the same may not be true of theater tickets and concessions.

But yeah, it’s typically why we try to avoid theater concessions, because they’ve always been overpriced

if you love cinema enough

It's not even price for me - I'm happy to pay for an experience. I'm more annoyed that the theater is basically the worst place to watch a movie now.

The silver screen has a contrast ratio in the hundreds. A $300 consumer TV now looks significantly better than the blurry, muted, and muddled projector image.

Then the audio at theaters is always totally blown out and overly bassy and siblant. Fine for action, I guess, but it makes listening to dialogue exhausting.

And unless you get your favorite seat, you have to watch the movie skewed. God forbid you get a seat in the front and have to crane your neck the whole hour.

Meanwhile I can stay home, not deal with driving 20 minutes and interacting with the public, pay less, eat better food, get blitzed with friends, talk with my wife, have better visuals and audio, etc. Other than nostalgia, there's just no reason at all to go to a movie theater. It's become kind of outdated in an era of modern TVs to me.

$20 for the tickets. $20 for 2x soda and popcorn, but they've always been on the expensive side compared to tickets.

Tickets are a bit more for IMAX.

Less than an hour outside Philly. The theater is recently renovated too and has nice recliner seats, and everyone has their own armrest.

I can confirm this, it is stupid how much just basic outing to watch a movie costs. I have 3 kids... I am in Chicago but it is like this everywhere

You can watch a movie without popcorn, you know. Not only cheaper but also healthier. This American obsession with popcorn always seemed weird to me.

It is surprising that such a large number of people continue to fall victim to fraud at the cinema. High-quality televisions and sound systems are now available at a reasonable price. It has been 12 years since I last attended a movie screening. All content will be available on-demand within a month of the theatrical release. Popcorn maker at home and drinks.