Did you know the price of movie tickets has doubled over a decade?

I live outside Boston and paid $20 for a matinee last month!! Ridiculous. I have only seen a few movies post-pandemic. Before then I would go see them regularly and feel like a matinee was around $10. Then the nearest theatre (one with a huge free parking lot) was bulldozed to make way for an Amazon warehouse. The next closest theatres are not standalone and either have no parking or the only option is paid parking.

Yes. They have been around 15 dollars in NYC forever. But there are lots of discount options. AMC has 1/2 off on Tues and Weds night.

I only go to my local Cinemark on discount Tuesdays when I can see a movie for $8. I could afford full price but I always feel stupid when I pay nearly $20 to see a shitty movie. I can live with wasting $8.

Because of increased prices, if I go to any movie theaters at all, I’m likely to go around noon on Tuesdays, when prices are somewhat lower. I also go after it’s been playing a couple of weeks, when prices are also somewhat lower.

Life in my Golden Years!

I'm so old, I can remember when the average movie ticket was $2.00.

When "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" came out, we went to the big, fancy widescreen movie theater in town to see it. The tickets cost $4.00! It was shocking at the time.

The price of admission is outrageous. The price of concessions is even more outrageous. The movies themselves suck, being constant retreads of comic book and super-hero stories. (How many times do the stories of Batman and Superman need to be retold, for Christ's sake). Movie theater operators consider customers captured prey upon which they shower 30 minutes of advertising before the movie starts.

And yet studio and theater chain executives scratch their balls wondering why people don't go to the movie theater anymore.

R6, so true about the commercials. I don't necessarily mind previews but it's gotten out of hand, and the outright ads make me stabby. I think this most recently movie started 40 minutes after the posted start time. I used to be annoyed at people walking in to the theatre "late" but now I am beginning to wish I was like them!

It's not as if the movies got any better.

Considering most theaters allow you to choose your seats in advance

Have you ever considered arriving 15 minutes after start time to avoid the advertising?

R9 If we're upwards of $16.00 for a movie ticket, we shouldn't have to adjust our theater arrival schedules to accommodate the studios.

R9, do you invite guests over to your house for drinks and dinner at 8, but force them to watch home movies of your childhood for an hour before said drinks and dinner are served?

Oh, never mind. You probably do because you're an ignorant, rude jack ass.

So let me get this straight r11

You will arrive at the exact showtime for a movie, even though you know there will be 20-25 minutes of preshow advertising, because you do not want to offend the AMC Corporation?

R12 You're not a great critical thinker, are you?

I worked in a movie theater during high school and college. In 1989, a regular adult ticket was $5.50. A matinee ticket was $3.50. Calculated for inflation, today those would be $14 and $9.

Funny, I was trying to remember what I paid the last time I went to a theater for a movie and it running in my mind I paid about $15 each... and this was just prior to the pandemic so 2020, in suburban SoCal (so maybe higher than average?). I also remember thinking that if they released movies to ppv on the same day as theaters, I'd just rent and watch at home saving the $25 spent on a popcorn and soda... and then they did that due to the pandemic and there was nothing new worth paying $20 to rent or buy. It's sad. If you're not into Marvel or car chases, there's nothing being made worth watching.

Y’all are out of touch. The big game among younger patrons these days are the (nearly) unlimited movie ticket programs. AMC’s A-List allows you to see four movies a week for $28/month… literally $1 per ticket if you maximize it. And kids really do use these things. Regal and Alamo have similar programs.

I have A-List and probably use it for about 6-8 movies a month on average. So $3-4 a ticket or so?

If you are an avid movie goer, movies have never been cheaper.

If the movie is really good, I don’t mind. But after I got burned several times on movies that won all the awards, and were absolute crap, I quit going. You know who you are, Anora and Everything, Everywhere, All at Once.

The biggest insult is theaters forcing you to sit through almost 30 minutes of garbage before a film -- trailers, ads, promo for the chain's movie club. By minute 25, I'm almost ready to leave. I know theaters are really struggling, and this advertising is keeping them going. But there has to be some compromise between ad revenue and providing an experience worth the money.

Did the “Everything’s a Flop” Troll create this thread? It feels like one of his stealth threads.

I hardly ever pay full price to go to movies in the evening. That's for people with social lives.

r18 But with assigned seating why doesn’t any of that matter? Just arrive later for your show.