I Fell Asleep at the Movies

Sorry, I fell asleep reading the OP. What?

Rent (2005)

Indecent Proposal

I fell asleep two different times seeing "Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan" in the theater. Both times I fell asleep while Spock was dying and then woke up during his funeral.

I don't know how anyone could fall asleep in a movie theater. I've had movies where I completely disengaged and spent the whole time thinking about other stuff but I haven't fallen asleep.

Benjamin Button

I fell asleep as a kid during “The Empire Strikes Back”.

I fell asleep during Ghost Story (1981). The seats were comfortable, it was dark and quiet, the opening scene was playing...then I woke up when the credits rolled.

I slept for hours during Oliver Stone’s Nixon movie, which seemed to last for at least a fortnight.

Titanic

Star Wars

Rocky Horror Picture Show

R5 is right. I don't believe that most people actually fell asleep during these movies (especially OP, who apparently didn't have the energy to sit through movies forty years ago, yet is somehow alive today).

This is just an excuse for people to bitch about movies they didn't like.

The Man Who Wasn’t There.

That overloaded crap-fest: everything everywhere all at once

I couldn’t stay awake. 😴🥱

The Phantom Menace.

I fell asleep during Flashdance, I was quite drunk, though. And my companion was an ex-stripper (Nancy).

I lost consciousness at behind the candelabra.

Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. Although I was riveted during the potato peeling sequence.

My mother used to fall asleep during movies all the time. It was a huge joke in my family because we would go to the movies once a week. Probably so she could nap.

Now I do it all the time because of those seats that recline the whole way. I think I was awake for maybe 45 minutes of Dune 2.

Did I miss anything?

Jackie Brown

Donnie Brasco

r5 I know, right? With Dolby Stereo, Dolby Surround, then Dolby THX, who can sleep? Not me.

Who? My mom, that's who. She took me to see the 1980s Disney re-releases of 101 Dalmatians (my first movie in '85 as a kindergartner), Cinderella, and Song of the South. I remember having to wake her each time at the end. 😆😆

I microslept (is that a word?) through most of Les Miserables. The only thing I liked about that musical was the poster art.

Fantasia

"Out of Africa".

"Traffic."

Bulworth, because I was at a matinee after a night shift.

Barbie, because it was a late showing after a late dinner and I’d been traveling since 4am. Also it sucked. The teaser had huge air conditioned seats I reclined and slipped away quickly.

R12 so, because it doesn't happen to you, it's not real? Please!

As for me, I fell asleep at HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE and THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING.

They opened within a month of each other in late 2001 and my friend was desperate to watch them but didn't want to go alone.

I don't care for the fantasy genre, but she begged me, so I went and ended up falling asleep both times.

So long and boring! I didn't bother with the sequels.

Picnic at Hanging Rock

The English Patient

I fell asleep at the theater watching Panic Room and Quiz Show.

Splash. But only because it was a midnight showing and I had been up for 24 hours.

Three Man and a Baby

Eyes Wide Shut (during a scene with Tom Cruise and Sydney Pollack in a pool room iirc).

I don’t remember. I was asleep.

English patient.

[quote] Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. Although I was riveted during the potato peeling sequence.

😅 I was on the edge of my seat wondering if she would forget to turn off the light when she left a room.

"literally"

jesus fcking christ

R17 That was a TV movie.

It got a cinema released in my country.

[quote]I've had movies where I completely disengaged and spent the whole time thinking about other stuff but I haven't fallen asleep.

same with me, although I have come close to dozing off.

My two:

SHadowlands

Prince of Tides

The only one I remember falling asleep during in a cinema was Akira Kurosawa's "Ran" when I was 12.

Nowadays, though, I fall asleep watching movies at home so often that I'm afraid to go out to see one.

The Last Emperor

True Grit

Mouliln Rouge (so busy)

I wish I could have fallen asleep during Barry Lyndon, about 100 hours of my life I will never get back.

Everything Everywhere All At Once

"The Manchurian Candidate", 2004.

"Signs", 2022

The New World (2005).... I'm still drowsy.

I took my brother’s kids to The Secret Life of Pets about ten years ago.

It was the first time I’d been in a theater with jumbo reclining seats. I was out within half an hour and woke only intermittently during the film.

Note: I teach elementary school and now have to stand when we visit the planetarium to avoid a repeat of the time I fell into such a deep sleep that the kids had to wake me up when the presentation was over. I woke up completely disoriented and had no idea where I was.

The Legend of Bagger Vance

You can fall asleep standing up at the planetarium.

R12 nailed it.

Ages ago, I attended a workshop run by sleep specialists, and they made no bones about it: if you fall asleep during a movie, a lecture, a class, whatever, there is one reason, and one reason only. You need sleep.

Think of how many times you've been bored by something and WISHED you could fall asleep. Boredom doesn't induce sleep.

I think sitting in silence in a dark, warm room, sitting in a comfortable recliner, in front of a boring film is the ideal environment for a long, refreshing snooze. The snooze is very often the best part of the cinema experience.

I most recently had a few nice dozes during Asteroid City: that was a real three-sleeper.

The Guns of Navarone

R47 YOU SLEPT THROUGH THE GUNS OF NAVARONE?

Fanny & Alexander

When I was 13, my parents + their in laws + I went to see Altman's "A Wedding". I believe we all fell asleep. Then we left because it was the movie that would never end and was completely boring.

Shutter Island. I figured it out in the first 10 minutes, and I'm not the sharpest marble in the box. I didn't tell my friend who was really into it.

Oppenheimer. It's SO long.

I liked Plenty a lot. I'm probably the only one on the planet who did.

R53, I liked it, too.

Several Tarkovsky movies and "Macbeth" with Michael Fassbender.

The Deep. In basic training. Special Company A treat on a Sunday.

Not at the movies, but I fell asleep during Avenue Q.

It was funny, but not very interesting.

Tracey Ullman was magnetic in "Plenty!"

A revival of Joan of Arc by someone. It was a silent film pieced together by a film archivist and cost big bucks to attend. My friend bought the tickets and was very excited. I woke myself up snoring and was humiliated.

I got my high school teacher to show the silent film "Battleship Potemkin" in class and several of my classmates fell asleep during it.

The only movie I've ever fallen asleep at in the theater was the French film "A Sunday in the Country" (1984). What a snoozer.

I Fell Asleep at the Movies

By Pauline Kael

I remember Pauline said she fell asleep watching Crossroads (1986) and supplied her notes up to that point.

I fell asleep during The Cider House Rules and snored my way through half of the movie, much to the amusement of my boyfriend at the time.

I also nodded off a few times during my 6th viewing of Pulp Fiction in the theater, but it was active/loud enough that it kept startling me awake.

I've never been able to make it through Lawrence of Arabia without nodding off in the middle. Big screen, small screen, doesn't matter. They should have called it Sandman of Arabia.

Plenty was plenty rubbish

All PR noise and no plot-tension, and sadly launched the career and plastic surgery of Sting who we can't get away from now.

Remains of the Day

Tracey Ullman and Meryl Streep bonded over their shared hatred of a male costar who ruined the production for everyone - and who they consistently refuse to name - and swore they'd never work with him again.

And they almost died on the flight back from Tunisia.

Any of mine.

R68 DL Fave Sam Neill wrote about him in his memoir:

[quote]Meryl and Charlie loathed each other. I like both of them, but Meryl seemed to take a violent dislike to Dance virtually at first sight. It was reciprocated. Charlie was a newly arrived star; he’d recently had a big success in The Jewel in the Crown on the telly. Brand New Stars can sometimes appear a teeny bit up themselves for a while. Privately he was probably quaking with fear, as a big movie lead opposite the formidable Meryl Streep. He’s fine now, by the way. Delightful, in fact. People usually get over themselves in time.

Maybe Meryl was being Method as her character loathes him in the film.

I fell asleep at The Empire Strikes Back, but then it was a midnight showing. Though I never went to another Star Wars film.

"2001 a Space Odyssey" and some iMax film of American immigration and Ellis Island. And

When I was at BU and I had Hep A and didn't know it (I thought I was just exhausted by school) I used to go to the old Art Deco theatre around the corner and sleep through "Harold and Maude" it was running non-stop for months. I went to sleep there on purpose. It was more comfortable than my Volkswagen.

R73 What movie theater did you live near? The Coolidge Corner? The Kenmore Square? I'm trying to think what theater was art deco.

Must've been the Coolidge.

More likely the Kenmore. The Coolidge is nowhere near BU.

I saw Harold and Maude at a huge old theatre in Davis Square. I stayed awake the entire time. And dreamed for months of driving a hearse.

I did, however, fall asleep during Being There and Zelig. Just thinking about those movies makes me sleepy.

R73 i think it might be gone now. It was a right hand turn off Comm Ave if you're heading towards town. It was quite deco with a touch of Egyptian.

Now I'm curious. I'll see if I can figure it out, now that God invented Google.

“Rollover”

"The Unbearable Lightness of Being"

I fell asleep in a double feature revival house during The Grifters. I woke up and was like I didn't know Glenn Close and Jeremy Irons were in this. It was Reversal of Fortune.

Both great movies when I actually was awake.

Once, Amadeus. But it was the music that did it, very soothing to me.

I fell asleep during 'Light Sleeper," for real.

R73 it wasn't the first run Harold and Maude, it was later during its "cult status" years. Would have been 1974-75.

Hunt for the Red October

2010

R78 Maybe the Exeter Street Theater? Though it wasn't exactly art deco on the outside. It was a big, old theater just off Comm Ave. Google it and let me know.