Current Events > What are your best/worst movie theater experiences?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Either something you remember fondly or positively, or a bad experience, something that left a negative impact.

Mine are simple but they stand out the most in my mind.

Good experience: Batman & Robin
I went to the movie by myself and there was a group of two boys and two girls around my age a few rows up. They were having a good time and laughing a lot, making jokes (being slightly disruptive) and one of them eventually looked back and saw me and they invited me to sit along with them. I was always a loner, so it felt good to be included, even if only for a short while. We went our separate ways when the movie ended.

Bad experiences: Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey
When the movie was ending and the credits were playing and we were shown various images of the Wyld Stallyns, the film just suddenly ended. From my best guess, they underestimated the movie's runtime and had to end it so the next showing would be on time.

Kick Ass
Maybe about half-an-hour or more into the movie, someone somewhere pulled the fire alarm. This caused all the movies shown to stop and everyone had to evacuate. Refunds had to be given to hundreds of people who had paid for their movie tickets.

I have never really had a bad experience. Ive had lots of good experiences but one really stands out to me.

Back when I was in the military when we were in port and I lived on the ship I would go to a lot of movies just to get away from the ship and I enjoy movies and it was cheap entertainment. I remember one Friday night in the summer of 1995 I went to the theatre alone for a later 9 pm showing.

I had already seen multiple movies that were out and I wanted something new. I saw the poster for Braveheart and noticed it was a Mel Gibson movie. I liked the poster art and I usually had enjoyed Mel Gibson movies so even though I knew NOTHING about it I decided to go. There was only like 2 other people in the theatre. I basically had the theatre to myself.

Turned out to be one of the most epic movies Ive watched at the theatre and remains one of my favorite movies to this day. I remember having to pee really bad because I drank a huge soda but the movie was so gripping I didnt want to take a break to pee. It was a decently long movie too. Very epic. Great experience and memory.

For better or worse, watching anime films at the movie theater is always a memorable experience.

In particular, the showing for No Game No Life: Zero, where everyone in the theater booed when during the pre-movie interview they just went ahead and spoiled the plot of the movie.

Worst Experience: Christmas with the Kranks. The movie was so bad I wanted to leave immediately. I stuck through it and regret it to this day.
Best Experience: Starship Troopers. 12 years old went with my dad and best friend and when the nudity scene popped up, my friend screamed at the top of his lungs "Titties, Titties, look at the Titties". Probably my most cherished memory with him. The entire theater laughed their asses off.

I never actually had a bad one now that I think about it. Maybe its one of the benefits of living in a more rural spot in south carolina.....not too huge of a crowd to the point where it takes away from the experience.

Seeing dragon ball super broly in the theaters was fun because it was jammed pack full of dragon ball fans that was just happy being there it felt like. Doesn't matter if it was kids or adults, everyone was focused on the movie, only laughed for the genuinely funny moments (frieza getting tossed at broly on a warpath while goku and vegeta dipped, paragus getting murked), and only made a bit of noise for the most hype moments.

When me, my brother and one of his friends was getting our popcorn/mike n' ikes/nachos/whatever the dudes directly behind us just asked us who our favorite characters was. I told'em vegeta 4 life and the bro was just like "thats my dude right here" and dapped up. Those spontaneous random cool dude moments are always nice.

The first time I can remember going to a movie in theaters was with my dad when I was 5 and it was to see Batman & Robin lol. I was terrified of Bane and my dad ended up taking me to the bathroom for a few minutes until his part was over. It's probably my earliest memory that I can recall very clearly. Because of that I ended up avoiding theatres for a while.

Lots of great moments in theaters, but I can't pick out a "best" one. Generally comedies and horror movies have been great. The crowd reacting to things just makes it so much better. Like I remember The Black Phone being hilarious instead of scary, because there was this group of jumpy teenagers overreacting to everything

Worst: There was an active shooter scare in the mall and everything got locked down for about an hour. We were still able to see the movie, but we were on edge for a while.

The incident ended up being teens fighting and throwing chairs in the food court. The banging sounds from the chairs hitting the hard floor made people think they heard gunshots.

Worst was probably when I was on a date with a dude and vomited mid-way through the movie multiple times lol

I also have to add one more awesome experience. I was a younger kid still in school in 1987 and my Aunt was really wanting to go see Dirty Dancing. She decided to take me along and we went to this really old time stage theatre in my hometown that was from the 1800s that was really ornate from like the gilded age and had a balcony and they had mounted a screen up on the back of the stage and made it into a movie theatre.

That was a cool experience because the theatre was awesome and even though I was a kid I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and had a great time. I still highly enjoy Dirty Dancing to this day. I loved Jennifer Grey back then. And Patrick Swayze was coming into his prime of his acting career.

Ivany2008 posted...

Worst Experience: Christmas with the Kranks. The movie was so bad I wanted to leave immediately. I stuck through it and regret it to this day.
Best Experience: Starship Troopers. 12 years old went with my dad and best friend and when the nudity scene popped up, my friend screamed at the top of his lungs "Titties, Titties, look at the Titties". Probably my most cherished memory with him. The entire theater laughed their asses off.

That is awesome, lol

Never really had a bad experience at the movies.

The best time was probably when I was 16 and went with a couple buddies to see the first Lord of The Rings movie. We had gotten really stoned right before going in and it was fucking amazing.

Best: Live action Grinch. Got head.

I really can't remember a worst.

Lots of interesting memories you all have!

I remembered another bad experience. Orphan. There was an older couple, probably in their 60's, just a few seats away from me and the woman kept exclaiming, "Oh my god!" over and over whenever Esther was doing anything terrible. Really took me out of the moments.

Best: the shit where I did something I wasn't supposed to like theater hop or sneak into R rated movies when I was younger.

Worst:
Went to see True Lies at the drive in with a friend and his family when I was like 12. Me and my buddy sat in the bed of the pickup truck on folding chairs. Car next to us had three teenaged girls in it. During the sexy dance scene, the girl in the back was going to town on herself while occasionally looking up at us. Missed like half of the movie because I couldn't focus on anything and almost died from forgetting to breath. Now I can't even watch True Lies without having to stop. I don't even know how it ends. Does Arnold save his marriage?

Lots of good moments but one bad one stands out. In a packed theatre, a family of 4-5 pulled out a bunch of strong-smelling food. It was hard to make out all the smells to tell exactly what it was, but my guess is it included baked beans, potato salad & rotisserie chicken. I definitely saw "dad" eating from a jar of pickles and heard bags of chips all throughout the flick.

Also been near enough to smell someone changing a baby's diaper, and having to step over the used one on the way out.

best experiences:
2001 a space odyssey restoration on 70mm
showgirls on 35mm in a packed house full of drunk people who clapped every 20 seconds when something funny happened
toni erdmann with a packed house - loudest i have EVER heard a crowd laugh

worst experiences:
remake of suspiria cuz the lady sitting next to me kept chewing her ice and also the movie sucked
a girl walks home alone at night - same as the above except the ice chewer was somewhere behind me

Not sure about best, but there were technical issues with the projector when my friends family and I went to see Get Carter and it completely ruined the movie. Like it was so bad they gave everyone a refund.

Best experience: Avengers Endgame. It wasn't just a movie but a once in a lifetime fan experience. Loved reacting along with the crowd for a number of scenes.

Worst experience: Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker. The movie was good but what killed it was the lack of crowd reaction. Not even an applause at the end.

Idk about the best but whatever spiderman had the post credit scene with jk Simmons as j Jonah Jameson the entire theater erupted and it was legit amazing

worst was probably detective pikachu. I saw it on my theater and the power went out like 25 minutes in and it just sucked.

there was also this other time where this drunk dude was vaping in a packed theater and I flipped out and made his friends kick him out, and I hated that an entire theater watched me flip out. I dont remember what movie it was though

Can only really think of recent ones

Best: Parasite - whole crowd (packed) was hooting and hollerin throughout the movie

Worst: Talk to Me - some kids snuck in (super obvious) and sat next to me and my fiance. Then one of the workers came in and flashed a light on all of us for like 5 minutes of the movie trying to get them out of there. Then the same kids kept playing musical chairs trying to avoid the worker.

Best - the first Ninja Turtles movie. The theater was full and it was like one big party, everyone loving everything that happened onscreen.

Worst - going to see Ghostbusters 2, which we didn't get to see because someone threw up in the showing right before and the stench was still there so they refunded us and closed for the night

I remember seeing Scott pilgrim in the theater three times because I loved it so much, and the third time I saw it by myself. It was the first time I grew the balls to tell people to stop talking. It was me and five other people behind me in the theater, and they were talking for the first thirty minutes until I turned around and was like dudes you have to stop talking

literally ever since that day I have been fearless in theaters

Smashingpmkns posted...

Best: Parasite - whole crowd (packed) was hooting and hollerin throughout the movie

i randomly got diarrhea really bad when i first went to see this movie lol and left right before it was revealed there was some shit happening in the basement which i guess also qualifies as a terrible experience

then i went back the next day and was like 'wow i left at the exact right time before this movie got way too interesting'

RISEofCHRISTIAN posted...

Best experience: Avengers Endgame. It wasn't just a movie but a once in a lifetime fan experience. Loved reacting along with the crowd for a number of scenes.

Worst experience: Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker. The movie was good but what killed it was the lack of crowd reaction. Not even an applause at the end.

Endgame was really an insane experience. I watched it with my friends on opening night and the excitement was crazy.

Idk about best but coolest would be A Quiet Place. The theater wasn't close to packed, but I thought it was cool that for once the entirety of the audience actually respected the movie enough to stay quiet during the intense quiet moments of the movie. Then when they passed, you can literally feel everyone in the room start breathing normally and continue ruffling through their snacks.

You got served

Touch posted...

Idk about best but coolest would be A Quiet Place. The theater wasn't close to packed, but I thought it was cool that for once the entirety of the audience actually respected the movie enough to stay quiet during the intense quiet moments of the movie. Then when they passed, you can literally feel everyone in the room start breathing normally and continue ruffling through their snacks.

I'd read that that was a pretty common experience for the movie, which is great. Wish I could have been part of that experience.

brestugo posted...

Lots of good moments but one bad one stands out. In a packed theatre, a family of 4-5 pulled out a bunch of strong-smelling food. It was hard to make out all the smells to tell exactly what it was, but my guess is it included baked beans, potato salad & rotisserie chicken. I definitely saw "dad" eating from a jar of pickles and heard bags of chips all throughout the flick.

Also been near enough to smell someone changing a baby's diaper, and having to step over the used one on the way out.

lol, that's almost exactly what happened in an episode of The Boondocks

The Ring 2 was by far the worst.

GF at the time INSISTED about going to this theater in the hood because her friend worked there.

The entire movie was just people loudly shouting into their phones.
Having personal convos while trying to talk over the people on the phones.
Smoking weed.
A fight broke out at some point when we left.
There was no assigned seating at this time, so it was a free for all.
We had to sit through the Ring 2.
The place was filthy to begin with, and only got much much worse by the end.
The bathrooms were all out of order.