When I was a young teenager, I loved going to the movies. Every weekend I would check which films were in theaters and buy tickets for the one that sounded most interesting. I would even see the same film multiple times in theaters, finding as many people to go with me as possible. It was, and still is, one of my favorite things to do. Unfortunately, I only went to the movie theater four times in 2024, and I am attempting to rectify that error this year — but this isn’t something that only I have experienced. Many people have been going to the movies less in recent years, and some are starting to worry that the era of the movie theater might be coming to an end.
The decline of the movie theater has been going on for many years, but there is one event that happened to speed up the process: the COVID-19 pandemic. When quarantine first started, no one had any idea how long it would last. With people spending the greater part of a year in lockdown, it was inevitable that an industry so reliant on in-person attendance would struggle. Movie theaters were virtually out of business during this time and have since failed to regain their former glory.
While movie theaters suffered tremendously from quarantine, the opposite was true for streaming services. Everyone being stuck at home unable to watch films in theaters meant that streaming services had more business than ever before. The concept of home viewing was still taking off when the pandemic first hit, with Disney+ and Apple TV+ launching in late 2019. Once quarantine started, there was a surge in streaming sites from companies who saw the opportunity ahead of them. HBO Max (now called Max) launched in May of 2020, Peacock launched a few months later in July and Paramount+ launched in March of 2021. This is no coincidence — the companies knew how to capitalize on a newly housebound audience. And once the audiences got used to streaming, it quickly became their new normal.
As lockdown requirements lifted, people were still largely uncomfortable with gathering in public places, especially ones as tight and enclosed as movie theaters. Streaming services were on the rise with no signs of slowing down. Eventually, films going straight to streaming without a theatrical release became more common. “Glass Onion,” the highly anticipated sequel to “Knives Out” (2019), had a one-week theatrical run in November 2021 before it was released on Netflix that December.
With so many films available at their fingertips, audiences who would have otherwise gone out to the movie theaters began to skip out on theatrical releases and wait for the streaming release. Quarantine is now nearly four years behind us, and movie theaters are still not receiving anything close to the turnouts they once had for most films that are showing.
In recent years, we’ve also been seeing a decline in the separation between theatrical and digital releases for mainstream films. Where audiences would once have to wait months or even a year for a film to be released digitally, the wait can now be as little as a couple of weeks. A recent example of this is the film “Companion,” which was released in theaters Jan. 31 and was available to buy or rent on select sites as soon as Feb. 18. Some films are even released theatrically and digitally on the same day.
If the gap between releases is becoming non-existent, what reason do people have to go to movie theaters?
While there has certainly been a visible decline in movie-going since 2020, there have been several notable films that have managed to bring sizable audiences back to theaters. Perhaps the biggest example of this was the phenomenon known as “Barbenheimer,” the nickname given to the simultaneous release of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer.”
Barbenheimer quickly became a staple of pop culture in the summer of 2023, with audiences creating memes out of the two seemingly opposite films being released on the same day. Eventually, the joke became an incredible marketing strategy. People started planning to see both movies on the same day, arguing over which one would be better to watch first, coordinating outfits to be pink or black and making an entire day out of it. Audiences came to see both films in droves, causing “Barbie” to gross over 1 billion dollars worldwide and “Oppenheimer” to gross nearly the same amount.
The success of Barbenheimer was a much needed spark of hope for the movie theater industry, although there are fears that it was a one-time achievement that no film will be able to reach in the near future. Still, there is a possibility that movie theaters can be saved and people can be reminded of how magical theaters truly are.
The concept of not having to leave the comfort of your home to watch a film is certainly enticing, but the atmosphere of a movie theater cannot be replicated. I love hearing the reactions of people around me and their initial thoughts as the credits roll. I love how you can feel a sense of community without really having to talk to those around you. I love the smell of popcorn and hearing the laughter and screams from other theaters.
Of course, movie theaters are not perfect and have a few issues of their own — COVID-19 is still a real danger and prices are constantly increasing — but I can only hope that one day movie theaters will return to their prime.
To quote Nicole Kidman’s iconic AMC ad, “We come to this place for magic.”
Contact Izzy Shotwell at shotwell@oxy.edu
