For no particular reason, I usually find myself on the right side of any theater. I like to sit somewhere near the middle of the room. An aisle seat, if available. And I'm not a huge fan of the first two or three rows, but I can comfortably watch a movie pretty much anywhere else in the house.
Long ago in my teens when I was the indoor ticket-taker/usher/janitor at a one-screen theater that small towns had back then, I used to watch theater-goers as they went up the entry aisle to the back wall of the screening room at which point they had to turn either right or left to go to their seats. I observed at that time that most people turn to the right. Because most people are right-handed. That's especially true if they have to open a door to enter the theater. Turn right and your right hand is already reaching for the door handle. Turn left and you have to extend your right hand so that opening the door is more awkward.
Therefore, there are usually fewer people on the left side of the theater which provides a better choice of seats. Because theaters are so small now, I like seats at the end of the aisle so I can stretch out my legs. Back before the multi-screen theaters, the the floor of the screening room sloped downward from the back to the front. Little kids generally sat down front away from their parents and tended to talk and throw popcorn boxes. Teens sat in the middle, and adults sat toward the back. Today it's all changed around--you usually enter the screening room of a multi-plex down near the front and have to climb stairs to get further from the screen. Now the older you are and the more your knees ache, the closer you sit to the front. If I can get a seat on that cross-walk row where there are no seats immediately in front of you so you don't have to crawl over people to reach your seat or have them crawl over you, then I'm a happy viewer.
Truth to tell, though, my very favorite movie "seat" ever was 50 years ago in the backseat of my old Ford on the last row of a drive-in where no one was likely to walk up unexpectedly on you and your girlfriend. Now my favorite movie seat is a lounger in the living room or the bed in the bedroom where you can stretch out, pause the film if you have to go to the kitchen or toilet, and doze off if the movie doesn't hold your intrest.
Most uncomfortable movie "seat" I ever experienced was the first time I saw
The Wizard of Oz at a kiddie matinee. The theater manager way over-sold tickets to that showing, so that it was litterally standing room only when I got into the small-town theater. So they put me, my little brother, and at least 50 other kids upon the small stage at the foot of the screen that theaters used to have. We were so close that we practically had to lay on our backs to see the screen at all, and even then you see the whole screen at once. Had to view the movie a section at a time--look over here to see Dorothy, look over there to see who she was talking to. The loud sound just rumbled out of the speakers, and between that and the eye-strain, I had the damnest headache afterward. Never have cared too much about
Oz since then.
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