where do everyone watch their movies at?

home or theater?

Home. No theaters close, apart from one, mostly focused on the latest family-friendly blockbusters, often dubbed in french. For other cinemas, I have to buy a train ticket to bigger towns.

Also a home projector made cinemas less crucial to me. I don't like watching films with people eating popcorn (popcorn is a circus thing, for me), I don't like intermissions, I don't like crowds getting up and leaving during the film credits, or such little annoyances. I still consider a theater as the best place to see a movie despite these things, but I mean, on balance, a home projector is a good alternative.

Also, as I've become quite a loner in the last two years (and I really really don't see this going the other way in the future), most theaters around have become haunted by memories that distract from the movies (and I don't really see these going away either).

Now I don't always project all films on the wall. It depends. Some require a big screen (you won't watch a Sergio Leone or a David Lean on your smartphone, no matter what the 5G industry insists you dream of), some can go on a computer screen, or even a tablet for a direct transition to sleep. Depends on the style, the genre... and the quality.

But let's say that viewing conditions are always an important aspect to me, and that I can hold out on a film for years if I'm unable to provide the ones it seems to deserve.

Ha, I’m jealous!

A committed loner myself, but I still find the cinema experience worthwhile. As an insomniac, I pick the most ridiculous times when the theatre is empty, so the popcorn crunching isn’t an issue.

Even before the pandemic, by virtue of economics, most of the movies I'd watch would be at home. (I'd go to the movies every 1-2 weeks during the summer, less often during the early part of the year, with a flurry of additional trips during TIFF.) That being said, while I used to be pretty indifferent between the two (a trip to the movies was a social outing more than anything), I've come around to preferring the theatre experience in certain cases. Obviously, certain technically commanding works benefit from being seen on the big screen, but I also think certain movies benefit from being seen with a properly enthusiastic crowd. One of my favourite theatre experiences was getting to see The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter during a Shaw Brothers retrospective, and at the conclusion of one particularly impressive action scene, hearing the entire audience go silent and then burst into applause. You can't replicate that at home.


I will note that the vast majority of audiences I've seen movies with have been well behaved and that I have the added benefit of living in a city with a good arthouse/repertory theatre and a film festival.

Mostly through the neighbours' curtains but sadly I think they are beginning to have their suspicions so I may have to travel a little further afield, even to the next street perhaps, in the not too distant future.

Does it count as watching through their windows if you're filming as you watch?


Asking for a friend.

I count it. Unless of course you turn out to be a spy for Interpol in which case I wouldn't have a clue I'm afraid, not something I've ever considered.

Yes, one reason to prefer theaters is that they pull the curtains on their own.

Actually I'm lucky to have a direct, slightly top-down view on the neighbors tv, which is oriented to fill the size of their window. But there's hardly ever anything interesting on it, apparently they mostly use it to show cartoons to their toddler.

I have to find a more powerful universal remote.

online and sometimes at the cinemas with some friends

Spying on people for the cops? I would never.

Crazy.. I was just going to create a poll or ask this question. I'm listening to an interview of Pauline Kael, and how movies aren't the same when you're not watching in the theater. She mentions audience reactions, etc., but I always think of commercials, or the kids crying, phone ringing, people on the internet.. Yeah, you can hear, but you're not comprehending. For this reason, I won't watch a movie with commercials, and would never watch a movie with another person.


I would guess 99% of movies are NOT watched in theaters.

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My bad, I forgot cops don't have friends.

I usually just tail behind minivans and watch whatever is playing in the back seat.

Home. I very rarely go to theaters.

That's how accidents happen. Keep your eyes on the road, please.

cough, cough....sneeze: Home!

Don't worry, I always keep one eye on the road. The other eye I keep on the minivan. It's effective multitasking.

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Mostly at Home with multiple trips to the local cinema.

In the Before Times, definitely a theater for new movies, since then, whatever at home, until recently. Lately, however, with caution and needles in our arms, we are emerging from our shelters back to fairly empty theaters. I'm lucky enough to have several local theaters that show movies that are not just the cineplex blockbusters, are fun places to be with nearby food and seem like a night out downtown. Once is right next to the train station, so trains are coming and going, there's bright lights and it actually seems like a night out, something very welcome to a guy like me who's spent most of his life in the city and always loving it.

Pre-Covid I would try to watch almost every release that interested me in the theaters.


Now I'm only watching at home until my kid can get vaccinated.


Definitely miss the cinema.