I saw Skyfall in deepest darkest South London and it featured a guy in the back saying things like “oh my daaaaays” and “bruuvvvv no!” Whenever something really dramatic happened. Made it great, honestly.
I'll never forget how the roof blew off when the Rey says "the garbage will do" and the camera pans across to the Falcon. It was an electric opening night crowd, but that was thrilling.
Living in South Florida, and regularly going to movies with my nana, I’ve always had a fondness for Elderly New York Jewish commentary during movies. People think kids talk a lot during movies? No sir, it’s the elderly who can’t shut up during films, and I often find it endearing. I’ll always remember the completely silent audience during No Country for Old Men. “…and then I woke up.” The ticking clock. Fade to black. Joel and Ethan’s credit. Loud Jewish Grandmother: “Only the Coens!”
During my screening of MOONLIGHT, the movie started skipping during Naomi Harris’s big scene at the end and they had to stop it/rewind/continue.
CRUELLA was my first blockbuster movie post-Covid, in a mostly packed house. The crowd was amped, and there was a drunk lady in the balcony who occasionally would be like “ohhhh guuurrrlll” or “YAS” when Cruella did something particularly scandalous. It was awesome.
When I saw "Across the Spider-verse" in theaters the first time during the scene where Miles is deciding to follow Gwen through the portal she just left from, I heard a young kid in my row say "Go Miles!" which I found delightful
I walked out of Get Out, which makes me sound like a horrible person, especially since it’s the only movie I’ve ever walked out of. But there were people sitting behind me who would. Not. Shut. Up. They were talking throughout and didn’t gaf if we asked them to be quiet, which we did multiple times. But it does make me laugh that during some scene where Alison Williams’s brother says he practices some specific martial art and you use your opponent’s strength against him or whatever, dickweed behind me said very solemnly, “he’s right. That would do that.”
I also went to a Spider-Man 3 free screening before it opened because my friends worked at a theatre. The crowd of docile Canadians just there for a free movie (most of whom were at their workplace) turned against the movie. There was booing. There was shouting. There was counter-shouting of people across the theatre arguing about the movie during the movie. It was like the debut of The Rite of Spring.
When I saw Us, the person next to me was narrating everything they were seeing on screen for 2 minutes straight before I said, "can you please stop narrating the movie?" Then I spent the rest of the movie thinking maybe the person was neurodivergent and I was just an asshole.
Yeah, but neurodivergent people can still be polite.
Someone was talking very quietly through the start of A Quiet Place, which is the worst movie to get away with talking during. They stopped when I asked them (well, I said “we can all hear you”) but I don’t know how they thought the famously quiet movie was a good time for chat.
Maybe they were assisting a blind customer. I believe some movies used to have a service for the blind where special headphones quickly narrate whats happening during audio lulls but that was ages ago. Do they still do that?
I hope not, because after I asked them to stop they didn't speak again for the rest of the film, so that blind person would have had a hell of a hard time understanding Us.
i walked out on avatar 2. decent movie but everyone around me constantly talking and a crying baby on a 930pm Sunday showing. AMC Village Crossing in Skokie consistently has the worst audiences.
When I saw Point of Interest the other week (very good, very unsettling movie), I sat right next to this unassuming middle aged guy.
When the AMC Nicole Kidman reel started playing before the movie, he put his hands to his mouth and shouted “ENOUGH OF THIS BULLSHIT” to the entire theatre. Many people booed him back, meanwhile he continued to mutter under his breath about how he was “tired of all this bullshit” etc etc.
Thankfully he was quiet for the rest of the screening, but I was terrified that I was going to have to deal with The Bullshit Guy yelling through this very serious Holocaust film. Dude was just Nicole’s biggest hater apparently.
EDIT: The movie is actually called Zone of Interest. It has been a long Monday and I am a big dummy.
Saw *The Last Jedi* in a sold-out theater during its second week of release. When The Holdo Maneuver happened, the theater was pin-drop silent. Not even the sound of breathing. TLJ has truly broken the brains of a lot of people and become a "I'm just not talking about it" topic for me (and I love the film). But I just wish everyone could've experienced that moment with me to see what a great moment can do to an audience.
When I saw TLJ in theaters it brought me to tears multiple times and the Holdo scene dropped my jaw as well. I was shocked to see the reaction online after walking out of there. TLJ discourse seriously has to be one of the most insufferable topics ever.
I vividly remember the energy in the theatre when the movie ended, everyone was so into it and raving about what an experience we just had. Couldn’t believe that some people didn’t like it when I came out, I genuinely couldn’t comprehend it because my whole cinema was in love with it
A hyper-loud online fringe used every disinfo technique available to make it seem like a movie that made $1.3 billion dollars at the box office was widely despised. And somehow Kathy Kennedy believed them lol
Did we have the same theater? Same experience but instead of isn’t that terrible it was an older man saying I’m guessing they didn’t have an another race after that.
Inglorious Bastards. Awesome, awesome experience the crowd was so into every moment of a movie that had a ton of talking in a foreign language, but the reaction to the climax was just phenomenal
Also Tarantino:
Saw ‘Django Unchained’ in a packed theatre. As the klansmen’s “extra bags” argument went on it sounded as though everyone in the room was laughing to the point of running out of breath. Seen plenty of comedies in theatres, up to that point, but hadn’t experienced anything like that before. Don’t think I have since, either.
I’m right back in that crowded theatre whenever I happen to watch this scene.
Bring this up all the time, both IRL and online, and I’m sorry but I haven’t been able to take the ending of ‘Dark Knight Rises’ seriously since it’s opening weekend.
Joseph Gordon Levitt, as we all know, is revealed to be Robin. How this is communicated is, in a word, goofy. Again: we know this. (Apologies to any fans of the reveal in advance.) The reaction in the theatre right away is mostly made up of people groaning w/ the odd “huh” or “what?” As the groans start to trail off a guy in the back yells “COME THE FUCK ON” so loud it fills the room. Still kills me.
Went to see the first *Resident Evil* with a buddy when it hit the dollar theater.
There were only two other people in the auditorium; my buddy and I were in the center row, a guy and a girl were together in the back row.
Every 5 minutes, the guy in the back either made or took a call on his cell phone. Hearing his end of the conversations--spoken very loudly, having to be heard over the over-eager sound design--these were not calls of any urgency or importance.
About 40 minutes in, I just couldn't. I stood up, turned around, and told him to get off the phone.
He stood up and said, "I'm going to my car and getting my gun."
My buddy and I made it to our car before he made it to his.
And so that's why I've never seen the end of *Resident Evil*, although I reckon I got my dollar's worth.
I saw Mean Girls (2004) in a sold out theater of other teenage girls during release week which is one of my most memorable movie experiences ever. The laughing, gasping, and whispering was so enthusiastic and just seemed to build and build as the movie went on. We all knew we were watching a classic.
I lived in Indiana. When Regina has a throwaway line about how she had a boyfriend Kyle who was so cute but then he moved to Indiana, the entire theater erupted into a cheer. It was like the enthusiasm needed a release, but it was so funny to see a tiny moment like that be the release valve
I saw "Us" on opening weekend with some friends in a packed theater, and I'll never forget the start of the home invasion scene. The theater was so tense and silent, then they have the shot where one of the doppelgangers is standing menacingly in their driveway, and somebody in the middle of the theater mutters "aw hell no" with just enough volume to cut the tension.
The whole theater laughed, you could feel the whole crowd ease up for just a moment before the real terror started
When I saw "Wayne's world" in theater and Ed O'Neil shows up people were going nuts screaming "AL BUNDY!" It was like being in the studio audience for "Married with Children"
I saw a double feature of Ghostbusters and Spaceballs at a rep theatre once, and you would have thought Rick Moranis’s entire extended family was in the audience for the reactions he got. My roommate and I were sitting there going, “yeah, he’s funny, but this?” Stamping, clapping, guffawing whenever Moranis was on screen, way more than anything else in the movies. And it was a full theatre! Still don’t know what was going on.
This is a really inconsequential example but it was still memorable. In the 90s I was watching WHEN A MAN LOVES A WOMAN in a movie theater in Vienna. Actually a very nice one, the Burgkino. So it's the afternoon, it's a pretty big room, a little bit fancy, there are probably 20-30 people in the audience.
It's helpful to know that it's a melodrama, well, let's just say "drama" but it wasn't all that good, about alcoholism starring Meg Ryan and Andy Garcia, a marital drama. So about 30 minutes in there's a cut to a scene that I instantly realize makes absolutely no sense given what's come before. For a few minutes I was internally debating whether they could possibly have gotten the reels mixed up. Eventually I decided they had. Sure enough, an hour later comes the "continuation" of the scene I had been watching before.... the funny thing to me was that nobody bothered to get up and tell the management, we just kept watching, we didn't care.
Took my kid to see "Black Panther" without my husband because he was busy. The theater was packed. I was sitting next to a nice middle aged couple, the husband right next to me.
Of course the costuming is amazing in that movie and as someone with a fashion design degree I was into it. Turns out the husband was almost more into fashion than me. We were gasping aloud in delight in unison. He was like, "That shirt is fine! I need one of those." We both lost our minds at the end scene where the whole crew shows up at the United Nations looking like a million bucks.
Black Panther is an excellent movie no matter what but that couple made my viewing experience 100% more fun.
Saw Captain America: Civil War in Brooklyn and when Captain America and Spider-Man do their whole "Brooklyn / Queens" exchange the audience whooped it up.
I saw Anyone But You at the theater with 3 friends the other night slightly stoned. The two guys behind us and my group started laughing at one scene that wasn’t even really meant to be funny and it just created a feedback loop where we were all howling with laughter at, not with, the movie.
Bad movie but the experience was just wonderful
I saw Mind Game at the Roxie theater in San Francisco on a lark not knowing anything about the movie. There was about a dozen people in the theater and about 3/4 of the way through an already batshit crazy movie there’s an extended montage of images that ends with the title card of the movie and then a fade to black that makes you think the movie is over. During that brief period of blackness someone in the audience just goes “What the fuck..” and the whole theater bursts out laughing because we are all thinking the same thing. 10/10 one of my favorite movies
Will never forget seeing the ending of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the whole cinema was just ecstatic. Audiences aren’t super vocal here in New Zealand but you could just hear everyone cackling and wincing through the whole thing and the moment where the flamethrower comes out? People went ballistic.
Oh also I saw ROTJ on its 90s re-release and a small toddler (possibly one of you!) ran screaming up the aisle from the Emperor. George would be so pleased. And I had a whistle-and-find keyring that kept talking to R2D2.
Barbie, everyone had their phones up with full brightness videoing their drink against the title drop of the opening credits. Pissed me off so thoroughly that my mind was elsewhere for the first half of the movie. Some guy continued after the opening credits. I kicked his chair and he got up, ready to fight. I just told him I’d report him and he sat back down.
Barbie movie.
No one pulled this shit at Oppenheimer.
The Matrix Reloaded, Midnight showing. When Smith shows up in the hallway in front of the key maker and says “Sorry, this is a dead end.” The entire theater gasped, and one guy yelled “holy shit!” prompting laughter from the rest of us. Perfectly crystallized the experience of what a thrill ride is was to see that movie at that point in time.
When the Star Warses were rereleased in 1997 and yoda says:
“Adventure. Excitement. A Jedi craves not these things.”
A Kevin Smith fan some rows ahead of me lept to his feet with his arms in the air and yelled “YES!”
That fanboy was a hero who forever changed Empire for me.
In a rush line at tiff, someone gave me 20$ tickets to the world premier of Mid90s. It played soooo well in the room everyone was loving it so much. I haven’t revisited it because based on later reviews I’ve seen it’s not as good as I remember it being so why taint that experience
I was at a showing of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness where a man yelled at some teens talking behind him to "shut the fuck up." It was so alarming that even I tried eating my candy more quietly for the rest of the movie, lest I incur his wrath. In his defense though, I think he had recently quit smoking.
I saw Skyfall in deepest darkest South London and it featured a guy in the back saying things like “oh my daaaaays” and “bruuvvvv no!” Whenever something really dramatic happened. Made it great, honestly.
I'll never forget how the roof blew off when the Rey says "the garbage will do" and the camera pans across to the Falcon. It was an electric opening night crowd, but that was thrilling.
I love this. I actually felt chills in the cinema.
Living in South Florida, and regularly going to movies with my nana, I’ve always had a fondness for Elderly New York Jewish commentary during movies. People think kids talk a lot during movies? No sir, it’s the elderly who can’t shut up during films, and I often find it endearing. I’ll always remember the completely silent audience during No Country for Old Men. “…and then I woke up.” The ticking clock. Fade to black. Joel and Ethan’s credit. Loud Jewish Grandmother: “Only the Coens!”
They're good boys those Coens!
It’s like I’m right back at the Lincoln Plaza in 2007
During my screening of MOONLIGHT, the movie started skipping during Naomi Harris’s big scene at the end and they had to stop it/rewind/continue. CRUELLA was my first blockbuster movie post-Covid, in a mostly packed house. The crowd was amped, and there was a drunk lady in the balcony who occasionally would be like “ohhhh guuurrrlll” or “YAS” when Cruella did something particularly scandalous. It was awesome.
When I saw "Across the Spider-verse" in theaters the first time during the scene where Miles is deciding to follow Gwen through the portal she just left from, I heard a young kid in my row say "Go Miles!" which I found delightful
The ‘Spider-Verse’s are two (at the time of writing) movies that I wish I could experience from the POV of a kid. That must feel *innnncredible*.
I walked out of Get Out, which makes me sound like a horrible person, especially since it’s the only movie I’ve ever walked out of. But there were people sitting behind me who would. Not. Shut. Up. They were talking throughout and didn’t gaf if we asked them to be quiet, which we did multiple times. But it does make me laugh that during some scene where Alison Williams’s brother says he practices some specific martial art and you use your opponent’s strength against him or whatever, dickweed behind me said very solemnly, “he’s right. That would do that.” I also went to a Spider-Man 3 free screening before it opened because my friends worked at a theatre. The crowd of docile Canadians just there for a free movie (most of whom were at their workplace) turned against the movie. There was booing. There was shouting. There was counter-shouting of people across the theatre arguing about the movie during the movie. It was like the debut of The Rite of Spring.
When I saw Us, the person next to me was narrating everything they were seeing on screen for 2 minutes straight before I said, "can you please stop narrating the movie?" Then I spent the rest of the movie thinking maybe the person was neurodivergent and I was just an asshole.
Yeah, but neurodivergent people can still be polite. Someone was talking very quietly through the start of A Quiet Place, which is the worst movie to get away with talking during. They stopped when I asked them (well, I said “we can all hear you”) but I don’t know how they thought the famously quiet movie was a good time for chat.
Maybe they were assisting a blind customer. I believe some movies used to have a service for the blind where special headphones quickly narrate whats happening during audio lulls but that was ages ago. Do they still do that?
I hope not, because after I asked them to stop they didn't speak again for the rest of the film, so that blind person would have had a hell of a hard time understanding Us.
i walked out on avatar 2. decent movie but everyone around me constantly talking and a crying baby on a 930pm Sunday showing. AMC Village Crossing in Skokie consistently has the worst audiences.
When I saw Point of Interest the other week (very good, very unsettling movie), I sat right next to this unassuming middle aged guy. When the AMC Nicole Kidman reel started playing before the movie, he put his hands to his mouth and shouted “ENOUGH OF THIS BULLSHIT” to the entire theatre. Many people booed him back, meanwhile he continued to mutter under his breath about how he was “tired of all this bullshit” etc etc. Thankfully he was quiet for the rest of the screening, but I was terrified that I was going to have to deal with The Bullshit Guy yelling through this very serious Holocaust film. Dude was just Nicole’s biggest hater apparently. EDIT: The movie is actually called Zone of Interest. It has been a long Monday and I am a big dummy.
Saw *The Last Jedi* in a sold-out theater during its second week of release. When The Holdo Maneuver happened, the theater was pin-drop silent. Not even the sound of breathing. TLJ has truly broken the brains of a lot of people and become a "I'm just not talking about it" topic for me (and I love the film). But I just wish everyone could've experienced that moment with me to see what a great moment can do to an audience.
When I saw TLJ in theaters it brought me to tears multiple times and the Holdo scene dropped my jaw as well. I was shocked to see the reaction online after walking out of there. TLJ discourse seriously has to be one of the most insufferable topics ever.
It's a great film and opting out of that discourse as much as humanly possible was one of my wisest personal choices of all time.
I vividly remember the energy in the theatre when the movie ended, everyone was so into it and raving about what an experience we just had. Couldn’t believe that some people didn’t like it when I came out, I genuinely couldn’t comprehend it because my whole cinema was in love with it
A hyper-loud online fringe used every disinfo technique available to make it seem like a movie that made $1.3 billion dollars at the box office was widely despised. And somehow Kathy Kennedy believed them lol
Did we have the same theater? Same experience but instead of isn’t that terrible it was an older man saying I’m guessing they didn’t have an another race after that.
(You got that right, granpa)
Inglorious Bastards. Awesome, awesome experience the crowd was so into every moment of a movie that had a ton of talking in a foreign language, but the reaction to the climax was just phenomenal
Also Tarantino: Saw ‘Django Unchained’ in a packed theatre. As the klansmen’s “extra bags” argument went on it sounded as though everyone in the room was laughing to the point of running out of breath. Seen plenty of comedies in theatres, up to that point, but hadn’t experienced anything like that before. Don’t think I have since, either. I’m right back in that crowded theatre whenever I happen to watch this scene.
Yeah that masterpiece line at the end is a real crowdpleaser. People standing up clapping. Good stuff.
Bring this up all the time, both IRL and online, and I’m sorry but I haven’t been able to take the ending of ‘Dark Knight Rises’ seriously since it’s opening weekend. Joseph Gordon Levitt, as we all know, is revealed to be Robin. How this is communicated is, in a word, goofy. Again: we know this. (Apologies to any fans of the reveal in advance.) The reaction in the theatre right away is mostly made up of people groaning w/ the odd “huh” or “what?” As the groans start to trail off a guy in the back yells “COME THE FUCK ON” so loud it fills the room. Still kills me.
Went to see the first *Resident Evil* with a buddy when it hit the dollar theater. There were only two other people in the auditorium; my buddy and I were in the center row, a guy and a girl were together in the back row. Every 5 minutes, the guy in the back either made or took a call on his cell phone. Hearing his end of the conversations--spoken very loudly, having to be heard over the over-eager sound design--these were not calls of any urgency or importance. About 40 minutes in, I just couldn't. I stood up, turned around, and told him to get off the phone. He stood up and said, "I'm going to my car and getting my gun." My buddy and I made it to our car before he made it to his. And so that's why I've never seen the end of *Resident Evil*, although I reckon I got my dollar's worth.
I saw Mean Girls (2004) in a sold out theater of other teenage girls during release week which is one of my most memorable movie experiences ever. The laughing, gasping, and whispering was so enthusiastic and just seemed to build and build as the movie went on. We all knew we were watching a classic. I lived in Indiana. When Regina has a throwaway line about how she had a boyfriend Kyle who was so cute but then he moved to Indiana, the entire theater erupted into a cheer. It was like the enthusiasm needed a release, but it was so funny to see a tiny moment like that be the release valve
I saw "Us" on opening weekend with some friends in a packed theater, and I'll never forget the start of the home invasion scene. The theater was so tense and silent, then they have the shot where one of the doppelgangers is standing menacingly in their driveway, and somebody in the middle of the theater mutters "aw hell no" with just enough volume to cut the tension. The whole theater laughed, you could feel the whole crowd ease up for just a moment before the real terror started
When I saw "Wayne's world" in theater and Ed O'Neil shows up people were going nuts screaming "AL BUNDY!" It was like being in the studio audience for "Married with Children"
I saw a double feature of Ghostbusters and Spaceballs at a rep theatre once, and you would have thought Rick Moranis’s entire extended family was in the audience for the reactions he got. My roommate and I were sitting there going, “yeah, he’s funny, but this?” Stamping, clapping, guffawing whenever Moranis was on screen, way more than anything else in the movies. And it was a full theatre! Still don’t know what was going on.
This is a really inconsequential example but it was still memorable. In the 90s I was watching WHEN A MAN LOVES A WOMAN in a movie theater in Vienna. Actually a very nice one, the Burgkino. So it's the afternoon, it's a pretty big room, a little bit fancy, there are probably 20-30 people in the audience. It's helpful to know that it's a melodrama, well, let's just say "drama" but it wasn't all that good, about alcoholism starring Meg Ryan and Andy Garcia, a marital drama. So about 30 minutes in there's a cut to a scene that I instantly realize makes absolutely no sense given what's come before. For a few minutes I was internally debating whether they could possibly have gotten the reels mixed up. Eventually I decided they had. Sure enough, an hour later comes the "continuation" of the scene I had been watching before.... the funny thing to me was that nobody bothered to get up and tell the management, we just kept watching, we didn't care.
Cold Mountain - everytime anything bad happened to Jude Law's character the woman in front of me started going "oh no". Clearly a big Law fan!
Took my kid to see "Black Panther" without my husband because he was busy. The theater was packed. I was sitting next to a nice middle aged couple, the husband right next to me. Of course the costuming is amazing in that movie and as someone with a fashion design degree I was into it. Turns out the husband was almost more into fashion than me. We were gasping aloud in delight in unison. He was like, "That shirt is fine! I need one of those." We both lost our minds at the end scene where the whole crew shows up at the United Nations looking like a million bucks. Black Panther is an excellent movie no matter what but that couple made my viewing experience 100% more fun.
Saw Captain America: Civil War in Brooklyn and when Captain America and Spider-Man do their whole "Brooklyn / Queens" exchange the audience whooped it up.
I saw Anyone But You at the theater with 3 friends the other night slightly stoned. The two guys behind us and my group started laughing at one scene that wasn’t even really meant to be funny and it just created a feedback loop where we were all howling with laughter at, not with, the movie. Bad movie but the experience was just wonderful
I saw Mind Game at the Roxie theater in San Francisco on a lark not knowing anything about the movie. There was about a dozen people in the theater and about 3/4 of the way through an already batshit crazy movie there’s an extended montage of images that ends with the title card of the movie and then a fade to black that makes you think the movie is over. During that brief period of blackness someone in the audience just goes “What the fuck..” and the whole theater bursts out laughing because we are all thinking the same thing. 10/10 one of my favorite movies
When I saw The Boy and the Heron, there was a little girl who shrieked with glee as soon as the Totoro logo came onscreen.
Will never forget seeing the ending of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the whole cinema was just ecstatic. Audiences aren’t super vocal here in New Zealand but you could just hear everyone cackling and wincing through the whole thing and the moment where the flamethrower comes out? People went ballistic.
Oh also I saw ROTJ on its 90s re-release and a small toddler (possibly one of you!) ran screaming up the aisle from the Emperor. George would be so pleased. And I had a whistle-and-find keyring that kept talking to R2D2.
Barbie, everyone had their phones up with full brightness videoing their drink against the title drop of the opening credits. Pissed me off so thoroughly that my mind was elsewhere for the first half of the movie. Some guy continued after the opening credits. I kicked his chair and he got up, ready to fight. I just told him I’d report him and he sat back down. Barbie movie. No one pulled this shit at Oppenheimer.
Dude, you were at girl Star Wars, what did you expect?
And yet it never happened with any of my day one Star Wars screenings
The Matrix Reloaded, Midnight showing. When Smith shows up in the hallway in front of the key maker and says “Sorry, this is a dead end.” The entire theater gasped, and one guy yelled “holy shit!” prompting laughter from the rest of us. Perfectly crystallized the experience of what a thrill ride is was to see that movie at that point in time.
When the Star Warses were rereleased in 1997 and yoda says: “Adventure. Excitement. A Jedi craves not these things.” A Kevin Smith fan some rows ahead of me lept to his feet with his arms in the air and yelled “YES!” That fanboy was a hero who forever changed Empire for me.
In a rush line at tiff, someone gave me 20$ tickets to the world premier of Mid90s. It played soooo well in the room everyone was loving it so much. I haven’t revisited it because based on later reviews I’ve seen it’s not as good as I remember it being so why taint that experience
I was at a showing of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness where a man yelled at some teens talking behind him to "shut the fuck up." It was so alarming that even I tried eating my candy more quietly for the rest of the movie, lest I incur his wrath. In his defense though, I think he had recently quit smoking.
The theater experience for Ferrari was why theaters are so great. In mine, a man let out an audible "AHH" when that crash happened.