Our Favorite Theatergoing Experiences of the 21st Century

 
 

By Cinema Sugar

As part of our Top 50 Movies of the 21st Century project, we also considered our favorite theatergoing experiences from the last 25 years. Here are the ones that have stuck with us the most.


Justin Bower:

  • Seeing the 20th Anniversary screening of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King with my wife

  • Scream-crying at Avengers: Endgame with a sold-out crowd

  • Experiencing The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug with my father and brother

  • Seeing 1917 in the summer with my girlfriend

  • My first in-theater memory is seeing Speed Racer (I was horrified by the piranhas)

Chad Comello:

  • Seeing Toy Story 3 with college friends right after graduation

  • Dressing up with high school friends to see Ocean’s Twelve

  • Seeing Her with my then-girlfriend (now wife) and discussing it afterward

  • Going blindly into—and getting blindsided by—The LEGO Movie

  • Getting sucked into the whirlwind of The Florida Project

Kevin Prchal:

  • Seeing Top Gun: Maverick with my dad and wiping away our tears with the rest of the emotional dads in the bathroom afterwards

  • My return to the theater to see Dune: Part One after 2 ½ years away due to COVID-19 

  • My wife and I being dumbstruck by Coco and sitting in our seats long after the credits rolled, so as to not break its emotional spell

  • Catching an impromptu 30th anniversary screening of Pulp Fiction while in Boston where I ordered a $5 milkshake

  • Barbenheimer opening night where I choked back tears at the sight of a full movie theater parking lot on a Friday night again

Bryan Wawzenek:

  • The Dark Knight in IMAX

  • Walk Hard preview followed by John C. Reilly as Dewey Cox

  • Bridesmaids with a raucous, majority-female audience

  • Ratatouille with live orchestra playing the score

  • Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny with my son

Natalie Pohorski:

  • The Dark Knight on opening night with my film school friends, deciding we would never make a movie as good as that

  • Everything Everywhere All At Once on a date, after which we were both weeping and mutually agreed to break up

  • Experiencing the beauty of Hoyte van Hoytema’s cinematography and expansive Dolby Atmos audio experience of Nope in IMAX 

  • An early screening of The Cabin in the Woods, which was so unexpected and wonderful that my jaw never left the floor

  • Insidious with a friend at the dollar theater in La Mirada, CA, where I cried three times out of sheer terror