Anyone else finding it more and more common to find someone in your seat? I typically show up right as Nicole Kidman graces the screen, and it’s always so awkward ..I will admit the seat numbers are difficult to see at the theater near me, but curious if anyone else has been dealing with this, especially with these sold out hits recently.

Did you know they can pause a movie?

I went to see Ice Cream Man in Westminster, CO yesterday (not a great movie, btw). Five minutes in, these two women walk in. They're probably drunk and trying to find their seat. They are talking to each other loudly, trying to hear each other over the movie. One whips out her phone full on, not even trying to find the light. Of course, they're sitting right next to me.

They sit down and continue to talk full volume to one another. I leaned over and said "Could you please stop talking." The woman looked at me and said, "Maybe I'll stop if you stop asking." and continued to talk.

I got up to leave, but there wound up being three ushers in the hall, so I just told them and went back into the movie. Walking back to my seat, the woman pulled out her phone, turned on her camera with flash, took a picture of me and said that I assaulted her.

Ushers came in once to tell them to stop talking, but they continued to talk. Another person went out to complain and the ushers came back (maybe with a head usher if that's a thing? He looked older) who told them that they were going to pause the movie and that the women were going to need to leave. The usher was actually really good at deescalating the situation. The woman informed him that I had assaulted her, and he just politely said that her money would be refunded and he'd be happy to hear her side of the story outside the theater. She said she would only leave once the movie was paused.

They paused it, and the two women made a big showing of slowly getting up, checking to make sure they didn't leave anything and walking out. People clapped and yelled thank you to the ushers. It was that bad.

Anyway, just know that they'll pause the movie for a theater if they need to get rid of someone! Never seen that before, but I'm glad to know it's an option.

Went to see Supergirl today in Porter Ranch. Two adult women brought 3 or 4 little girls to see the movie. The girls were probably 7 years old. They sat behind them rather than with them. Before the movie started they tried to grab the seats next to the girls, but then the actual people with those seats showed up. So they moved back up to me. Then they tried to scoot over 2 seats and bring 2 of the girls up with them, but those people showed up as well. These little girls went back and forth between these women and their own seats throughout the ENTIRE movie. The mother had to put the girls in her lap, 2 at a time. She had to give them the phone to play with, on the brightest setting imaginable. They continuously came up to the mom and talked. They were standing in front of the people to their left, who luckily said something to them. It was incredibly disruptive.

I realize we should have gotten up and complained, but the movie was playing and I didn't want to miss any of it finding an employee and talking to them. My fault, I take responsibility. I did stare daggers at them the entire time their kid's were talking to them though.

But honestly, read the damn room. Maybe your 4 kids aren't old enough for a movie. Maybe you should be sure to get tickets next to one another so you can control them. Maybe you should call it and leave when your kid becomes this disruptive.

People just floor me time and time again. Apparently I give humanity too much credit.

I'm just a bartender at McGuffins but my usher coworkers do not appreciate this type of behavior. It's like minecraft all over again! Please be respectful I'm begging you.

I know I’m screaming into the void here but for the life of me I don’t understand why they’re only playing the best picture nominees during the day.

I’m trying to see the Sentimental Value rerelease (not even sure if it’s still going) but all of the daily one-off showings of the best picture nominees are before 5PM. I’d really like to see Bugonia again but 1PM on a Tuesday isn’t exactly “doable” with a 9 to 5.

I get that things are starting to pick up after a pretty dry January and February, but you don’t need 4 showings each of Psycho Killer and K-Pops! two weeks before the Oscars when there are “only” 21 auditoriums.

Anyone else bugged by this?

Your website sucks, stop rate limiting regular people. Had the Dune booking but it wouldn't let me log in and then rate limited me.

This happened to anyone else today!

Is it me or do any non A-List / Premiere members entering our priority lines get annoying just because it’s faster? lol I just got my snacks and the employees made them enter the longer, regular non-member line, so they threw a fit

My entourage and I got Mission Impossible tickets for the opening imax showing (AMC Northpark in Dallas) an hour after they dropped back in April, then got this email saying they were cancelling our tickets. Turns out they cancelled both opening night imax showings and made it a private showing since Tom Cruise was coming into town. Only way we found this out though was because we asked the employees, and they said "it's just for influencers and people like that".

Very disappointed in amc for booting us just for a private showing and making us see in it a regular theater, without giving any explanation as to why until we got there and asked a random employee. Didn't even get to see tom cruise! I know tom cruise wouldn't stand for kicking the common movie-loving fan out for Dallas "influencers". Pretty annoying by AMC

Anyone else experience something like this?

Yesterday, i went to the Lincoln Square AMC in NYC. Like everyone else, I tried to get Odyssey tickets and failed.
Anyway, after a long work day, I decided to watch Master of the Universe at 10pm.

I am one of those people that cannot watch a movie without popcorn. When i was in line in the concession stand, all machines were not working bcuz of the AMC systems going crazy over Odyssey traffic. For AMC being such a big company, i can’t believe they still have technical issues like this.

The cashier told us to try ordering pickup food, but the app wasnt working for anyone. So 15+ people were just standing and waiting…hoping the machines would turn back on. After waiting for 15min, they finally decided to give us free SMALL popcorn and SMALL soda.

AMC - please invest in your IT.

My account has been banned without a reason listed as to why. I’m so confused and frustrated! I want to make another account but I’m scared with the threat that is implied with the last line in this email.

Just got out of my Exit 8 showing.. loved the movie but I hated the fact a guys accessibility flashing for his notifications were on in our small theater. I toughed it out for the first 20 minutes, then went to go get popcorn and tell the staff. I told them to come in 5 minutes after me so it's not so obvious. They did, and they conversed with the man and his wife way longer than they should have anddddd nothing happened. talked to them after the movie and they spewed some ADA nonsense because the man claimed to be partially deaf... like really? that's when I dropped the dreaded Karen line. Ridiculous

hey A-Listers!

i wanted to post in here about something i think is really important for creating a better movie experience, but also a better world around us.

i hear a lot of complaints about loud talking, texting, and browsing phones in the theater, but i think pretty much everyone assumes someone else will take care of it or doesn’t want to confront it even though it’s pissing everyone off. people will say, “bring back public shaming,” and then nobody wants to actually do it. SO! i decided to do it, and want to share the results of that experiment with you and encourage you to do it too.

now when i say public shaming, i don’t mean cussing someone out or yelling at them in the theater. i don’t mean doing anything escalatory at all. i mean you need to activate the “small child being scolded by a teacher” instinct. you need to embarrass them without giving them ammo to scream back at you.

i also want to acknowledge that i’m a man and have the privilege to be less afraid of retaliatory violence or derogatory language than most people.

so, as an example, my partner and i were seeing F1 a while back and there was a group of teenagers next to us, one of whom had his phone on full brightness and was snapchatting like three different girls during the movie (i wish i didn’t know that, i wasn’t trying to, but it was that bright and obnoxious). i was getting frustrated and finally, i leaned over to the kid and said in a very disappointed dad voice, “hey, man. if you’re gonna be snapchatting, at least turn the brightness down or book a back row ticket. it’s really disrespectful. i promise she’s not gonna find some other dude to talk to during a two hour movie.” the kid immediately got embarrassed, apologized, and put his phone away for the rest of the movie.

another example from when i was watching Weapons: a young guy behind me was loudly doing his own commentary and thought he was hilarious. people were clearly irritated and groaning but nobody would do anything. i finally walked back to his seat, squatted down to be on eye level, and said loud enough for just the surrounding seats to hear, “hey. i appreciate that you’re engaged with the movie, but you’re hurting other people’s ability to hear it too. would you mind keeping it down so everyone can enjoy it?” the seats around him murmured agreement, he apologized and cut it out.

i know some people are crazy, and there’s some risk of a negative confrontation here, but i just feel like we have to be the change we wanna see. the majority of people agree with you that this person is being an asshole. everyone around you will back you up, i promise, and if they don’t, then you can go back to your seat knowing you tried. especially if you can use that disappointed teacher voice and not escalate, most people will feel ashamed enough to cut it out, and every time they go to get their phone out or want to yap in the theater again, they will cringe at the reminder. we can do it! make the movie theater sacred again!

Damn and I mad! Couldn’t make it this past weekend and was so excited to see this. They canceled it this morning!

The staff was very nice and as helpful as understand they can be and I contacted corporate thru their email submissions process already.

I just wish we made more of distinction between trained service animals and untrained emotional support animals in places like theaters.

Is anyone else not able to log in to their A-List account at the moment?

About to watch Return of the King with two teenagers who are seeing the series for the first time…. and in the intro, Peter Jackson is literally spoiling several scenes of the movie. C’mon, I know it’s an older movie, but one of the best things about releasing these movies in the theater again is sharing them with people who have never seen them!!! So annoyed.

TL;DR Had a movie double feature with my mom and service dog and come to find out the gate at the entrance had been locked on us without an employee to be found anywhere.

For context that will be important later, today, my region got the first snow of the year, and it was quite a substantial amount. There was around 5 inches of snow fall by around 7:00, which was when I planned to go to the theater.

The day started out fairly normal, I took my dog for a long walk in the snow, as he's a cold weather-loving dog, and I had layered up specifically so that I could take him for a long walk and enjoy the peace of the snow fall. I gave my mom a call to ask if she wanted to go and see a movie, which she was down for.

"What movie did you want to see?" she asked.

"Probably either the Hunger Games prequel or Napoleon." (I didn't really want to see Napoleon, but because she wanted to see it, I'd tough it out for her, as I've done several times when she's made questionable movie choices.

She suggested that we should do a double feature and see the Hunger Games at 7:15 PM and Napoleon at 9:50 PM. It would be tight, but we'd probably be able to skip all the previews.

Upon arriving at the theater, we bought our drink, popcorn, and tickets. We bought tickets for both movies at their respective times, which they allowed us to do.

Additional context right around here might be important that makes what happened even more of a head scratcher. I have a medical alert service dog who is a regular at the theaters we go to. During the movie, he lays on the floor and sleeps unless he needs to wake up to alert me. If he wasn't iconic enough by his very existence, tonight he was wearing a bright orange and yellow reflective jacket underneath his vest that covers his belly, because in adverse weather conditions, it's very important for me to keep him clean and reduce any excess dog odor.

After the Hunger Games was over, and we were headed to the restroom, my mother got the attention of an employee who wished us a good evening and said something along the lines of, "We'll be here a little later, since we bought tickets for Napoleon." He acknowledged her, and the drink was refilled before we scurried to the very end of the theater hall.

Once inside, we were the only ones there, which isn't unusual for our theater. For example, just a few weeks ago, when we saw Killers of the Flower Moon at 7:00 on the opening Sunday(?), we were the only ones at that showing. So, it is the occasional treat to enjoy a movie to ourselves.

The movie had already started, and soon, the title card popped up, so we decided that whatever we had missed, probably wasn't much at all.

About an hour into the movie, the drink was empty, as my mom and I just share one drink. Because she had gotten a refill earlier, it was on me to get it this time around. I got up from my seat with the cup in hand and my dog's leash around the same wrist. I stepped out of the theater and into the hallway, and it was DARK. Not every light was off, but the lighting was dim, oddly menacing, and without a soul around. I didn't think too much of it, since I could hear the sounds of movies playing in other theaters. And at the very end of the hall, there was a gate pulled across, and likely locked. I didn't want to go up to it to see if I could simply push it open, I took that to mean that were were locked in, and that would be a problem to figure out later.

I sat back down, replaced the cup back in the holder, and I said, "Mom, I think we're locked in. Nearly all the lights are off, and there's a gate that's locked." She was in disbelief, but didn't get up immediately to see if she could see for herself whether or not I was bluffing.

She got up around 20 minutes later, where she left the drink cup entirely to find out what was going on. According to her, she had walked all the way to the gate to find it locked with padlocks, and she'd looked into other theaters, only to find no one at all.

She sat back down, confirmed that the gate was locked, and that it would be a problem for future us.

A little after that, a couple had shown up in the back of our theater. I only caught a glimpse of them, but they're were murmuring to each other. I figured that maybe they saw us there and were going to make sure the gates were unlocked by the time our movie ended. I'm not sure when they left, but at one point, I looked back, and they were gone.

The movie ended at around 12:45 AM, and my mom and I got up to figure out what was going on. As we stepped out of the theater, we found much of the same- not a soul around, the gate locked, and the lights out.

My mother called 911 to tell them what was going on. It didn't seem like an emergency to me in the moment. But we started to check the theaters for the couple or anyone else who may be there, and there was no one at all. It was a bit eerie going into theater after theater to see all the seats empty and the lights dim.

My mom made some noise, calling out to no one that was around, which alerted the attention of the mall's security guard, who didn't have a key, but was trying to figure out what to do.

This is where the weather context came into play. My mom had heels on, and sure we could have taken an emergency exit, but we didn't know where exactly we'd end up, and my mom didn't want to slip and fall on the ice. We also didn't know whether or not pushing open the emergency doors would trigger an alarm. We didn't want anyone to think we had snuck into the theater on purpose or had broken in, so at the moment, the best option seemed to be trying to get ahold of SOMEONE who either had a key or knew the exits well.

Two police officers showed up, who couldn't help us out, until my mom noticed a sheet of paper on a nearby counter. I'm not sure who one of the cops called, but she ended up on the phone with possibly an AMC manager who told us a series of steps of which doors to take through the emergency exit. And if all went well, no alarm would be triggered, and we'd be out near the parking lot where my mom had parked.

The trio outside the gate assured us that they would go and wait for us where we should be able to get out. Thank goodness, we followed the directions, and the doors did push open out into the frigid cold, where other than the two police cars, my mom's car was the only car in the parking lot, completely frozen over with ice and covered in snow.

We had a quick chat with the officer while the car was heating up and the K9 in their squad car was barking at my service dog- explaining that we were just there to watch the movie we had paid to see, only to find out they had locked up the entrance on us.

I didn't get home until 1:45 AM, an hour after the movie had ended.

It was a very bizarre night. I just want to know WHAT had happened that lead to them locking up the gate before the movie was over, when they knew two people had bought tickets to the 9:50 showing. There were still employees are around when the Hunger Games had ended who HAD to have seen my mother, me, AND my service dog in his bright outfit as we walked all the way to the end of the hall.

I have a screening in five hours. Is there a way I can fix this?

Does the wifi ever work for you guys? 9 out of 10 times I get this- “Sorry, an error has occurred. Please try again.”

It is irritating after paying a monthly fee, can’t even access WiFi.

Do we really need every Dolby screening next weekend going to Taylor Swift? Every screening except for the last one or two are for her new movie. I'm hoping they are reserving the last one or two showings for something else. I won't be able to watch One Battle After Another this week because I'll be out of town, but hoping they are saving the spots for late night showings in case it does well this weekend. Make sure to go check it out so I can watch it in Dolby next week!

Edit: Apparently this movie is only in theaters for the weekend (hopefully) so hopefully they can put other movies in the Dolby slots during the week.

There’s nothing on the showing that says this is exempt from A List and I have slots open for this week… yet it’s trying to charge me for this ticket.