It seems everyone has a different sitting preference at the movies. I want the ultimate experience: the screen completely filling my vision, like I’m in the movie. Usually the third or fourth row. My wife complains we’re too close. Then I see people way in the back and it must be like watching TV the screen is so small. I don’t understand that at all. So, Lemmy, where do you sit with your popcorn and why?
Bonus question: best movie food / candy, and how do you sneak it in?
As an acoustic engineer who would tune movie theaters, 2/3 of the way back in the center of the room. If it is a Dolby certified theater there will be a chair with a small plaque that is where the measurements are taken and the room is tuned to that seat.
I prefer to sit on the chair.
I prefer to sit on my butt.
Gross.
Middle Middle. The “True Neutral” of movie theater seat preferences I suppose.
OP is more like Neutral Evil.
This is the way.
Only right answer
We found our MCU fan.
Regular theater: in the center, about 1/3 back from the screen.
IMAX: in the center, very back row against the wall.
why very back in IMAX? wouldn’t that be too far?
The screen is giant. Giant isn’t even the right word for it. And with stadium seating, you don’t have to worry about people sitting in front of you.
It reminds me of how the movie screen seemed to me when I was 5. If I’m too close, my field-of-view won’t include the edges of the screen.
Right behind the crossing lane and the never-used handicapped section so I can put my feet up. It’s six rows from the front. Only downside is every yahoo with a tiny bladder that insists on parking on the far side of the theater from the exit has to parade back and forth constantly in the movie, breaking the emersion.
Bonus: a couple of airplane bottles to add to my coke and some raisinettes from the drug store where they cost 1/5 as much. Just carry them in my bag. No one working in the theater gives a crap if you bring in your own food.
The entire theater is designed around the center seat. Anything else is objectively wrong.
Wherever is easiest to get up and out and go pee because I snuck in beer and I have a small bladder.
You, sir, are a psychopath. I always sit about halfway up as close to the center as I can get.
Always in the back. I get a better view that way. I’ve tried sitting in the front before, but I always had to have my head tilted up. I’ve tried sitting in the middle before and my eyes had to zoom around the screen still to try and catch everything.
So, the back it is for me.
I’ve tried the back and hate it due to you get a view of the entire audience and all the yahoos who refuse to not light up their phones mid movie. We live in a society of entitled twats. Getting this confirmation a half dozen times during the movie I paid for just makes my BP go up.
Distance from screen: 1/2 to 3/4 back (2/3 back being ideal)
Horizontal position: as centered as possible
All the way to the back since i had had bad experiences with people kicking my seat in the back even after you ask them multiple times to stop. In more than 2 movies btw. So i rather avoid it and go all the way to the back. Its kindda annoying since every time some ashole takes their digiclock or phone out i get my face blasted with their brightness. But it has been becoming better as time passes, since when cinemas where reopened just after the pandemic, people where real jerks by talking loudly, having their phones out constantly be it for recording parts and posting them or whatever else, having their hellspawn (children) playing with their phone/tablet all movie long with the sound on, and some asholes even goin as far as taking selfies of their own fugly faces with multiflash on. But as i said its been getting better ever since, theres still some asholes but way less now.
I’ve been going to the same theater for the past 15 years, the largest/best equipped one in my city. I always sit about half way back from the screen (row 6 of 13), in the center of the room. Rows 5 and 7 work too, but 5 is slightly too close and 7 too far. My SO still thinks I’m weird for having a favorite row and seat, and I keep trying to explain why it’s important.
Will be seeing Oppenheimer in my favorite seat today!
Center seat, about a third of the way to the back. This is where we setup to calibrate the surround systems back in the 90s and I’m not aware of any change to this so I still sit there.
Dolby standardized to 2/3 in 2005 and everyone copied them.
Thanks for the info, I’m going to have to start sitting farther back.
Probably middle middle as well, maybe a bit higher than middle depending on the theater.
I don’t have perfect vision so I can’t seat super far back
High up in a corner where people mostly never sit. Though I don’t go to theaters and movies by myself. Never. So I just suggest it to the person going with me.
