Why you should watch your favourite movies on the big screen
Despite the fact that I spend five days a week writing about movies, and many of the remaining hours of my time watching them, I’m not a big fan of going to the cinema. Growing up, there was a chain cinema that I often visited with my parents, and I can still smell the sick-stained red carpet when I think of the long corridor lined with movie posters that led to the screens. The smell of popcorn blended with the vomit to make quite a revolting concoction, but that didn’t stop me from bounding down the hallway to catch the latest Wallace and Gromit or Narnia movie.
As I got older, this smell became even more heightened, and the idea of having to sit among strangers, rustling popcorn, whispering, or walking into the cinema during the middle of the film was enough to make going to the cinema a rare excursion for me. I’m reluctant to use a Woody Allen scene as a reference here for obvious reasons, but I related to the Annie Hall cinema scenes so strongly as a teenager (there really is no point in watching a movie if you’ve missed the first two minutes) that my dad used to call me Alvy.
Perhaps it’s my general aversion to people that affects my cinema-going experience, or maybe the fact that an ex-boyfriend of mine worked at an Everyman, which, for over a year, allowed me to get used to watching free screenings of movies on comfortable sofas with a burger to boot. Yet, when I watch old movies where the protagonist sits in the cinema alone watching a film, I want that to be me, sinking into my chair with no distractions, just the big screen in front of me and total darkness.
Then I’m swiftly reminded why going to the cinema is rarely like the movies. Earlier this year, a pair of Ibiza-frequenting, beefy gym lad types walked into a screening of Babygirl mid-way through, only to stand by my seat and, at full volume, ask what seat I was in, and where their seat was. When they realised they were in the wrong screening—they were definitely not there for Babygirl—they loudly swore at each other, their laughter echoing across the room as the rest of us tried to focus on Nicole Kidman’s passionate affair with Harris Dickinson.
Am I being too neurotic? Perhaps. But wouldn’t you get annoyed if you were instantly taken out of being engrossed in a film because some mindless men start shining their phone torch on you to check your seat number? Cinema etiquette seems to be getting worse these days, as evidenced by the chaotic screenings of A Minecraft Movie that saw live chickens smuggled into theatres and copious amounts of popcorn thrown across the crowd like a rainstorm of pure idiocy. Can you blame me for being hesitant to spend around £10 to watch a movie in these conditions that I might not even like?
Yet, every so often, I’m reminded not to be so negative about the state of cinema-going in 2025. You just have to go to the right cinema. A recent trip to my local independent cinema to see The Piano Teacher on film, seated among a crowd of fellow lovers of 35mm and the perverse, I finally understood those scenes in the movies, like when Anna Karina watches The Passion of Joan of Arc in Vivre sa vie and cries.
Sitting alone near the back, I watched the grainy film flicker in front of me as Michael Haneke and Isabelle Huppert’s names flashed on the screen. It had been about three years since I’d last seen the film, but this time around, with a massive screen to highlight the sheer intensity of the story, it resonated so much stronger than I ever thought possible.
The two-hour and ten-minute runtime flew by as I was transfixed by each scene, with occasional laughter from the crowd after darkly comic moments uniting us briefly, before silence prevailed during the movie’s most harrowing scenes. The film got me thinking about a lot of personal things, and as the credits rolled in pure stillness, you could practically hear a pin drop. No one seemingly knew when to get up, and as the lights slowly turned on, the silence remained as we shuffled outside. When I arrived at the cinema, it was raining. While leaving, it was dry and still, and there was an eerie quietude among the streets that made me feel like I was Erika in that final scene, walking away from the performance.
I can’t go anywhere without music playing in my ears, but as I walked away that day, I allowed the gentle atmosphere of being outside on a late Sunday evening to wash over me. Maybe going to the cinema isn’t so bad after all, I thought. Maybe I’ll go more often.
The secret is simply picking the right company, the right cinema, and the right film. Going to see a movie as moving and brutal as The Piano Teacher in a space designed for cinema lovers, on 35mm, is naturally going to deliver the best experience as opposed to watching a digital print of it at your local Odeon, where spilt Tango Ice Blasts and offensively loud adverts take you straight out of the magic.
It’s important now more than ever to support local, independent cinemas because it’s these venues that will deliver you the kinds of movie-watching memories you’ll never get anywhere else. Catch a rerun of an old classic and you might discover a new love, or go and watch your favourite movie on the big screen, even if you’ve watched the DVD a million times, because the scope will allow you to experience the film in a way you’ve not done before.
