Has there been a return to form for movie theaters to pre-pandemic levels? No. However, I found myself going to the cinema more in 2025 than in 2024. The nature of movie-going has fundamentally changed with the dominance of streaming. Patrons now see fewer films in theaters, opting to wait for many of them to arrive at home. This is especially true for movies not designed as a spectacle or an event, creating a fresh challenge for the industry. Still, theaters have faced similar hurdles before, such as when televisions became commonplace in the home.
Eventually, theatrical films improved after over a decade of adjustment throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Even before then, patrons had stopped attending theaters for short serial shows. Additionally, the concept of made-for-tv movies eventually emerged, allowing lower quality films to be released directly to television without a theatrical run.
Later, both theaters and television were challenged by the introduction of VHS and movie rentals. This led to the straight-to-video concept for lower-budget films, which raised the quality expectations for theatrical releases even higher.
Today, streaming poses yet another challenge. Many high-quality movies do not necessarily require a theater because they do not rely on spectacle to be enjoyed. Even when a large screen might enhance the experience, a story may be perceived as small scale, making it easier to wait for a streaming release.
Despite all of that, I still enjoy seeing various types and scales of movies at the theater. Some films are so massive they demand a theatrical viewing, such as the Avatar franchise. Others are enhanced by the cinema experience even if they have a straightforward story, like Last Breath.
Finally posting my 2025 list
I have been putting off this post for five months for a simple reason: I saw too many movies in 2025 to make this article enjoyable to create while including a poster for every film, such as last year's article. I believe movie posters add value and enhance the post, but including all of them is an immense amount of work. To that end, I am scaling down this year's post to a simple hyperlinked list.
Here is the list of what I watched at the movie theater in 2025:
- Ballerina
- 28 Years Later
- F1 The Movie
- Superman (special Amazon Prime Early Screening)
- Jurassic World Rebirth
- The Naked Gun
- Alien Earth (special FX preview of first episode)
- Nobody 2
- Weapons
- Eden
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