Once the heart of communal entertainment, movie theaters now struggle to survive nationwide. Box office ticket sales have dropped by nearly 40% since 1995, forcing many theaters — both independent and corporate — to close permanently.
Before 2020, many attributed the lack of viewership to improvements in home theater technology. The COVID-19 pandemic worsened this decline, decreasing theater attendance by more than 80% since the lockdown. “People want the theatrical experience,” wrote Scott Phillips in a June 2024 Forbes article. “But they’re building those theaters at home. According to the June/July issue of Sound and Vision magazine, the sale of 85-inch televisions has increased 1200% in the last year.”
Dependence on streaming services is likely worsening the problem that originated from the COVID-19 shelter-in-place mandates.
Streaming services allow viewers to enjoy a wide variety of movies from the comfort of their own homes. “When you go to the theater, you know, it’s a drive. You have to commute,” August Wintroub-Hansen ’26 said.
Although annual theater ticket sales have increased by about 600 million across the United States since the end of the lockdown, this growth has recently come to a halt. In 2024, theaters sold about 10 million fewer tickets than in 2023, when the movie theater industry’s total box office revenue was already less than it was pre-2020.
On the other hand, streaming services have more than quintupled in yearly income since 2015 and continue to grow steadily. This growth has persisted in the years since the COVID-19 pandemic, with revenue increasing by roughly $4 billion per year. In March 2024, U.S. households reportedly spent an average of $61 per month on streaming subscriptions, according to Variety.
According to a March 2023 study by Statista, 44% of young Americans reported going to the movies fewer than twice a month. For high school students who have multiple commitments during the week, streaming services are a way to consume media that is more cost-efficient and accessible than movie theaters. Not only do they provide easy media access from home, but the average price of one theater ticket is $10.78 – $2.78 more expensive than a monthly Netflix subscription.
“When I want to watch something, I’m not gonna take time to go to the theater,” Wintroub-Hansen said. “It’s gonna take time to watch, and then it’ll take time to get back home. Streaming is just more efficient for me.”
Additionally, many films are now released straight to streaming or moved online shortly after theatrical release. This means that movie-watchers do not always have to go to the theater to see newly-released films. From 2019 to 2020, the number of straight-to-streaming premieres quadrupled to compensate for COVID mandates, which made going to the theater impossible at the time.
Unlike theater companies, streaming services can be dominant in more than just the movie distribution industry. This gives them more influence and power in setting the terms on which people watch movies. For example, Disney is a multi-billion dollar company and owns multiple streaming platforms including Disney+, ESPN+, Hulu and Hotstar — all of which have a combined quarterly income of $321 million. On July 25, 2024 Disney introduced a new streaming bundle including HBO’s streaming service, Max. This decision may indicate more acquisitions and partnerships in the future, allowing Disney to continue to expand its influence in the streaming world.
“Streaming services owe us nothing. We pay them, but they don’t owe us anything,” Literature and Film teacher Julian Morris said. “The business side is prioritized over the art and the enjoyment of the viewer. … We’re just taken as [a] line item budget.”
While some corporate theaters may be more profit-focused, many independent theaters, such as Roxie Theater in San Francisco’s Mission District, aim to provide a movie-going experience for people of all income levels. “We have a program called Movies for All, offering $5 tickets to folks who are EBT or SNAP cardholders on food stamps,” Roxie Theater executive director Lex Sloan said in an interview with The Urban Legend. “Part of our mission is to make sure that anybody can come enjoy the movies, [so] we really, really work to keep our ticket and concession prices low.”
Smaller, independent theaters often prioritize uplifting and bringing together their surrounding community. Meanwhile, corporate theaters like Regal, Cinemark and AMC can be less accessible due to their greater prices and lack of support programs. “Theaters are expensive,” Morris said. “There are programs you can do to make it less expensive, but I’m not seeing it that often [at corporate theaters].” Instead, corporate theaters have programs that benefit frequent movie-goers who invest a lot of money into their business. As a result, middle and upper-class individuals are favored by theaters, utilizing the benefits that people without financial bandwidth can’t take advantage of.
Roxie Theater’s commitment to making sure everyone — especially those who struggle to pay for tickets — has a positive experience at the theater demonstrates the benefits local, independent theaters offer to their communities. “We want to make sure everybody feels welcome … and that they don’t have to choose between buying a burrito in the Mission and going to the movies. They can do both,” Sloan said. “We really want to make sure we’re being accessible to everyone in our community.”
The impacts of local theater closures go beyond financial implications. “Berkeley theaters closing are a big loss, because I would spend a lot of time going to them as a kid, especially as a high schooler,” Morris said. “A big movie theater is great, yeah, but … all the movie theaters in Berkeley are closed, [and] it’s sad.”
Movie theaters are a cornerstone of many communities, making their closures cause a loss of bonding, togetherness and communal activity. “Theaters are some of the few third spaces we have in terms of places to gather [as a] community. Even if you’re just going and watching a movie, … you are watching and doing something collectively,” Morris said.
Lachlan McConnell ’27, co-leader of the Urban Film Festival, argued that theaters are one of the few places where an experience can be shared between community members — even those who haven’t met before. “I think it’s important to see a movie, to experience something with other people that you may or may not know,” McConnell said. “It’s always so exciting when the lights dim in the theater and you and your community members are taken away to a new world.”
The temporary closure of San Francisco’s Castro Theatre — one of the city’s historic theaters known for uplifting the LGBTQ+ community — shows the detrimental effects of movie theater shutdowns. Featuring LGBTQ-focused film programming, the Castro Theatre’s temporary closure will lead to a reduction in LGBTQ+ representation in film culture. Despite its rich history, the Castro Theatre is one of many independent theaters impacted by San Francisco’s decreasing interest in theater attendance. “Small, locally owned venues, especially those showing art house and repertory fare, have been a declining business for years, even before COVID” wrote G. Allen Johnson in a SF Chronicle article.
With theaters losing popularity, a group of students, including McConnell, are trying to reignite the love for filmmaking and moviegoing within the Urban community by hosting screenings of student films. “The Urban Film Festival is a way to bring people together around movies and have fun — something that the theater shutdowns will prevent other communities from doing,” McConnell said. “It’s important to have outlets of expression for creators and to give the audience a shared experience.”
Though the end of COVID-19 was the main cause for the recent box office rebound from $220 million to $840 million from 2020-2024, popular movies such as “Top Gun Maverick” (2022) also contributed by bringing in a large audience similar to pre-pandemic numbers. The film’s crowd-pleasing story, exciting action and recognizable actors generated a widespread buzz, helping the film earn more than $700 million in United States box offices alone.
Despite the regular release of blockbusters throughout recent years, this improvement has stopped. Theaters continue to struggle, with ticket sales dropping by $150 million from 2023-2024.
What theaters may need is another cultural shift like the release of “Top Gun Maverick” to reinvigorate theater culture and ignite the passion for seeing movies on the big screen again. “I think ‘Top Gun Maverick’ was kind of the turning point for me. … That movie really brought me back to theaters,” Wintroub-Hansen said.