This years Oscarstelecast introduced a completely new way to watch movies.Dubbed CinemaStreams, it allows customers to watch films in a building thats dedicated to streaming movies. Instead of watching something on one smartphone, you get toenjoyit on 800 smartphones glued together.You dont even have to hold it, the ad promises, the building holds it.Of all thecomedy bits on this years Academy Awards, this was my favorite. (Perhaps not coincidentally, it was also the one that would have looked most at home on an old episode ofLate Night With Conan OBrien, assuming that streaming services had existed 25 years ago.)Still, the fact that the Oscars, whosehistorystretches back to the silent film era, would air afaux ad spoofing modern audiencestotal ignorance ofthe big-screen experiencespeaks to just how rough things have gotten for movie theaters.According to The Numbers, domestic movie theaters grossed $8.6 billion in 2024, down from $8.95 billion the year prior.While that wasbetter than the first couple years of the pandemic,it was also well below the industrys annualreturns all through the2010s. Prior to the pandemic, you need to go all the way back to 2001 to find a number that low. Its no wonder you regularly see articles online with depressing headlines likeIs the Death of Movie Theaters Upon Us?Im not sure Im ready to write my eulogy for movie theaters yet. In fact, barely 24 hoursbefore Conan OBrien joked about CinemaStreams, I got an incredible reminder of the magic ofmovie theaters, and why a building thats dedicated to streaming movies is still the best way to watch them.Bankside AudienceGetty Imagesloading...READ MORE: 10 Beloved Movie Theater Chains That No Longer ExistI spent the Friday and Saturday prior to the Oscars at Filmspotting Fest, a weekend-long festival celebrating the 20th anniversary of one of the very first (and surely the longest-running) movie podcast on the planet, Filmspotting. In honor of their milestone 1000th (!) episode, the podcast, led by hosts Adam Kempenaar and Josh Larsen and producer Sam Van Hallgren, screened several of the shows favorite films from throughout its 20-year run in Chicago with filmmaker and film critic guests. including yours truly. (I used to co-host a Filmspotting spinoff podcast about the world of streamingvideo called Filmspotting: SVU.)My official duties at Filmspotting Fest involved participating in a Q&A after the screening of Jeff NicholsTake Shelter.The film is a character study of a man (played by Michael Shannon) who experiences horrific nightmares and apocalyptic (and possibly prophetic) hallucinations. As the visions worsen, Shannons Curtis fears the world is coming to an end eitherbroadly,in theform of some sort of weather-related catastrophe, or more personally, because he worries he maybe losing his mind and have to be committed to a mental hospital, in much the same way his own mother was when he was a child.WhenTake Shelter debuted in 2011, I thought it was the best film I had ever seen about living with anxiety, and Ipicked it as my #1 movie of 2011. But the film is so intense and so powerful, it isnt one that Irevisit regularly. (Ah, now to relax after a long week of work! What should I put on to unwind? Oh, I know! The film about the man experiencing a mental breakdown brought on by terrifying delusions involvingcataclysmic storms!) Prior to last month,I hadnt watchedTake Shelter in at least a decade.Timothy Schmidt, courtesy of FilmspottingTimothy Schmidt, courtesy of Filmspottingloading...Like ShannonsTake Shelter character, I like to be prepared. (Anxious people usually do.) So before the festival, I rewatchedTake Shelterat home on my TV. Then I watched it again, during its packed screening at the Gene Siskel Film Center during Filmspotting Fest. I didnt intend that to becomeanexperiment about the impact of movie theaters on a viewers experience, but thats sort of what happened. The movieremained the same both times, but the venue where I watched it elicited twostrikingly different responses.Take Shelter at home was more of an intellectual exercise. I thought about the performances, the screenplay,and Nichols clever use of metaphor like his choice to make Curtis a construction worker who discovers that building walls will not solve his personal problems. At the Gene Siskel Film Center, Take Shelterhad a much more visceral impact. It wasnt the size of the image, necessarily, that affected me, but rather the size of thesound.My home speakers dont compare to the ones in a goodtheater like the Film Center, which made the cacophony from Curtisdream storms so intense you could practically feel the howl of the wind and the rumble of thunder inside your bones.It was almost overwhelming which is exactly Curtis reaction to them. The wayNichols puts you inside that characters troubled perspectice is really remarkable but it only happens in a theater.Timothy Schmidt, courtesy of FilmspottingTimothy Schmidt, courtesy of Filmspottingloading...Thats just one example of the power of movie theaters Iwitnessed first-hand at Filmspotting Fest. There were plenty of others. I had seen KogonadasColumbus, the festivals Saturday night film,before, but only once on a press screener. I liked it, but when I watched it at home, it didnt leavea huge impression. A few weeks ago, if you had asked me to describe Columbus, I could have told you who directed it, the names of its two leads, and offered only the vaguest plot description.In a theater, Columbusfeltlike a completely different film. Its a two-hander about a pair of lost souls who meet when Jin (John Cho) arrives in Columbus to care for his ailing father. Jins dad collapsed and slipped into a coma shortlyafter his arrival in the city to give a lecture about its architectural marvels. While waiting for updates about his father, Jinbumps intoCasey (Haley Lu Richardson), a librarystaffer and self-taught architecture enthusiast who has eschewed a collegiate education in order to live at home and keep an eye on her drug-addicted mother. Fromthat chance encounter, an unlikely friendship blossoms.Columbus is sort ofBefore Sunrisefor modernism enthusiasts; Jin and Caseys conversations play out against the backdrop ofthe citys famous buildings, like the Miller House and North Christian Church, both designed byEero Saarinen. At home, those buildings seem tiny and remote.SeeingColumbusin a theater allows you to examine and study these buildings along with Jin and Casey. On the big screen, they loom over youthe way they loom overthe characters. If watching the filmsmall does not defeat the purpose, it at least blunts it.AfterColumbus, and in between all the festival screenings, I had a series of stimulating discussions with other attendees. We talked about the surprising amount of comedy in Rian Johnsons neo-noirBrick, the bold use of iPhone cinematographyin Sean BakersTangerine,and the way some of us saw ourselves reflected inTake Shelters haunted hero. This is a far cry from theconversations that typically take place in my house after I watch a movie. Even though I try to engage with her, my dog almost never responds when Iask for her reactions to things.Timothy Schmidt, courtesy of FilmspottingTimothy Schmidt, courtesy of Filmspottingloading...Admittedly, the folks who attended Filmspotting Festwere nota typical Saturday night multiplex crowd. This was a group of dedicated cinephiles, some of whom flew in from around the country to watch movies theycould stream or rent, for the opportunity to see them in a dark room full of like-minded film lovers with post-screening commentary from podcasters and directors. Nobodytookpictures of the screen or loudly answered phone calls duringPather Panchali.That definitely helps.So you could argue this is not a representative sample of the moviegoing (or, more often, not-moviegoing) public these days, and you would probably be right. Still, what I saw at this event is that an audienceisout there, and they are hungry for connection with films and other film lovers.If you cultivate that audience, theywill show up, even for movies that are decades old and widely available at home.When they do show up, they will see films the way they weremeant to be experienced.As that CinemaStreamscommercial from the Oscars shows, we have inventedtechnologyto make it easier than ever to watch movies. We have not yet inventedtechnology that makes it better than the old-fashioned method of 800 smartphones glued together and hung on the wall of abig dark room. If you haventtried it in a while, you might want togive it another shot.Every Movie Theater Candy, Ranked From Worst to Best