Anyone But You: Teenagers in a Growing World and a Shrinking Town

By Hannah Hills, Class of 2024

“There isn't hype around movies like there used to be.” - Dylan Foerster (‘24).

In Part 1, I covered the research side of this topic: the banal, factual, but regretfully important information needed to fully understand what we’re working with. Maybe, if you’re generous, you thought it was interesting. This is the fun part: I polled 100 people, asking a few questions about their opinions and experiences. Unfortunately, it is intensely, almost laughably, skewed against juniors. It shouldn't matter, though. I don't see age playing a significant or even small role in answer discrepancies. Ultimately, I proffered responses from 30 freshmen, 25 sophomores, 31 seniors, and 15 juniors. I asked the following questions: how do you usually watch movies? What was the last movie you saw in theaters? When, approximately, was that? Do you remember what theater that was? And the crux of it, do you think movie theaters are dying?

Right away, one answer was abundantly clear: yes, movie theaters are dying! This was an overwhelmingly shared opinion. Altogether, 68 respondents agreed, 19 said no, they aren’t, and a smaller 13 gave more ambiguous or undecided answers. In some cases, with answers that didn't elaborate on their reasoning and instead just said something like “maybe a little bit” or an adjacent answer, I grouped them with the yes responses. Jackson Belmore (‘24) was one of the many who said yes—the impacts of the pandemic and the impediment of streaming, ticket prices, and movie production all affect that. “Streaming services such as Netflix buy shares in film production so they can stream the film without releasing it in theaters. That eliminates the potential grossing for the film and the theater if the film turns out to have such high critical acclaim and praise,” mentioning Top Gun: Maverick, which companies tried to buy the streaming rights to, nearly keeping it from the overwhelming success we know it to be. He honed many of the same points I made in my initial article.

The few who said no made good points, too, like Soleil Leriche (‘26), who said, "I don't think they're as popular as they used to be, but it's such an entertaining experience (popcorn, big chairs, going with friends) that many people indulge in.” Not exactly a logistical issue but nostalgia, “The movie theatres I go to get pretty busy on the weekends with families, couples, and friends, so I think people still enjoy going to movie theatres and will go frequently. The movies the theatre is showing also impact how many people go." We also know that to be true; 2022 was a great year for cinema. Eliciting movies like Top Gun: Maverick, The Banshees of Inisherin, Everything Everywhere All At Once, and Turning Red. An example of a more indifferent response would be like the one from Aden Andrews (‘25): "I don't really think so… If I had a choice to go a theatre and pay like $20 for a movie I want to see but have heard mixed things about, or just wait for it to go to streaming I would probably do the latter. On the other hand, if a movie really caught my attention, I would probably pay that $20 to see it in theatres. At the end of the day, everyone chooses to consume media differently, and streaming and theatres are both valid options." It’s a very diplomatic but respectable answer. 

Unsurprisingly, streaming services featured prominently in the responses to multiple questions on the form, highlighting their overall substantial influence on the film industry. These questions were related to their opinion on the decline of theaters, but more overtly, how people standardly watch movies. On this, seventy-one of the responses outright mentioned streaming as their method of choice. Some of the answers were less clear, citing TV or their laptop/computer instead, which could mean any arrangement methods, like cable, DVDs, or movies they have downloaded, but it is very likely the former. This finding supports the idea that people often deliberately choose streaming over the less conventional and convenient route of theaters. As Benjamin Magras (25) said, “Since there are tons of streaming services available, there's not much point in going to theaters anymore.” Maria Sebastião, a sophomore,  expressed a similar thought, “I think because now we can see all the films and series we want on the internet, people kind of don't want to go to the cinemas anymore.” As someone who hasn't been to the theater in many years, she understands that mindset all too well. The last movie she watched in theaters was in her home country, illustrating that, at least to the average person,  the downward trend of theater success isn’t just a US-centric issue. According to Robert Rackmales (‘24), it’s a financial issue too, “Yes, (movie theaters are dying) because everyone can watch things about six months after they come out, included in their already expensive subscriptions.” Issuing a widely shared opinion like that of Eva Simmons (‘24), “I think that movie theaters are dying since they really aren't convenient anymore. They automatically go out on streaming services after, so why would anyone pay 8 dollars for a ticket to see the movie once when they can just watch it on the streaming service they already pay for?” And Kiley Webber (‘24), “I think this (streaming) causes people to move away from theaters, to save money, and stay in the comfort of their own homes.” If we were constrained to only watch movies in theaters, would we spend less than we do for our subscriptions within that year? It could very well be a toss-up.

For many, a big part of overcoming this problem of not attending movie theaters was having the “right” selection of movies. Streaming often covered their bases when movie theaters didn’t or couldn’t. From Moss Handelman (‘26), “I’d like to go more, but movies that I am interested in aren’t always playing,” and Montana Dugal (‘27), “It kind of depends on the movies that are out; if it’s a good movie, their business will be better,” as someone who usually uses Netflix. So, whether it's a problem of personal preferences or the need for more highly acclaimed and anticipated films, theaters could improve on both a smaller and wider scale. Nicholas Chaisson (‘25) cited that as a likely solution to “save theaters.” Some do consider the opposite, though, that streaming and theaters can coincide even when streaming covers some grounds that theaters don’t. Joe Morris deliberates, “Personally, I think that they are very much still alive. I feel as if there are not as many people that make the trip to go see a movie in theaters. I think the reasoning for this is that streaming services ( Hulu, Peacock, Netflix, etc.) are growing greatly, and if you want to watch a movie, you can just look on there and most likely find the movie you're looking for,” but still affirms that these two film ecosystems can coexist. Jojo Mezzapelle echoed this sentiment, “Inevitably, there's more often than not going to be a movie that everybody has to go and see in theatres, and I think that will always be an asset of our way of life for a while to come.”

Another component many people addressed regarding the decreased efficacy of theaters was their accessibility, explicitly highlighting their out-of-the-way locations for our local areas. Notoriously, Nordica Theaters shut down in early 2020 in light of the pandemic and hasn't opened since. To account for that, people have the misfortune of driving much farther to see a movie in the cinema. As the form supplements, of the 100 responses, 27 people saw their last film in a theater at Smitty’s, and 56 saw it at Flagship, covering 83% of the total responses. Of these locations, the Topsham Smitty’s, Auburn Flagship, and Falmouth Flagship each factor in a  25-30-minute drive, depending on where you live. Emma Munsen (‘25) reasoned theaters are dying on this basis, “After the Nordica in Freeport closed, it's been really hard to go see movies in theaters. I think it's a bigger problem in rural areas because if I wanna see a movie in theaters, I have to drive like 35 minutes, which just isn't possible all the time.” When theaters become an inconvenience, it’s an inevitable solution for streaming to take its place. Lilih Hall, a freshman, denoted a similar trend, “Streaming movies in the comfort of your own home is more accessible. Why drive and buy tickets and expensive food when you can do it at home? I still enjoy going; it's like a fun thing to do, but I just don't go as much as I used to.” As many of these responses deduce, the issue isn't that theaters are fading into irrelevance; they are just collectively less popular than they used to be before the evolution of technology. Presently, theater companies rely on nostalgia and the emergence of highly-anticipated films to carry them from year to year instead of the decades-old methods of cornering the entertainment market and being the only option for new movie-viewing experiences. 

Another point that came up very frequently was the expenses of not just streaming, as mentioned, but movie theaters. Dylan Foerster, a senior, was one of those people who said, “Movie theaters are too expensive for a lot of people,” specifically regarding snack and ticket prices. On top of the fact that a theater won't be as comfortable as your own home will be, “so a lot of people prefer to wait for a movie to come out on TV instead of going to the theater.” He wrote that he usually uses Netflix or another alternative, but “I will go to the theater if I really want to see a new movie,” as he did with Spiderman: Across the Spider-verse in June 2023, furthering that it's not always financially sensible to go to the theater often. Some of these agreements were like the one from Roman Miller (‘26), “Lower prices, and I'd go,” coming from someone who hasn't been to a theater in a few years and frequents streaming. Many of the responses featured thus far maintain similar beliefs, such as that movie theaters are too expensive and too inconvenient to be as successful as they used to be. As Cormac Hluska suggests, the continued closure of Nordica Theaters is an ideal example of this: "I wish they weren’t (dying), but at least where we live, there seems to be no interest. Otherwise, we’d have one in Freeport. Since tourism is our biggest revenue source, clearly, the town believes it wouldn’t be worth the investment.” It stands to reason that a large deterrent to theaters is their price point. Griffin Jensen (‘27) says that in order to rectify these problems and keep them from dying,  “Movie theaters have to be revamped.”

All things considered, even without knowing the statistics initially mentioned, most of the students I worked with agree that movie theaters are dying. They feel irrelevant, inconvenient, and pricey. Streaming seems like the ultimate solution to each of these problems. Why would we go out of our way when the easier option is right in front of us? Regardless, we aren’t genuinely damaging the movie theater industry every time we watch a movie through streaming. Even the people who ascertain that movie theaters are dying many of them had seen a film in theaters within the last year. It comes down to how much we, as citizens and consumers, are supposed to go to the theaters. Expecting people to check out every new release is unrealistic, so where exactly is the boundary drawn? How many movies, ideally, should we watch in theaters in a given amount of time for them to stay successful, and is it reasonable for that to be our responsibility? The answer is no, but this becomes an entirely accomplishable goal by drastically improving and radicalizing the theater landscape, bringing back the power of nostalgic movies from our childhood and pre-teens and directors dedicated to the art of cinema. I believe, as many of the other respondents do, that the right movies with just enough anticipation around them can revitalize the image of theaters because they have a way of making movie-watching that much more monumental. Even with the growing prevalence of streaming, the environment of theaters is something people are drawn back to. In the words of Salme Biggar (‘27), “I really enjoy going to the movies even though I can stream things at home. I would be really sad if movie theaters went away.” Movie theaters provide a feeling that traditional streaming doesn’t. We don't go there because it's the most accessible or practical way to watch a movie; we go for the experience. In an age where the world feels so suffocatingly enormous, and anything we could think of exists at our fingertips, we need simple, grounding joys like watching a movie at our local theater. Swapping a smaller screen for a larger one, an hour or two to turn our minds off,  and trading isolation for a community.