Six Gen Z cinemagoers discuss cinema prices, release windows confusion and celebrity interviews

The recovery of box office since the pandemic has been frustratingly slow in mature markets, and there is no shortage of opinions as to why this is the case.

One theory suggests that studios and cinemas are not engaging younger audiences — failing to capture permanently distracted attentions; not serving the right product; not agile enough to create resonant marketing communications; or selling tickets that are too expensive for a cash-strapped demographic. This doomed scenario has been contradicted by data showing a growth in the Generation Z cinema audience in North America since 2019, although that might also be explained by the rising age of the cohort (now aged 14-29 — traditionally considered a core audience).

So how does Gen Z view cinema­going, what does it want, and how does it behave? To find out, Screen International assembled a panel of six cinemagoers aged 17 to 26, either in full-time education or employment, from across the UK. These varied from avowed cinephiles to a broad mix of cinema­goers, frequent and infrequent (panellist Ameeni Usop is a Youth Advisory Council member for film charity Into Film, and brings the perspective of that active engagement).

One thorny topic is pirated film content. Several participants admitted they watched more films through illegal streaming than they did in the cinema — though preferred not to have their name attached to these comments.

The panel also discussed Letterboxd, re-releases, their cinema habits and more.

Youth movement: Meet the Gen Z panel

Screen International What was the last film you saw in a cinema? And why did you want to see it on the big screen?

Jamie: I saw 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple at the Odeon in Peterborough. I’d seen lots of people on TikTok talking about how it’s very much worth seeing in a cinema and saying positive things. I didn’t think it was well advertised — I hadn’t even realised there was a sequel coming out until I saw the TikToks.

Will: I went to a re-release of Dunkirk at Belfast’s Cineworld Imax. There is a lot of hype around watching [Christopher] Nolan films in cinemas, and the audio and visuals are great on an Imax.

Olivia: I watched The Secret Agent at an Odeon. When it’s a more arthouse film, you want to be somewhere where you don’t have any distractions so you can properly engage with it rather than throwing it on in the background at home.

Dylan: I saw Avatar: Fire And Ash in 3D at The Cinema In The Battersea Power Station. The 3D glasses got uncomfortable after a while, but it did look cool.

Eliza: Wuthering Heights at the Odeon in Liverpool. I’d seen so much promotion on TikTok and social media for it everywhere, mostly people hating on it, so I was curious. The [negative reviews] skewed my opinion of the film a bit.

Ameeni: I saw [the filmed version of] the musical Next To Normal at The Ashford Cinema in September. It was on very limited release but I really like the show and had missed it on stage, so I thought the cinema was the next best thing. 

How many times have you been to the cinema this year, or how many times do you go in an average year?

Olivia: I’ve been five times this year already. I don’t think I went that much last year, probably 15 times. Now that I’ve moved to London from Oxfordshire, I’m going to the cinema a lot more because it’s just much easier and I’m more aware of what’s coming out.

Dylan: I only went a couple of times last year. The nearest cinema to me is a Picturehouse in East Dulwich — it’s a trek and quite expensive. I didn’t feel there was a large selection of films I was interested in last year. This year looks much better.

Eliza: Last year I was going at least once a week, but I feel like there’s not as many films I want to see this year, so I’ve been going less. I keep looking but there’s nothing coming out that I’m into yet.

Do you care about what type of screen you watch a film on? 4DX, Imax etc?

Jamie: When Oppenheimer came out in 2023, I went out of the way to see that in Imax, purely for the visual spectacle; it adds a lot to the film. I went to the Rushden Lakes Cineworld Imax. This was around one hour 20 minutes’ drive away.

Will: It’s worth more money. I don’t have that many choices of cinemas so if I’m having to go out of my way, it just makes the experience more beneficial because it’s so different to watching a film at home.

Ameeni: I saw Sinners at the BFI Imax near Waterloo and Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse in 4DX because I knew both would be a spectacle.

Do you have a cinema membership or make use of student/young people discounts? How do you feel about cinema prices in general?

Eliza: My housemates and I will try to do the £5 [$6.70] saver deal with Odeon. But the saver ticket is now £8 [$10.70] at our local Odeon, and it doesn’t feel “saver” anymore.

Ameeni: I’ll only go to The Ashford Cinema for specific films I can’t see anywhere else because it is expensive. Otherwise, I’ll go to the local Cineworld because I only have to pay £3 [$4] because of a deal with my phone provider.

Olivia: I signed up to the Picturehouse 16-25 membership but I never seemed to be going at the time when the discount applied [Monday to Thursday]. I don’t mind spending a bit of money to go to the cinema but I can see why for other people if the cheapest ticket you can get is £9 [$12], you’d feel like it wasn’t worth it. That’s the same price as a streaming subscription for the month.

Do you go on your phone at the cinema or chat with your friends?

Ameeni: I don’t [go on my phone] but my friends do a lot and I’ll tell them off after the film.

Eliza: Yeah, it annoys me so much. I’ll end up reading their messages instead of watching the film.

Dylan: If I go to the cinema it’s to watch the film. I mostly go with my family and rarely with my friends. There are more social things to do with friends than go to the cinema.

Do you pay attention to awards like the Oscars? Does it encourage you to see the films in cinemas?

Ameeni: I follow awards season quite a bit. I stayed up until 3am to watch [the Oscars] this year. It encouraged me to watch the films but not necessarily in the cinema. Though last year, my local Cineworld did an Oscars re-release of all the films nominated for best picture and I went to see a few of them.

Olivia: I stayed up to watch it too. This year I was able to watch all the films nominated [for best picture] and it made it more fun. My friends and I did all our predictions of what we thought was going to win.

Jamie: I’ve never taken any interest in award shows. My partner watches them though, and she’ll tell me if there’s a film we should go and watch.

Which social platforms do you see film content on and in what format? Interviews, fan reactions, trailers — what engages you?

Eliza: I always watch all the press interviews on TikTok. I liked all the interviews with Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh for We Live In Time, their relationship felt quite authentic and it completely made me want to watch the film. Other­wise it can feel like a PR stunt. I found the videos of Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi [for Wuthering Heights] quite cringe. It was so staged.

Olivia: I loved actor interviews but there’s this new format of actors pretending like they’re better friends than they are and that they’re almost flirting with each other. It worked for a period of time but it feels quite stale and it puts me off the films. I feel like I’m being lied to.

Ameeni: Those Buzzfeed puppy interviews used to be quite fun, and it was this niche thing but then everyone started doing it, like Netflix, and I wasn’t falling for it anymore. It feels fake.

Olivia: Yeah, or when they’re trying British versus American food, or something, it’s really gimmicky. And it’s not going to make me want to watch the film.

Ameeni: I quite like a lot of content creators online. There’s someone called @ceryslovesfilm, who is an inspiring film journalist. I like her breakdowns of films and follow her career. I also watch a lot of fan edits of actors, and that leads me to their interviews and then their films.

Do you watch trailers on social media or elsewhere?

Will: I tend to avoid trailers altogether as I think, especially now, they show almost everything in the film — all the key moments. It often spoils it. I rely on film review channels and commentary channels [on YouTube] but I will seek out those more if I’m interested in a specific film.

Dylan: I also don’t like watching trailers, they’re so overanalysed. Marvel is doing the trailers for Avengers: Doomsday quite well because they’re not revealing anything and people are still getting hyped. Maybe closer to the time they’ll release a bunch of action-packed trailers that show all the plot points, but I hope they don’t.

Ameeni: I love Marvel films, even though they’ve become very consumer and made for money and just really lazy. Thunderbolts* was the exception to that, though. I liked the A24-style marketing and I did watch it in a cinema even though I hadn’t seen the last few Marvel films in cinemas. I just like how they credited all the people [in the trailer] that worked on the film, and you could see all the other prestige stuff they had done.

Do you have a Letterboxd account, and do you rate films on there? How important are the reviews/ratings of films to you?

Will: I use Letterboxd all the time and review everything that I watch. I enjoy doing it. It can definitely influence your opinions on films though, and you feel like you’re almost meant to think a certain opinion on a film. If it has a 4.4 rating for example, and you think it’s bad, you feel like you’re going against the general consensus of what the film’s supposed to be like.

Ameeni: I remember going on Letterboxd and seeing that all my friends had watched Anora, so then I watched it because I wanted to join in. It feels like I’m a part of a group.

Eliza: I love reading people’s reviews on Letterboxd, all my friends have it. I remember when Trolls World Tour came out and I never would have watched that, but two of my friends gave it five stars so I went and watched it and it was so good.

Jamie: I always do a basic check on IMDb to see the rating of a film before I watch it. But if it’s a film I’m interested in, [bad] reviews wouldn’t massively sway me.

Does who’s starring in a film make you more interested in seeing a film? Which actors and why?

Dylan: I’ll watch a film more based on whether I like the genre than the actor. I love the Dune films, and Timothée Chalamet was good in them, but I didn’t watch Marty Supreme. He’s a great actor but I’m particularly invested in his performance in the Dune films. When actors are doing these completely opposite films, it doesn’t interest me. I kind of want to stay invested in their role in one film.

Ameeni: I love Oscar Isaac and that encouraged me to watch Franken­stein [though not in a cinema].

Jamie: Actors don’t influence me, it’s more to do with the director. I’m very excited for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. I can’t remember a bad film I’ve watched from him, apart from maybe Tenet… They’re always worth seeing in the cinema because it’s always a visual spect­acle. They are always big, expensive projects that are top-tier produced. The soundtracks as well are always worth experiencing in a cinema.

Do you ever watch streamers’ films in cinemas?

Olivia: The fact Frankenstein was a Netflix film made me want to watch it less. I would have 100% watched it in the cinema but it was in and out so quickly, I thought it’s probably not that good of a film.

Eliza: I agree. I didn’t even watch it on Netflix because I thought it hasn’t been in cinemas [for long] so it must not be very good. I would have 100% gone to the cinema if it was in cinemas for longer. [Partici­pants were unaware that it is Netflix policy to have brief theatrical releases.]

Will: I think a lot of films [not just streaming films] have short release windows. There’s a few films that I had planned to watch last year, like Roofman, but when I got round to trying to watch it, it was already out of cinemas. That’s a massive issue for me.

Olivia: I’ve had that so many times when I wanted to watch a film and it’s already out of cinemas.

Ameeni: I watch a lot of films but not that many in cinemas. I’m a busy person and I don’t feel like I have much time. I wanted to watch Hamnet in cinemas but when I had the time there weren’t any showings I could do.

Do you watch re-releases in cinemas?

Dylan: I want to see the original Star Wars trilogy in cinemas, but I don’t know how to find out when they’re coming out. I think they should be advertised more because there’s clearly an appetite for it.

Will: I only went to the cinema twice last year and one of them was the [Dunkirk] re-release. I would watch a re-release of something that I still haven’t seen. Something like 2001: A Space Odyssey I would go out of my way to see in a cinema.

Are there reasons you wouldn’t see a film in a cinema? For example, you’re interested in it but will wait until it arrives on streaming, or the price of tickets?

Olivia: With going to the cinema, especially when you’re spending your money and your time, I’m always thinking in the back of my head, “I want to do this because I want this film to do well. I want people to still be making films like this.” It’s about whether I feel the film was made for good reasons and not just making money and serving an algorithm.

Dylan: I don’t think I would ever watch a film made with AI. You could show me a completely AI-made film and maybe it would be great, but it wouldn’t feel the same. I wouldn’t get the same level of satisfaction because there’s no human input. There’s nobody who spent hours trying to perfect a certain thing.

Jamie: We have four or five streaming services that we can watch at home. My nearest cinema is a 30-minute drive and then there’s the parking and the cost and the commitment. It’s just got to be something that interests and compels me to make that all worth it.

Will: I’m not happy with a lot of the quality that’s coming out. [New films] don’t look as good as they did 10, 15 years ago, especially the way a lot of them are lit. I’d rather watch a film from 30, 40 years ago where you’re guaranteed, pretty much, that it’s going to be a good film. I’d rather not take that risk of going to the cinema and it ends up not being a great film. I’ll just watch it on streaming.

Are there any other films coming out this year that you’re excited to see in cinemas?

Eliza: I want to see The Devil Wears Prada 2 and the Michael Jackson film [Michael] looks quite good. I was excited for The Drama but I’ve seen the trailer twice and I just didn’t get it at all. It’s made me not want to go and see it.

Dylan: The new Dune trailer just came out and I want to see that, along with Avengers: Doomsday, that should be good.

Olivia: I’m not as excited for the films coming out this year as I was last year. Last year felt like an amazing year and a lot of directors I love came out with films. I am excited for The Odyssey and Dune: Part Three but that’s it.

Ameeni: The new Spider-Man trailer just came out and I was immediately like, “Okay I’m seeing this in cinemas because I love Spider-Man and it would be nice to go back to the cinema for it.”

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