This year, I’ve already seen ten movies in theaters. If that sounds like a lot, let me assure you: I pale in comparison to my fellow AMC A-List fanatics.
For instance, Marcel English, 25, estimates that as inflation hits movie tickets, he saved $900 last year with the subscription service. AMC’s A-List runs moviegoers about $20 a month for up to three movies a week, depending on location. English saw 55 movies in 2024 and has already seen 29 this year.
One of his favorites last year was a Christmas Night showing of the remake of the vampire horror film “Nosferatu.”
“And when I tell you I loved those showings — I’ve seen ‘Nosferatu’ at least four or five times and I saw ‘Wicked’ six times before that,” English, a tutor in Alabama, said.
After Jeremy Chao, 42, had a stroke in late 2021, he hinged his recovery on one big goal: He wanted to regain his ability to walk back over to his local AMC theater. Within a year, Chao had made his triumphant return. These days, the New York City paralegal aims to see four or five movies a month.
Chao, English, and I are all members of the movie theater chain AMC’s highest-tier loyalty program, A-listers, but several others exist from the likes of Regal, Alamo Drafthouse, and Cinemark.
Prices range from $15 to $30 a month, and industry research indicates that these offerings have helped lure in moviegoers. Cinemark CEO Sean Gamble said in a February earnings call that the company’s subscription offering Movie Club has nearly 1.4 million members and tickets purchased through the program make up 25% of its domestic box office sales.
Gamble added that the company has seen moviegoing “buck the trends” during inflationary periods, speculating that it may be a more affordable option than other forms of entertainment.
A report from Cinema United found that, in 2024, subscription services saw a 12% increase in membership year over year. While AMC no longer shares exact membership numbers anymore, the paid A-List tier boasted about 790,000 members in the first quarter of 2019.
“The usage of and love for the program is strong among our A-list members,” Carrie Trotter, the vice president of loyalty and brand marketing at AMC Theatres, said in a statement.
Not everyone has been swayed back into theaters, however. One reason is that prices have been on the rise — the average movie ticket was $10.78 in 2023, up from $9.35 at the start of 2020, per box office site The Numbers — and ticket prices have increased 26% since 2019. Even AMC is upping prices for its A-List tier, although it’s also adding some extra perks.
Plus, two-thirds of Americans polled by HarrisX for IndieWire said they’d rather wait to stream movies than go to the theater. It’s a big disappointment for filmmakers and even some moviegoers.
“Filmmakers, keep making films for the big screen; I know I will,” Sean Baker, whose “Anora” swept the Oscars, said in his acceptance speech for best director. “Distributors, please focus first and foremost on the theatrical releases of your films.” Baker also had another plea: “For all of us, when we can, please watch movies in a theater, and let’s keep the great tradition of the moviegoing experience alive and well.”
In an economy where Americans are less eager to go out drinking or partying — or to have the disposable income to throw at more lavish entertainment — the movie theater’s appeal is becoming more clear to a certain set of superfans.
“Once it reopened after the pandemic, I just really wanted the movie theater experience to survive,” Chao said. “So I thought the best way to do that was to, even if I couldn’t go every week, was to sign up for A-list and see as many movies as I could.”
Movie theaters are a phone-down social outing and subscriptions help save money
I’m no AMC shill — I simply chose that membership because I love the option to visit the giant IMAX screen in Lincoln Center, and the chain’s locations are convenient for me and several of my friends.
Other friends have other subscriptions, and the rivalries run deep. One BI editor loves their Regal Cinemas subscription because it’s truly unlimited; if they wanted to, they could see up to three movies a day for $26.49 monthly. They estimate they saved around $624 using their subscription last year. Different models fit different needs. Several A-Listers BI spoke to said that having a variety of theater and film options would make the subscription even better.
A-Listers get perks beyond discounted tickets: It’s cheaper to buy tickets for friends, there’s a special concessions line, and you get free popcorn and soda upgrades. Plus, you can also see movies at traditionally pricier screenings in IMAX or Dolby.
“It’s been really nice to sort of not worry about price because it can be like $20 for a ticket, and if I’m already paying 25 for unlimited, I can see one or two and feel like I’ve gotten my money’s worth,” Chao said.
For Austin Martin, 31, AMC A-List has, for the most part, replaced nights out at the bar.
Martin works remotely in North Carolina and no longer drinks — a growing trend among younger Americans — so he has more free time and a little extra cash. In 2024, he saw 36 movies; this year, he’s already seen 12. His roommate is in Martin’s “entourage” — an A-List feature that allows you to book tickets on behalf of a select group of friends or family.
“My roommate, literally my best friend, says, ‘This is our therapy to get out of the house and just not look at your phone, not be distracted,'” Martin said, adding that even his phone-addicted boyfriend focuses when he’s at the movies.
Having a phone-down experience is also a draw for Taylor Gillman, a 33-year-old executive assistant on Long Island; she saw around 20 movies last year. Unlike Martin, Gillman was never a cinephile until she drank the A-List Kool-Aid; she had once proclaimed that she would never go to the movies. But after getting dragged to see the new “Mean Girls” and then “Wonka,” she got the film bug.
“It’s like I’m on another planet. I put my phone away,” she said. “And I’m a lot less interrupted than I would be at home just watching in the background.”
For Gillman and her husband, it’s become a nice new shared hobby — they’ve tried everything from ax throwing to top golf, and both were far more expensive than AMC. Having a new third space — somewhere that isn’t home or work — that lets them get out has been a good experience; the air conditioning in the summer also doesn’t hurt.
“It feels different than a streaming platform because you could see anything you want on Netflix whenever, but being able to go somewhere and do something out of the house, I think is a really big plus for this,” she said.
Low on funds, but still wanting to go to the movies
Jonathan van Halem, a 30-year-old television researcher in Brooklyn, is no longer an A-Lister.
He joined during a bout of unemployment and was seeing around four movies a month. However, the membership wasn’t as convenient for his friends. They’d either have to trek from Brooklyn to Manhattan to go to the AMC, or he’d miss out on group events like Barbenheimer if they chose a non-AMC venue.
Ultimately, van Halem left A-List due to a combination of lower pay, shorter runtimes for smaller films, and movies heading straight to streaming services. If an AMC were to open closer to his home — or another service would let him go to multiple movie chains — he might be lured back into a new subscription service.
While movie theater attendance is still fluctuating at Regal, Cinemark, and AMC — in January 2025, it was down 1.7% compared to a year prior, per data from Placer.ai provided to Business Insider — February saw 8.9% growth from a year prior.
The rise of subscription services might also bring about the community and third spaces that folks like Gillman crave. Sierra Hanson, a 29-year-old bartender at AMC in Missoula, Montana, said that A-Listers bring a completely different demeanor to the theater. They’re efficient and always respectful, she said.
One frequent customer came to the theater right after he’d proposed. “We were the first three people he told that she said ‘yes,'” Hanson said. “It is really special. You really do form special bonds with the people who come in.”
But, of course, there are hazards to centering social life on subscription services. Prices might go up, or folks might move out of the range of an AMC. And with individual services — like AMC vs. Regal — forcing moviegoers to choose brand loyalty, there can be divisions when you leave it behind. Look no further than van Halem.
“My entourage was like seven or eight people and we rolled deep. It’s a meaningful thing to be in an A-list entourage with someone. It was a sad day when I had to tell them I was no longer participating,” he said. He told them the cost just wasn’t making sense anymore.
“They understood, but I never got a text to go to the movies with any of them ever again.”
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