Rather than simply parroting the easy answer of “it saves cinema”, I want to flesh this out a bit more.
It is a bit paradoxical – on one hand, streaming platforms insist the future of cinema belongs in our homes, and the comfort of pausing and playing at will, personalised algorithms, and the on-demand ease of never leaving the sofa. Where, on the other, those same companies stage carefully orchestrated theatrical runs for their most prestigious titles, often in heritage theatres that embody the very communal rituals they once dismissed as “outdated”.
So, what’s the big deal about theatrical releases?
The theatrical release as a cultural moment
A cinema date can still transform a film into a cultural moment, and nothing showed this more than the double release of Barbie and Oppenheimer on 21 July 2023. What looked like a coincidence in scheduling became 'Barbenheimer'. A meme, a movement, a shared moment. Audiences dressed up, screenings sold out, and TikTok's were made. Data confirmed what the queues already suggested, that box office sales spiked that July.
It was a measurable surge. As theatrical release creates anticipation, urgency, and that feeling of watching it now or never. Streaming, with all its convenience, cannot replicate the electricity of being part of a moment everyone else is living in too.
Artistic integrity and the cinema experience
And more simply, directors create for theatres not laptop screens. Christopher Nolan shot Oppenheimer on IMAX 70mm, a format that picks up more detail and requires a larger screen to display that art. Actor Elizabeth Olsen, has admitted in an interview she won't work with projects without a theatrical release.
And call it cliche, but a film projected in surround sound, unfolding in the dark, feels different to one paused halfway through on a tablet. That casual recommendation from a friend of “it’s a film you have to see in the cinema” is all too real. It hits different. And we all won't truly appreciate that until it's too late.
Economics and survival of cinemas
Over the years due to streaming, cinema's release windows have shrunk from months to weeks. Cinema operators now lobby for a minimum 45-day theatrical run to preserve viability. The Independent Cinema Office warns that without such protections on release periods, theatrical release and cinemas as we know it, will become extinct. Well known heritage cultural anchors in Australia, like the Ritz in Sydney, built in 1937, still run both digital and celluloid.
The streaming paradox
Which brings us back to the question of, what’s the big deal about theatrical releases?
Well, cinema is still a badge of seriousness. It signals prestige, credibility, and awards potential. Even Netflix, whose CEO once suggested bypassing theatres altogether, is rolling out Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly theatrically before its December 2025 streaming debut. Due to the Oscars still requiring a theatrical release that grants cultural legitimacy.
Why it matters for audiences
Theatrical release safeguards cinema as a shared experience. 'Barbenheimer' proved it as people coordinated outfits, swapped memes, and filled theatres together. There was joy in simply being there, writing that first Letterboxd review, in being part of something.
If films bypass theatres entirely, we risk losing the calendar of collective anticipation of the opening-night buzz. What remains would be fragmented, solitary viewing, scattered across sofas.
Theatrical release is integral to the art, the business, and the audience. That’s why directors and actors fight for it, why heritage theatres fight to survive, and why even streaming platforms still bow to it. Elizabeth Olsen said it best, that cinema is about people gathering "to see other humans, be together in a space." If the big screen disappears, we risk losing not just how we watch movies, but what movies mean.
