Movies

How to Enjoy Going to the Movies

The answer to your moviegoing complaints may be a film festival.

In an essay published in the New York Times in October, former Times critic A.O. Scott pondered whether it’s still worth going to the movies. (Gift link for non-subscribers.) Why leave the comfort of your living room and the convenience of streaming services, Scott asked, only to contend with “parking, concession-stand lines, yakkers and texters in the next row, sticky floors, and dim projection” at the local multiplex? Is there anything to be gained from the public, communal experience of moviegoing?

No, no, no, said many of the article’s 700-plus commenters. They cited rude audiences, high ticket prices, and “public-safety concerns in this gun-loving world” among other reasons not to patronize the cinema.

Me? I get it, but I beg to differ. I’m a movie fan and a theater loyalist. I even did a brief stint as a movie critic for my college newspaper when I was in graduate school. And I have a solution for everyone who loves movies but not the average moviegoing experience:

Go to a film festival.

Wait just a minute, I hear you protesting. Aren’t film festivals just for celebrities and high rollers and the rest of the red-carpet crowd?

Actually, no — unless your only frame of reference is the Cannes Film Festival or the Sundance Film Festival, which attract a lot of famous names and are…