Just days before Conan O’Brien takes the stage at the Dolby Theater to host the 98th Academy Awards, a new poll shows that only a tad more than half of Americans had seen a movie actually in a theater in the past year.
The study was performed by the Pew Research Center last summer, which is normally the biggest time of the year at the box office, with May being the highest-grossing month.
A total of 9,916 panelists responded out of 10,541 who were sampled, for a survey-level response rate of 94%.
While men and women answered nearly the same at 53% and 54% respectively, the study showed that adults 18-29 are the most likely to have seen a movie in a theater in the prior 12 months.
At only 39%, people over the age of 65 are the age group most likely to skip movie night.
The study pointed out that since 2002, when more than 1.2 billion movie tickets were sold in the U.S. and Canada, it’s dropped to 769.2 million in 2025.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 saw ticket sales plummet to 231.6 million.
In 2002, we couldn’t stream movies on our televisions at home nor were we paying as much money for a movie ticket. The average movie ticket price in 2002 was $5.81, while a Friday night showing of “Reminders of Him” at the Regal Gallery Place theater will cost you $16.95 before tax. “Hoppers” in 3D costs $22.25.
During a visit to the National Mall, WTOP spoke to people who echoed the study’s results, when asked about the last movie they watched.
“My word. I have no idea. I can’t even remember,” Amy Nelson said.
When Nelson’s husband reminded her that it was a few Christmases ago, it jogged her memory.
“I honestly think it was ‘Wonka,’” Nelson said.
Before you ask yourself, the Nelsons were not talking about the 1971 “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory,” starring Gene Wilder, or the 2005 film starring Johnny Depp.
“The most recent with Timothée Chalamet,” Nelson said with a laugh.
While it was in 2023 that the Nelsons last saw a movie in a theater, their 17-year old son spoke up and said he was in one last summer, to see Brad Pitts’ racing movie, “F1.”
While Mandi Myers was quick to say she went to the movie theater this past Christmas, it took a little longer for her to remember the title of the film.
“ … I can’t even remember what we saw,” Meyers said.
After a while, Meyers remembered it was “Zootopia 2,” which she thought was great.
Carla Silvano and her son Matthew were quick to recall their last trip to the movie theater.
While Carla went to see Baz Luhrmann’s “EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert” a few weeks ago, Matthew said he watched “Avatar: Fire and Ash” on his last trip to the theater.
Ironically, all of the people WTOP spoke to — except for one — saw movies around Christmas, which is the second busiest time of the year for theaters.