> amazing displays This is the thing that kills me about theaters. They've just not kept up with display quality at all. Your normal theater projector is 1080p

> amazing displays This is the thing that kills me about theaters. They've just not kept up with display quality at all. Your normal theater projector is 1080p, digital IMAX is 2k, and laser IMAX is 4k. Eventually they'll get 8k IMAX as well but so few theaters even have laser IMAX as it is. And on top of that you are generally going to have better colors, brighter whites, and blacker blacks on a high quality panel than is achievable with all but the top of the line IMAX digital projectors. So the way I see it, there is absolutely no technical advantage to going out to a movie theater over watching at home unless it's something uniquely special and you happen to be lucky enough to be near a theater that offers that unique advantage (ex: Oppenheimer in 70mm analog IMAX). And like you said, the social experience of attending a theater (at least in the US) is just not great. I could see the appeal if you were watching a comedy or something like a marvel film where crowd reaction could potentially add to the film but even then it's probably not worth the exuberant cost relative to watching at home.