Ben Hur, which came out in 1959, so I was 4.
Could it have been Charlie, the Lonesome Cougar?
The first movie I remember seeing in a theater is Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day in 1968, when I was six. I’m pretty sure I saw The Sound of Music when I was 3, but I don’t remember anything about it.
The Sound of Music when I was 8, I think. I had been at the theatre before, but not the cinema, as far as I remember…
I remember seeing Mary Poppins, tons of old Disney classics- Snow White, Sleeping Beauty ect. I also remember loving the Muppets Christmas movie.
On TV: The Monkey King, the Chinese cartoon from 1965. In the theatre: Neverending Story. Atreyu was my first movie crush.
It was either Escape to Witch Mountain or Snow White. Both were in theatres in 1975.
I remember I was so young that when the nasty queen took the potion to turn herself into a cackling old hag, I was silently shitting bricks, too scared to even breathe so I couldn’t cry. I was so relived that my sister did start to cry during the same scene (she’s only a year older), so our mom took us to the lobby where my heart rate gradually returned to normal.
Checking the release dates on IMDB, it looks like Witch Mountain was released in March and Snow White was re-released in December. So Witch Mountain must’ve been my first movie in the theatre.
My parents also let us watch the yearly televised flicks Sound of Music and Wizard of Oz. So it’s possilbe I may have seen one or both of those on TV (the Flying Monkeys were certainly in my nightmares at a young age.)
The first movie I remember seeing was **Star Wars ** when I was four years old (1979). It was the re-release in conjunction w/ the release of Empire Strikes Back, I believe. I don’t remember the movie so much, but I very clearly remember coming out of the theater and singing the theme at the top of my lungs. I don’t recall the name of the theater but it was in Seattle in the university district.
Holy crap! I remember that! And Pete’s Dragon was a favorite of mine too. I had the record of the soundtrack.
ETA: I would have seen Apple Dumpling Gang before Snow White so Witch Mountain was definitely my first cinema experience. I remember Witch Mountain best too.
My first theatrical viewing was the original Freaky Friday, released in 1976. I recently watched it again on DVD and picked up on several things that must have gone over my six-year-old head the first time I saw it.
Whippersnappers! When I lived in South Dakota, there was no TV!
I remember seeing Disney’s Alice in Wonderland in a theater. And some movie about Blackbeard. He met his end by being buried alive on the beach, up to the neck. Then, the tide began coming in…
(And we listened to radio. When we moved away & I finally saw The Lone Ranger on TV, I was upset. He was dressed all in white, and none of the cowboys I’d seen dressed like that. There were cowboys & Indians up there–but it was quite a few years post-Deadwood.)
At 6 years old, I was taken to see Willow. The first movie I can remember watching at home was Flight of the Navigator. Ah, the classics.
Maybe you movie historians can help. I’ve never been certain, but I’ve always thought of my first movie (in the theater) as The Fox and the Hound, which came out in 1981, according to IMDB. But I’m almost certain I saw The Empire Strikes Back in the theater as well, but there’s no WAY my parents would have let me see that as a 5 year old! Did they re-release *Empire *a few years later, maybe?
Omega Man at the theater. It was released in 1971, so I would have been 5. Scared the crap out of me, I hid on the floor between the rows and had nightmares for weeks.
First movie, at an actual cinema, I think it was Hunt for Red October. I really wanted to see Memphis Belle, but that had just ended.
I remember other kids getting to see Boggy Creek in the theaters, and scaring the crap out of the rest of us, just reciting the story! Isn’t it about some sort of Bigfoot? That’s what I remember.
I also remember going to see Song of the South and The Aristocats in the theater, and a Disney movie called, I think, Wild Country – memorable to me because it featured the live birth of a foal. I was 7 when it came out, in 1970 and I think it was the beginning of, as is typical of young girls, me going bonkers over horses.
The first Star Wars films ran for quite a long time, and after the initial run were still playing in indy theaters. All three ran for over a year after they first opened in the same theaters, then ran on other screens after that. I recall seeing a double bill of ** The Last Starfighter** and The Return of the Jedi, for instance, sometime between 1984 (the end of the first, long intitial theatrical run) and its re-release to major theaters in 1987. So you could have seen The Empire Strikes Back in the theater at several points after its 1980 initial release.
I remember seeing Forbidden Planet in the theater – specifically I remember Robby and the attack on the ship. I was 3 or 4 at the time.
I was probably taken to a drive-in before that, but can’t remember it.
Benji at the old Richland Mall Twin.