Now playing . . . on one screen

When the theater had just one screen

Jun 03, 2026

There was a time when the decision to go see a movie and what movie to see was easy and didn’t take long. Why?

The theater only had one screen . . . and one movie. So, if you did want to go see a movie, you had the choice of what was playing at the local theater on that single screen.

When I was a kid, going to the movies was more of an event, not just something folks might casually decide to do nowadays. The local theater was showing this movie this week. It was more of a special attraction.

We used to have a theater called “Center Theater” in the downtown part of the city. It had a big marquee out on the street, just like we see on the classic movies and tv shows. The box office window was out there at the sidewalk.

Standing in line under the big marquee with my parents, waiting to get our tickets, felt like being at a big event, where everyone could see you were there.

There was only one concession stand that sold popcorn, candy, and drinks . . . and for less than a car payment. Once we got our snacks, we went into the theater, not theater 15 or 22 . . . the one theater. For me, being there at the movie was as big a deal as whatever movie we were seeing.

Now, when I moved to a small town, we still had the local, one-screen theater, just not the fancy kind with a marquee. “Southgate Theater” showed first-run movies on the cheap . . . which was really nice. I was looking at the movie listings every week to see what was showing there, because it was easy to get my parents or a friend’s parents to drop us off or pick us up.

Going to the movies was a simpler, but still fun experience back then. Most of the theaters around were single-screen, but there were a few “mega cineplexes”.

And by “cineplexes”, I mean there were two screens. Yep, for the indecisive, this was the move😄. We had a couple of those places.

I do miss those one-screen theaters, though. What old-school movie theater memories do y’all have?

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