5. Beautiful Mind - Christmas day 2001- It was a movie I knew nothing about and didnt have high or even good expectations. It was the most surprisngly good movie Ive ever seen in a theater. The movie that got me closest to crying.

4. Star Wars Epi. 1 - Opening night - Although not being a SW fan at the time (Im only 18 so u kno how young I was then) I really loved the atmosphere of true fans. The late show was also great.

3. Signs - Opening night 2002. With Unbreakable being my fav. movie, I had HUGE anticipation for this one. It was a sold out crowd and the suspense was excellent. I was emotionally charged and didnt realize how great the experience was until I saw the movie on DVD (it was a huge drop off in excitement).

2. 8 Mile - Openeing weekend 2002. being from Detroit, this movie meant alot to me and the whole crowd. I honestly thought it was gonna suck but boy was I wrong. Me and the sold out crowd felt like we were in the movie (esp. during the battle rap scenes).

1. Forrest Gump - (dont remember when but during its main release). I didnt realize it at the time, but it proved to be the first and only time I would be able to see a movie with all of my loved ones. The first drama I truly appreciated.

I saw this in 1980 in Atlanta at the Fabulous Fox theatre (for those not familiar with this place, it's one of the opulent movie palaces from the 20's that has survived). Full orchestra with the "Mighty Mo" Moehler organ, conducted by Carmine Coppola. When the movie went into the triple screen wide view at the end, the audience spontaneously applauded and cheered. But the whole experience was great.

seeing matrix revolutions opeining night. had some nut who was a little too into the movie got a few laughs from the crowd.

Seeing 2010 in a huge theater with about five other people, and seeing The Quiet Earth in the exact same theater under the exact same conditions.

My other great memory is seeing an advance screening of An American Werewolf in London and thinking that I might have to leave half-way through because I was so terrified and I didn't think I could continue to handle the shocks!

1984 Century Theater in San Jose California.

I was 16 watching Bachelor Party when this young lady about the same age came in with her boyfriend and sat next to me. They had both been drinking and he was pretty oblivious. She proceeded to press her knees against mine and things progressed from there...

Moving to mature....

5. The Phantom Menace, midnight 1999, first public showing.
people dressed as all the characters.

4. Star Wars re-release 1997
When STAR WARS appeared first, and the theme kicked in, it was incredible. it gave me major chills.

3. SPR, 1998, to see it in the theater, with a packed audience, was amazing. people were really getting nauseous in the theater during the opening, including me and my father.

2. T2, 1991, it just blew my ****ing mind!

1. Total Recall, opening night, 1990
I dont know if this can ever be topped.

Rocky 4

Back to the future

if i had to pick just one, which is a VERY hard thing to do...it would be seeing princess mononoke and i was the only one in the theater. :)

I doubt many of you know Indian cinema :p but the single most epoch momment was in India during a film called

Bombay http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112553/

When I saw this I was truly transported to somewhere else, the music is stunning the acting was superb. Probably one of my best films of all time. I saw it in Chitra Talkies. Tamil Nadu, Tiruenelveli.

My 1st english film experience would be Jurassic park i guess that was something special

Mine was Raider's of the Lost Ark when I was 5 years old. I still remember that we got there late and the boulder was rolling behind Indy. It was a great experience!

You know I used to work at the theater. And I dont care if it's the greatest day in your life and you've got cancer, if you're going to have sex in the theatre clean up after yourselves! That goes for all of you!

Ushers dont make much folks!

Two for me.

Summer 1977, seeing SW on the big screen 17 times that summer. ah to be 13 again.

Jurassic Park, Big Newport CA, Late show night before opening, Best. Crowd. Ever.

Three favorites:

1) Seeing Independance Day at 1 AM on the 4th of July.

2) Any major release that I have seen on either an opening show or a sneak preview (Austin Powers 2, South Part: BLU, Star Wars Ep. 1 & 2, etc.). Any movie is 10 times better when you are seeing it with die-hard fans.

3) The Lord Of The Rings trilogies . . . for so many reasons . . . with great friends, with a bunch of big fans, finally seeing a fantasy movie done right (I personally don't think that there has been one since Dragonslayer).

not the most memerable, but during a commercial for the Oscars, everyone sang along to "hey ya!" as the song went along. guess the general public aint sick of the song yet. and this was at a sold out showing of the passion of the christ.
also, seeing rotk at the senator as part of trilogy tuesday.

The Matrix, and also LOTR - FOTR.
As for LOTR, they had just re-built a near by cinema and had much bigger screens and a better sound system, really made the movie come to life!

I remember waiting in a very, very long line to see Who Framed Roger Rabbit at the small theater across from the BX on Ramstein AFB. We had heard about the movie for months and when it came out, my dad had the patience to wait in line w/ us (until they gave out numbers so we could go to the BX after the first show sold out) and let us stay up and watch the late show. (Speaking of Ramstein - I still remember seeing Top Gun at the other auditorium/theater on the base w/ my best friend at the time.)

Raiders of the Lost Ark - last movie I saw in West Germany just before we moved back to the States. My 5th grade teacher at K-Town Elementary took me, my brother and my best friends to see it at the German theater (Cinema 4?) in Kaiserslautern because they were showing an original (un-dubbed) print of the film. It was part of a going away party she threw for me (I had her for 3rd grade and 5th grade - my family kept in touch w/ her until about five or six years ago).

Batman - the first movie I can remember watching after we got back to the States in the summer of '89.

When Fellowship of the Ring came out, the hair on the back of my neck rose up when the LotR's logo came across the screen. I still vividly remember seeing that movie at that show.

I am a tad surprised that only mention film 'experiences' from the last seven years. Would be very curious to read what films (if any) made an impression on you when you were younger or at least when you were in Jr./Senior High School.

my first movie theater experience. being three and going to see the empire strikes back with my dad and two sisters, while pregnant mom stayed home. she doesn't like star wars for some crazy reason.

Probably The Passion of the Christ, only because it was the only time I ever recalled seeing a packed theater, with everyone staying seated, without a sound, even after the credits started to roll.

wow, no gasping -eek- thats all my crowd did.

1977 - Star Wars - Six years old seeing Star Wars for the first time and starting my love for movies. It remained my favorite (still love it a lot) until...

2001 - Lord of the Rings - Waited to be disappointed with high hopes for a fantasy film done (finally!) right. What I got exceeded my expectations 1,000,000 times. Wow! A new favorite trilogy, with my favorite, Return of the King, being showered with 11 Oscars last night. Wonderful!

Eyes Wide Shut- opening night- first Kubrick movie on the big screen for me

2001- in 70mm, amazing

Schindler's List- amazing as well

Passion- like many others have said- when that 6 second black screen proceeding the ressurection after th efade-in - it was just a moment like never before...complete and utter silence, not even breathing or weeping... all I can say is that I have never, ever seen a movie do that before to a whole, packed theater.

Matrix- blown away...

X-files, Fight the future....well, this was the first movie I ad seen in a US theater...

most every 70mm film I have seen has been incredible, most recently Playtime. Alien in 70mm was definately an experience - the airduct scene was vey suspenseful.

I think must be in the minority, in terms of a response of The Passion of the Christ. IMO, I would filmed the resurrection scene with no music or sound effects, just let the visuals conclude the ending. Let the audience's reaction be heard - now that would have been powerful.

Shit. I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition . . .

I don't know, stuff I saw in those days came down to either "cool" or "crap". Batman was cool. E.T. was crap. Most of the classics I saw as a kid or teenager (like Citizen Kane, Clockwork Orange, Once Upon a Time in the West, etc.) were tapes or such. Hell, even though I saw Pulp Fiction 6 times in the theater I had it firmly in the cool camp and never looked too deep into it.

And 70mm is always memorable . . . IF the presentation is up to snuff. The more recent 70mm 2001: A Space Odyssey run suffered greatly because the shitheads at the Music Box could not run the damned equipment well. Pissed me off. I hope if or when the 70mm Playtime comes to Chicago it stays far far away from that piece of crap theater.