Alright I've always been curious about this, but how do some of you (not the ones with press badges) get into advanced screenings? Do you know someone in the studio? Someone who works at the theater it's being shown at? Is there some secret club that you can sign up for that allows you attend these events? /sarcasm

How does it work?!?

Well, this whole thing is just who knows who.

Then over here you have favoritism.

A lot of times local businesses will get passes to give out to customers. I used to see ads in weekly papers saying things like "Stop in for free passes to Spider-Man."

Now those seem to show up on Twitter and Facebook, but I still see them regularly.

There are usually press and word-of-mouth screenings for every movie, with passes distributed through promotional partners. They key is to find out who's giving away the passes.

Try radio, newspapers, or even sites like this.

hah, guess it would have been easy to google "advanced screeenings"

Sometimes they'll have someone outside a theater with a clipboard, asking people if they want to see a "new major action film" or something specific. Being in SoCal, I run into these a lot.

Those are 40/60 advance screenings and test screenings.