Going to the movies is no longer the automatic weekend ritual it once was, even though cinemas have never looked—or sounded—better. Box office revenues remain disappointing, not just in the country but globally, as more and more audiences turn to streaming screens at home. A 2024 study by the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) found that 67 percent of Filipinos now watch films primarily on streaming platforms, while only 21 percent still regularly go to cinemas. The reasons are easy to see: high ticket prices, content fatigue, and the comfort of home viewing and streaming.

This decline is happening precisely when movie theaters are becoming more sophisticated—bigger screens, better sound, and luxe recliners now set the standard. At Evia Lifestyle Center, for instance, we have equipped our Vista Cinemas with the next generation in 4K laser projection systems that delivers sharper images, deeper contrast, and richer colors. This is coupled with Dolby Atmos, which uses overhead speakers and object based audio to create sound that moves all around you with breathtaking realism, making you feel like you’re inside the story. The goal is to transport moviegoers into the film, not just screen it for them. We wanted cinemas that are more than just a place to watch films, but also a destination where the ritual of the big screen—shared with families, friends, and even strangers—feels world class. I have tried it many times, and it is amazing. I often wish we had these technologies when I was enjoying films in downtown Manila in the 1960s and 1970s!

There was a time when the cinema wasn’t just a place you went—it was a steady pulse in the city’s veins, a communal rhythm that synchronized the lives of strangers under one shared sky of flickering light. During my time, life in the capital often meant a pilgrimage to the electric bustle of Quiapo and Rizal Avenue (Avenida), where now vanished cinemas like the opulent Roman Super Cinerama, Odeon, State, Ideal, Avenue, Times, and Galaxy lit up the streets. I remember wandering Escolta, Avenida, and Recto, dazzled by what I saw: in those old districts, movie houses were less buildings than monuments of memory. Before malls rose and living rooms lit up with streaming glow, Escolta, Avenida, and Recto pulsed with marquees, hand painted posters, and the electric promise of stories waiting behind every door.

I remember Recto Avenue most of all: its sidewalks teeming with vendors hawking everything from secondhand books to imitation diplomas, jeepneys coughing past in bursts of color, and people lingering outside theaters like Odeon, Ever, and Life, as if the night itself was waiting to begin. After my work in Makati, I would cross the city to fetch Cynthia, who was then teaching at Far Eastern University (FEU) in Morayta, and we would simply walk, maybe stopping for siopao before settling into our favorite films.

Inside those cinemas, I remember feeling a sense of amazement and grandeur that felt both accessible and magical. The old theaters of Manila carried a distinction that made even an ordinary afternoon screening feel like an occasion. The seats of course were not always comfortable, the air conditioning not always reliable, but none of that mattered. What mattered was the feeling that you were part of something shared. When the lights dimmed, a hush would fall—not the enforced silence of a modern cinema—but a natural quieting, as if everyone instinctively understood that something sacred was beginning. And then the screen would flicker to life.

I understand the convenience of Netflix, HBO Max, Disney Plus, Amazon Prime, and all the other streaming platforms, where a single subscription unlocks thousands of films you can pause, rewind, or abandon at your leisure. A movie can be watched alone, in fragments, in the quiet isolation of one’s home (or bedroom), and there is comfort in that, certainly. But perhaps it is the nostalgic old soul in me speaking—I miss the connection created by the shared experience of watching a film together.

Going to the old cinemas of Manila offered something messier, more unpredictable, but ultimately more human. You could not control the experience with a touchscreen. You surrendered to it—along with everyone else in the room. The laughter of strangers in a Dolphy film, the collective gasps in an FPJ action flick, the shared silence during a pivotal scene in the movies of Charito Solis, Juancho Gutierrez, or Nestor de Villa—these were not interruptions. They were the experience.

Perhaps that is what we mourn most: not just the slow decline of cinema going, but the quiet erosion of a particular kind of togetherness—a way of being in the world that asked us to leave our homes, to sit beside strangers, and to laugh, feel, and dream as one. And yet, every so often, when I watch a film at Evia and the cinema fills up—when a story pulls people out into the night and back into the shared darkness—I catch a flicker of that old magic, a reminder that cinema is not just a screen, a seat, or even a film, but a living, breathing communion.