For a cinematic experience that is truly larger than life, you won't find many theater formats that rival IMAX. IMAX movies are among the biggest and loudest you'll ever watch. The entire experience is meant to be premium, a step above what you'll find in a typical screening. Few movies are truly made for IMAX, with Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey one of the most recent blockbuster standouts.
There are disadvantages to IMAX theaters, though. You can expect an IMAX ticket to cost more – if you can get one. The biggest showings are hard to book, if you're close to one anyway, with titles like The Odyssey only playing in IMAX 70mm at just 41 locations worldwide when it came to screens in July 2026. The format isn't automatically the best choice for a movie, either.
People go to IMAX movie theaters to enjoy big-screen pictures. IMAX releases feature an expanded aspect ratio compared to standard cinematic movies. Instead of the 2.39:1 widescreen ratio commonly used for blockbusters, IMAX movies can use 1.90:1 or 1.43:1 aspect ratios. The black space above and below a movie that you'll typically see is completely removed with an IMAX screening, with more of the movie filling your field of view.
Productions require specialist equipment to film it. IMAX films use either traditional 65mm IMAX film cameras, which are typically very loud, bulky and incredibly expensive . Movies which are "Filmed for IMAX" — like Tom Cruise's Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning — use digital IMAX cameras to capture expanded footage, although they aren't shooting on the same large-format film stock.
Source link







