Boston’s independent movie theaters thrive despite national box office decline

With countless movies available at home, Americans appear to be leaving behind the nostalgic scent of movie theater popcorn and the grandeur of massive screens for the convenience of watching Netflix in their living rooms.

About three-quarters of U.S. adults said they watched a new film on streaming services instead of in a theater in the past year, according to a recent poll. 

Yet in Boston, historic independent theaters, like The Brattle Theatre in Cambridge and Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, are drawing some of their largest audiences in years.

When streaming services like Netflix and Hulu became immensely popular in the late 2000s and early 2010s, many local movie theaters were severely impacted.

“Streaming was really hard,” said Ivy Moylan, executive director of The Brattle. “We pulled back. We became really lean. We became really frugal and really careful.” 

To cope with the financial hit of declining audiences, Moylan said The Brattle replaced their paid ushers with volunteers and played newer movies instead of classic films, which are usually more expensive to screen.

Obtaining a liquor license helped The Brattle recover from the initial impact of streaming by increasing revenue and allowing the theater to compete better with other going-out options, Moylan said. 

The theater also launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund new digital equipment in 2013, which helped boost their donor base and community engagement, Moylan added. 

Just before the COVID-19 pandemic, The Brattle, Moylan said, had “really come back after a long time of the devastation from streaming.”

Then, the pandemic hit, forcing the theater to close for over a year.

Nonetheless, The Brattle’s 2024 attendance was nearly a 55% increase from the theater’s 2008 attendance, according to data obtained by The Daily Free Press. National box office grosses, in comparison, aren’t predicted to return to pre-COVID levels even by 2029.

This summer, box office revenue in North America was the lowest-grossing in over 40 years, but that trend didn’t harm the Coolidge Corner Theatre. 

2025 is set to be the Art Deco movie palace’s best-selling year in the past decade, according to data shared by Katherine Tallman, the Coolidge Corner’s executive director and CEO. 

“We’ve been there since 1933, so there’s a huge community that has been coming for generations,” Tallman said. “People [are] now coming in as grandparents that came here as children … We’re so much a part of the community and people really feel ownership in our theater.”

While independent movie theaters have fewer financial resources than mainstream chains, they have loyal audiences dedicated to helping them survive.

For instance, after collecting over $14 million in donations last year, Coolidge Corner underwent a 14,000-square-foot expansion, which added two new screens, Tallman said.

Ian Judge, creative director of both the Capitol Theatre in Arlington and Somerville Theatre, said owning smaller theaters allows him to connect more with his customers.

“I own our business, and I program our movies, and I talk to my customers all the time because I’m on site,” Judge said. “Whoever runs AMC, his office is in Kansas City. He doesn’t talk to his customers in Boston.”

Independent theaters also offer more novel experience than most theater chains — from fewer advertisements and historic architecture to live events and screenings using actual film. 

Coolidge Corner, for example, is one of four theatres in the country showing Paul Thomas Anderson’s new film “One Battle After Another” on VistaVision — a rare, widescreen variant of 35-millimeter film. 

“A lot of people who come to our theater are very into film and seeing film projected, so we try to screen films in their original formats,” said Brittany Gravely, a publicist for the Harvard Film Archive in Cambridge. 

Tallman said streaming has even had positive impacts on small theaters. 

“In some respects, streaming has been a benefit because a lot of different organizations, like Amazon and Netflix, will invest in filmmaking that wouldn’t otherwise be made,” Tallman said. 

People have talked about the “death of the movie industry forever,” she added.

“It still maintains its popularity, because people like to see movies together the way that they should be projected,” Tallman said. 

Judge echoed this sentiment: While streaming may change the movie theater industry, it won’t destroy it.

“[Movie theaters] are still there because they desire that communal experience,” Judge said. “Everybody has a kitchen, and everybody can get food delivered to their house, but people still go out to eat because it’s a social experience.”

Moylan said Boston has a particularly rich variety of movie theaters.

“For everybody who’s in the Boston area, you’re in a treasure trove of cinemas, and you should really understand that,” Moylan said. “Just go out and watch a movie in town because not every city has this many awesome movie theaters.”