If you have to get to the airport really early – or wait around for a few hours during a layover – why not take in a movie?
You could watch it on your computer or tablet of course, but an increasing number of airports are showing movies – for free – in their own movie theaters.
The latest to add this cinematic amenity is the Germany’s Frankfurt Airport, which has set up two “Movie World’s” in Terminal 1, on Piers A and Z, to show full-length movies, documentaries and some popular series.
The screening areas don’t have rows of seats, but are set up in a living-room style, with carpeting, couches and small niche seating areas, with TV screens. Each theater can accommodate 22 people in eight separate viewing niches and, like airplane entertainment systems, travelers can choose what language to watch a film in and when to start it.
There are a handful of other airports that offer movie theaters for travelers, including Portland International Airport, Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, Sinagpore’s Changi Airport, Hong Kong International Airport and some others. I’ve wrote about airport movie theaters in one of my “At the Airport” columns on USA TODAY.
No movies? How about gaming?
For those who would rather play computer games than watch a movie on a layover, Frankfurt Airport has also opened a second Gaming World offering free, controller-based, interactive games such as FIFA, NBA and racing and a variety of others. “Scientists have shown that playing video games helps overcome jet lag,” says Frankfort Airport operator, Fraport, and these games “have the extra benefit of reactivating tired limbs after hours of sitting still in the plane.”
Not sure if that’s true, but free games – and movies – are certainly welcome airport amenities.
Look for Movie World at Frankfurt Airport in Terminal by Gate A58 and Gate Z58 and find the Gaming World areas in Terminal one by Gate A52 and Gate Z54.
A branch of the city’s historic Hollywood Theatre movie palace, the new Hollywood Theatre at PDX has a bright, 1920s-inspired neon marquee, seating for 17 (but capacity for 49) and a $200,000 state-of-the-art projection and sound system isolated from the roar of the planes and the shaking of the airport building.
The cinema replaces a rarely used post-security service center. Now, instead of sitting at work tables with power outlets, passengers can use this space to watch an hour-long reel of G-rated short films by Oregon filmmakers that will run around the clock and be refreshed quarterly.
The opening program reel includes the premier of an animated film, a music video, a documentary, mini-shorts about Portland by local film students and more than a half-dozen other features.
More airport cinemas
Portland International isn’t the only airport to offer movies to passengers who have a bit of extra time to spend at the airport.
At the end of 2014, Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport opened its “See 18” Screening Room near gate C18 to show short films, documentaries, music videos and art programming by Minnesota filmmakers and shot predominantly in Minnesota.
Elsewhere, Lithuania’s Vilnius Airport promotes its free ‘cinema hall’ showing work by Lithuanian filmmakers and there’s a Cinema Time screening room showing a wide variety of free films at the Vaclav Havel Prague Airport.
Terminal 3 – Transit – Movie Theatre – Interior
Singapore’s Changi Airport has two 24-hour movies theatres (in Terminals 2 and 3) offering free screenings of full-length movies for passengers, with a line-up that currently includes ‘Star Trek Beyond,’ ‘Keeping Up with the Joneses,’ and ‘Kubo and the Two Strings.’ And there are movie theaters selling tickets to recent films in the public areas of Hong Kong International Airport, South Korea’s Incheon Airport and a few others.
Special screenings
Airports without dedicated film-screening spaces have dabbled with movies events as well.
While the Toronto International Film Festival was underway in 2010, passengers at Toronto Pearson International Airport could watch movie trailers from the festival in a pair of 10×10-foot pop-up screening rooms. Free popcorn was provided each night.
For the past three summers, Germany’s Dusseldorf Airport has hosted an outdoor cinema to show blockbusters on a giant screen set up on a concourse rooftop, with wireless headphones for each moviegoer. The series returns in July with ten screenings.
During 2016, Denver International Airport showed free outdoor movies on the outdoor plaza between the main terminal and the Westin Denver International Airport as part of a “Film on the Fly” series.
No program is set yet for 2017, but the 2016 line-up included “Top Gun”, “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” and “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.”
And, at San Francisco International Airport, in Interim Boarding Area B, a selection from Laurie O’Brien’s Peephole Cinema features silent film shorts inspired by travel and the writings of Danish author Hans Christian Andersen.
Back to the Future
While an airport movie theater may seem like a fresh new amenity, the idea is far from brand new.
From the early 1950s into the mid-1970s, there was a ‘regular’ movie theater – the Skyport Cinema – showing first-run films at Pittsburgh International Airport.
And when the new Dallas/Fort Worth International airport opened in January 1974, “all the major airlines moved their operations there from Love,” said Bruce Bleakley, director of the Frontiers of Flight Museum in Dallas, “That left a big empty terminal with only Southwest flying its 8-10 flights a day.”
In November 1975, a developer turned the terminal lobby into an entertainment center with three movie theaters, skating rinks, and other activities and called it the Llove Entertainment Center, said Bleakley, but the complex was closed by May 1978.
It took more than three years to make it happen, but on Thursday the marquee lights at the Hollywood movie theater inside Portland International Airport were switched on and a series of short films by Oregon artists began to play.
The mini-cinema has less than 20 seats but, with standing space, has room for more than 40 people to enjoy the hour-long selection of films that will be shown round-the-clock and refreshed quarterly.
On August 18, as part of its “Film on the Fly” series, Denver International Airport (DEN) will host a free screening of Steven Spielberg’s classic film, “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial,” on the airport’s open-air plaza between the main terminal and the Denver Westin International Airport hotel
Starting at about 5:30, there will be music, raffle prizes and a performance of live bike stunts on the plaza (to get folks in the mood for E.T.’s famous ride). The movie will begin showing at sunset.
I attended last month’s “Film on the Fly” offering – “Top Gun” – at DEN airport and had a great time. In addition to local residents who came by for the music and the movie, some passengers waiting for flights joined the audience, as well as airport employees on breaks or on their way home from work.
More information about this and other free events on the DEN airport plaza here.
Weekly screenings – there’s one scheduled for today – will take place in surprise locations throughout the airport.
Last week a Buster Keaton movie was shown. Today: Mickey Mouse in Steamboat Willie – from 1928.
The films are coming to MIA Airport courtesy of Obsolete Media Miami (O.M.M.), a repository for 35 mm slides, archival motion picture films and materials, and other legacy media and a resource for artists. designers, filmmakers – and now also passengers stuck at the airport.
