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These are theaters that charge maybe $3-$5 for tickets and show movies that are 3-6 months old. I don't know of any that are "big chains" like AMC.

I've heard them described as "discount theaters", but I also feel like (or remember?) there's a slightly more poetic, wistful term for them. Almost as if you were describing the location of your first date in the beginnings of high school

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  • The 'Silver Screen' is one term that I've come across here in the UK, but it refers to a (weekly) offer provided by a certain group of cinemas, rather than the cinema itself. Apr 11, 2015 at 21:14
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    Second-run theatres. We used to call them "dollar theatres", but that was back when the ticket prices were lower.
    – GEdgar
    Apr 11, 2015 at 21:15
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    "Second run" is the adjective typically used in the US.
    – Hot Licks
    Apr 11, 2015 at 21:16
  • I'm interested in how you punctuated few-month-old movies. I get it, but it's an unusual construction. I have a very strong urge to pluralize month.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Apr 12, 2015 at 8:10

3 Answers 3

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Discount cinema or discount theater, and other terms given by wikipedia:

"dollar theatres, dollar movies, second-run theatres, and sub-run theatres"

although why wikipedia insists on using the spelling "theatre" in all the terms besides the main one is beyond me, since not all such theaters use that spelling. Unless it is to give it a wistful feel, as in the time you went to the Lake District, England for a view of Windermere as a high schooler.

For a real a wistful place, try the drive-in theater.

And, by the way, big chains such as Cinemark do operate discount cinemas.

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Where I live (Oklahoma, USA), they tend to be called "dollar cinema".

They aren't always $1 admission anymore, but often they still are (the real money all being made in concession sales anyway).

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One term that people sometimes use to describe movie houses that show short runs of older movies is "repertory theater." I remember encountering the term in the 1970s in Austin, Texas (where the Varsity Theater showed double features of classic, second-run, art-house, and foreign movies); in the 1980s in New York City (where the Regency and Thalia Theaters used same format); and in the 1980s and 1990s in Berkeley, California (where the UC Theater likewise adopted this approach).

The Web site SlashFilm offers this definition of repertory [movie] theaters:

Repertory theaters are theaters that primarily show classic movies the way they were meant to be seen. On the big screen. You’ve read about a bunch of them here on /Film. The Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas. The New Beverly in Los Angeles, California. Film Forum in New York. These theaters, among others, build a reputation on showing fantastic old movies every single night.

As you can tell by the description, movie theaters like the Film Forum aim for significantly higher-brow audience than pays to two-thirds price to see six-month old Vin Diesel vehicles. But the older repertory theaters mixed in some fairly schlocky fare with the classics, and they (unlike the Film Forum) were quite cheap on a per-movie basis.

The complication is that repertory company is a standard live-theater term for a group of actors who put on a season of plays in the same venue; hence the venue is called a repertory theater.

In any case, "repertory [movie] theater" does have a somewhat tonier name than "dollar cinema" or "discount theater," and it does describe a certain kind of low-cost (in some cases), short-engagement movie house that usually offers relatively high-quality films from the past. A more general term for theaters that regularly show no-longer-new films is (as δοῦλος notes in another answer) "second-run theaters," defined at EnglishBaby.com as

(n.) theater where not-brand-new films are played

[Example:] I like going to second-run theaters because the movies are so much cheaper.

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  • To most people in the US "repertory theater" refers to a "live" theater with a resident company.
    – Hot Licks
    Apr 12, 2015 at 2:40
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    -1 "movies that are 3-6 months old" are not "classic movies" nor do these places necessarily show them "the way they were meant to be seen." Repertory and discount shows are not in the same club.
    – Kris
    Apr 12, 2015 at 10:34
  • The Varsity theater in Austin, Texas from the early 90s did not show any films at a discount, but it showed many foreign and art house films. The Varsity is now Alamo Drafthouse North (or Village), which shows mainly first run feature films. It might show a classic at a midnight showing now and again, but not for a discount. So that SlashFilm link is behind the times.
    – pazzo
    Apr 12, 2015 at 14:13

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