I loved this video, where director Ryan Coogler breaks down all the aspect ratios for his new movie, Sinners. I’ve been trying to explain all this to friends for years, and it’s so helpful to have a short video like this to send to people who ask me what tickets they should buy for the movies they plan on seeing.

There are three things that interest me a lot about this discussion:

  1. Film projection, in which old-school film prints are actually projected, is truly an amazing way to see a movie. Like Coogler, this is how I saw movies growing up. When I was 13 or so, our local theatre got digital projection. It looks worse, and it was obviously worse at the time too. We got the chance to see Oppenheimer in 70mm IMAX when it came out, and while that wasn’t my favourite movie, it was an incredible way to see it. Film has some shortcomings (you can see the flickering of light between frames if you know what to look for), but it’s also got a wider dynamic range than any other projection format, and a level of detail that is far beyond what film projection otherwise achieves.
  2. Related to the first: Dolby Cinema is listed as an option in the video. In Canada, we call it AVX. It’s basically digital projection with HDR. It’s a common misconception that film isn’t ​“shot” in HDR. Film has a much wider dynamic range than even digital, so HDR, with its wider dynamic range, gets you closer to the actual experience of seeing a film negative. This is why HDR TVs are great. HDR projection is also great, but it’s still nowhere near as bright as HDR television, and HDR television often isn’t as bright as a real film negative. Dolby Cinema/​AVS is still far better than seeing a film on a normal screen, though.

  3. I wish we talked more about the director’s intent in all this. IMAX has some really incredible marketing, but it’s often a bit of a sham. Coogler talks a lot about aspect ratios. He’s shot Sinners in IMAX’s native format, much like Christopher Nolan does when he makes movies. When folks shoot in IMAX’s native aspect ratio of 1.43:1, they usually are composing the shots for those aspect ratios. But it’s practically impossible for an entire film to be shot in IMAX, because the cameras are very loud and expensive. Typically, every shot is framed for a wider aspect ratio that matches the rest of the movie.

    In the case of Christopher Nolan’s films (and probably Coogler’s Sinners), that means you see the most essential elements of the frame even in a wide presentation. If you are fortunate enough to see the IMAX presentation, you get to see the entire frame, and you see it as the director fully envisioned it.

    This isn’t always true for IMAX movies, though. Let’s say you went to see Dune: Part 2 in IMAX. It was filmed digitally, and composed for a wide aspect ratio of 2.39:1. The IMAX presentation was in 1.9:1, not 1.43:1. When a film is presented in that aspect ratio, it usually means that the extra height of IMAX isn’t really IMAX. It wasn’t shot with IMAX cameras on IMAX film. What you’re seeing is really just the extra, un-cropped portion of the 35mm frame. Basically, you’re paying for the equivalent of a book before the printer chops off all the bleed around the margins. It’s unessential, and the filmmaker absolutely wasn’t concerned during shot composition with that portion of the visual. It’s just there so they can earn extra money off your ticket.

    This bothers me tremendously, because I want to unequivocally tell friends and family that the IMAX presentation of a film is the best way to see it, but that’s only true for the rare times that a film is actually shot with IMAX cameras (see Christopher Nolan movies and Coogler’s Sinners as examples).

All of this brings me to my final thought: ironically, I think, the best way to see most films is now on home video. A normal digital presentation in theatres is in 2K with no HDR. Still looks great, sounds good, but it’s lower resolution than what’s available at home and on video.

A Dolby Cinema/​AVX presentation is better, but still not as bright or as colourful as film or most home televisions. The sound will blow your socks off, though, for what it’s worth (Dolby Cinema also uses Dolby Atmos, and their theatres can have 21+ speakers throughout, creating a truly mind-blowing experience if you have the right seats).

IMAX isn’t worth it half the time, but when you can catch an IMAX presentation for a film shot with IMAX cameras, it will look and sound great. If you can catch one of those rare 70mm IMAX film presentations, then that is far and away the best way to see a movie that is available, bar none. It’s life-changing if you’re a lover of film, a truly revelatory experience

There are only ten theatres in the world that allow you to see Sinners in that IMAX film presentation. For the rest of us, we’ll see it in IMAX digitally — still good, but not as bright as your typical HDR television. 

What this means is that, outside of ten theatrical presentations across the world, every other screening is compromised in a way that 4K HDR televisions is not. On top of that, people in theatres today are typically on their phones, kicking your seat, or (in one particularly memorable instance for me) nearly getting into fistfights while they yell at one another.

All that to say it’s not a wonder theatres are starved for moviegoers.

This season of life is particularly busy for me, but I’m fortunate enough to live close-ish to the 70mm IMAX theatre in Toronto, and I might see about driving down to catch Sinners in the next week or two.