What’s the Etiquette of Movie Theater Sing-Alongs?

Online backlash was swift, with one user retorting, “I paid my hard-earned money for a ticket too and I don’t wanna hear y’all attempting to sing so what now.”

It all circles around two questions that, like anything else in the culture, are constantly evolving: When you’re seeing a movie in a theater, how should you behave? And when can a viewer become a participant?

Movie sing-alongs are a theater tradition

Actual in-person disruptions at movie theaters appear minimal. Representatives from Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, a prominent chain known for diverse film screenings and food service, and ACX Cinemas, a family-owned chain based in the Midwest, both say they’ve experienced nothing major. Same story at AMC, which has had “virtually no complaints about disruptive singing” in relation to Wicked, spokesman Ryan Noonan said.

@sereyooo If you were at the AMC theater on 42nd street today at 2:30 pm please reach out, I want to be your friend for life. #amc #wickedthemusical #wickedmovie #wickedsingalong #singalong #movie #movieclip #arianagrande ♬ original sound – Sergio Perez Trapero

The instinct to join in is hardly new. “Sing-along screenings have been a principal part of moviegoing going back over 100 years,” says Ross Melnick, a professor of film and media studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. But singing, he says, typically occurs in “designated sing-along environments where it is clear that there’s a collective performance of the audience.”

According to Esther Morgan-Ellis, author of Everybody Sing!: Community Singing in the American Picture Palace, American film screenings in the late 1920s and early 1930s were often preceded by sing-alongs. An organist would perform three or four popular songs and audiences were encouraged to join in, often guided by lyrics projected onto the screen. In other cases, the sing-along would be coupled with a short film that included lyrics and a bouncing, on-screen ball that would hop across the words to help audiences keep tempo.

While singing has long been common, other behaviors were once hotly debated. When movies were a new medium, Americans quarreled over not just the content of the films themselves but the venue at which people viewed them. Was the dark room a hotbed for vice and immoral behavior? Should films be screened with the lights turned up? Should talking be allowed or forbidden? And, of course, there was segregation; movie theaters were not fully integrated until the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

“We have never been a monolithic society. Not ever, and increasingly so now,” Melnick says. “You can tell so much about America by looking at what’s going on in its movie theaters.”

In 1944, MGM, the film studio that had produced The Wizard of Oz just five years prior, released a short film titled Movie Pests that warned moviegoers against engaging in disruptive behavior. Some of the film’s concerns — sticking gum under chairs, removing shoes — are still considered no-gos today. But the short also showcased etiquette of another era, such as removing jackets in the lobby and using the hat rack under your chair.

Today, acts of participation can be more ad hoc. One Ariana Grande fan account started an online firestorm after posting on X that users should share photos they’d taken of their favorite scenes from Wicked. While some commented and posted their own photos, others responded with snarky remarks. One clap-back came from the Alamo Drafthouse account, which retorted, “Or, don’t do that.” The theater chain has a no-talking or texting policy, and violators are ejected after one warning.

Alamo Drafthouse hosts “movie party” events where interaction is encouraged and its strict no-phone policy is void. Attendees at a special Magic Mike XXL screening were given fake money to throw at the screen, and visitors were encouraged to dress in regency garb for tea party screenings of movies like Pride and Prejudice and Emma.

And though unique theater experiences may be rising in notoriety, decades of late-night screenings of The Room and The Rocky Horror Picture Show have enticed devotees to adopt unorthodox viewing practices. Longtime viewers gather at regular screenings to shout synchronized snark, toss items at the screen and even act out the movie.