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A couple of months ago, I wrote about what many people thought sounded like an insane deal: $9.95 per month for Unlimited movies in the movie theater. I had previous experience with MoviePass and knew the service was legit, but I understood the general skepticism. If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is — but MoviePass is a notable exception in my book. Yesterday, it got even better: new users can now sign up for MoviePass for $89.95 per year — and now that has also been extended to existing users. That’s unlimited movie theater movies for about $7.50 per month. In many markets, that’s less than the cost of a single matinee. Will the company stay afloat? I have no idea. But they didn’t just start yesterday — I began with MoviePass back in 2014, so whatever they are doing has kept them in the ring for 3 years….I think I’d bet $90 on them to last at least one more.
The Deal
- $89.95 for 12 months of MoviePass
- Valid for new accounts only (but existing accounts are said to be able to upgrade soon)
- Direct link to sign up (new users)
- Direct link to sign in and upgrade (existing users)
Key Details
- 2D movies only
- One movie per day, max 2 memberships per household
- Can’t share a single pass or put two people on one pass
- Once you finish 12 months, membership will auto-renew at $9.95/month
- Find theaters near you by going to www.moviepass.com on a desktop (or request the desktop site on mobile) and scroll down to the bottom of the page (you should see a map where you can enter a zip code)
Quick Thoughts
I previously wrote about my experiences with Movie Pass when they first cut the price to $9.95 per month (See: Great deal: Go to the movies every day for $10 a month). Apart from the slow initial shipping of the cards, I haven’t heard of many glitches this time around. If it continues to work as advertised (and I mostly suspect it will), this will be a fantastic deal for movie lovers.
On the negative side, I did see some discussion in the related Slickdeals thread that indicated there may have been a change in terms limiting you to seeing each movie only one time or banning users for abuse. I suspect the type of behavior they are trying to avoid is people buying tickets for others or without intending to see the movie themselves. I haven’t monitored that thread of discussion closely, but I check in now and then and haven’t read reports of people being shut down for normal movie-watching behavior. It might be worth taking a look at it here.
Again, to see theaters in your area, just go to www.moviepass.com. Scroll to the bottom of the page and you should see something like this (change the zip code to see your theaters):
As noted above, an email went out to existing users today advising them of the ability to “upgrade” to this lower rate for a year.
I clicked the link and logged in and was prompted to upgrade if I’d like:
In my case, I opted not to upgrade yet. With a baby on the way, I’m not sure how often we’ll get out to the movies in the coming year. I’ll probably stick with the $9.95 cancel-any-time membership for now. I believe it’s not possible to sign up for that membership now that they have this new option. However, it says that this membership is “for a limited time only”. It’s not clear whether it will go back to the cancel-anytime model or go stick with the annual model at a higher price if this current promotion ends. When I originally signed up back in 2014, I had to commit for a year (though I was charged monthly).
Bottom line
If you like to go to the movies a lot, this is probably a no brainer. According to the Internet, the average cost of a movie is somewhere over $8. If you go to more than 11 movies, you’re probably ahead of the game unless you always go to matinees. Some will speculate that this new model means that MoviePass is teetering on the edge of collapse and making a grab for cash. I personally doubt that to be the case, but it’s certainly something to consider.
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This app doesn’t work all the time, customer support is so bad
Not only they don’t get to you online, they don’t have an answer, I tried to upgrade and solution was not found
I asked to talk to someone, that never happened
it seems the 89.95 year offer is over now as i checked in on it today.
$6.95×12=$83.40
$89.95-$83.40=$6.55
Fees? Taxes? Usually there is full math analysis.
process fee, nvm
Well, looking at their investor presentation, it’s largely owned by publicly-traded Helios and Matheson (HMNY). Nice stock move from $2.50 to a high in the 30’s for Helios before coming back to $13’s.
The plan is to list the stock for trading in 2018.
BBB doesn’t generally give out an F rating if a company responds to complaints
from BBB site:
“The business failed to respond to the dispute. (76 complaints)”
If those same customers actually paid $ to MP, I would suspect MP is looking at numerous chargebacks! Nice to have additional layers of protection using cards in addition to the rewards, etc,
This company has an F rating with the BBB. Most of the recent complaints are about not ever receiving the MoviePass. LOTS of recent complaints.
It’s not that I always rely on BBB because I have been a member and oddly my rating went from A to A+ when I joined, but it’s pretty difficult to get a “F” rating.
When Nick first wrote about this deal & I tried registering, Movie Pass’ systems crashed due to response overload. It took a coupla days to sign up, & I wasn’t even sure if it “took” when I did!
Lo & behold my card arrived a full month later (supposed to only take a week) along with a nice apology. The process has since worked smoothly, but I am sure plenty of people were bothered enough about all the gliches to write in to BBB. We’ll see – I might have just lost my upgrade fee but am sure I can see several movies in the next couple of months to hopefully make that up if MP fails!
I signed up for this when you first wrote about it, Nick. It is an awesome service I previously knew nothing about. Thank you for the heads-up about the upgrade, too, I didn’t teceive an email from Movie Pass. Really enjoying this…thx so much again!
Awesome! Glad to hear it.
Were there 12 movies worth going to last year?!
Back when I had MoviePass the first time, there was an indie theater in a town where I would often go to the movies. They always get an interesting variety of films (even things like the oscar-nominated live-action and animated shorts). In the current iteration of MoviePass, that particular theater is no longer compatible….but figured it’s worth mentioning that you may not be limited to mainstream films if you are interested in other stuff.
Problem is avoiding the propaganda in movies. Too few are free from politics.
Does moviepass allow you to get a ticket ahead of time, days before, in case you want to buy a ticket for a movie likely to sell out? Or would you always have to buy the day of?
You can’t buy until you are physically at the theater on the day of the show. So the most you can buy in advance is by going to the theater the morning of the day you want to see the movie. Or gamble.
This sounds worse than it is. MoviePass is also limited to standard showings (no IMAX, 3D, etc.), so even if you’re going opening weekend, if you go to a large theater, you’ll likely still be able to get decent seats. For example, my wife and I and another couple friends saw Thor opening night without any issue. Apparently people who buy in advance like to buy better shows.
Site is down-laptop.
Site is always seem to be down when you want tech support or have simple questions, I read a CNN article where they have had lots of problems financial, top employees quitting their positions
Trust me, do the Year upgrade, it will.give you a REASON to take the occasional break away from BABY !