By India McCarty
Could Gen Alpha save the movie industry? According to a new survey, it’s a definite possibility.
In the survey, conducted by NRG, they found that around 59% of Gen Alpha — kids born from 2013 to 2025 — said they “enjoy watching movies in theaters more than at home.”
“Unlike Millennials and older Gen Z-ers, who can still remember a time when watching movies at home meant going through the hassle of buying or renting a DVD or VHS tape, Gen Alpha is growing up in a world where on-demand is the default,” the authors of the study, conducted by NRG, wrote.
They continued, “For them, there’s little novelty or excitement to be found in an at-home movie night. By extension, that makes the experience of physically leaving the house and going to watch a movie in theaters feel all the more special.”
Related: How Gen Alpha Is Changing the Entertainment Industry
Could Gen Alpha Save Movie Theaters? New Survey Shows Why ‘Minecraft’ and ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Had Huge Success With Kids https://t.co/LQGziX7P7I
— Variety (@Variety) August 29, 2025
The report also found that Gen Alpha views going to the movies as a social activity, with 55% of those surveyed “prefer seeing movies at the cinema with a group of friends, compared to just 31% of Millennials and 40% of Gen Z.”
Many of the movies Gen Alpha viewers have boosted to the top of the box office follow that pattern of social activity, specifically, A MINECRAFT MOVIE, which made $955 million at the box office.
Young theatergoers were participants in the screenings, cheering and talking along with dialogue, creating a more inclusive environment with their fellow audience members.
“My screening was pure pandemonium, in a fun way,” a 50-year-old father of two who attended a screening told The New York Post. “Teens, tweens, and below were hooting and hollering from the moment the lights went down to play trailers. In between trailers, one kid – probably 13 or 14 – announced to the theater, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, if you see my popcorn flying through the air, do not be alarmed.’”
While this sort of behavior is not appreciated by everyone, NRG explained that it is an indicator of what Gen Alpha members want from a theater experience.
“We are seeing the signs within this demographic that they do really value the experience of watching movies in theaters,” Fergus Navaratnam-Blair, NRG’s vice president of trends and futures, said. “The fact that they have grown up surrounded by phones, tablets, other sorts of devices, if anything, that seems to have made them more appreciative of the opportunities that they do get to switch up from all of that.”
He continued, “This is a generation that does offer hope for the future of theatrical moviegoing. We just need to understand what it is they’re looking for, that experience, and play into it in a way that gives them what they’re looking for out of that.”
Movie theaters have been working hard to figure out how to draw younger audiences in, and it looks like Gen Alpha’s appreciation might just be the missing piece of the puzzle.
Read Next: How Imax Soars as the Theater Business Struggles
Questions or comments? Please write to us here.
– Content: +3Share:
– Content: +2