Movie Pass Math

For a month this summer, I paid $30 to get an Alamo Drafthouse Movie Pass. Alamo is a movie theater that allow serves food and drinks. What the Movie Pass allows you to do is watch a movie every day (and you only pay a $1.89 service fee). It is summer and I figured why not? I could take good advantage of this deal. I had never gone to the movies alone before, but this past month I realized I really enjoy it!

The movies I saw using the pass:

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
The Lesson
Oppenheimer
Past Lives
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Shortcomings
Joy Ride
Haunted Mansion
Barbie
Easy A
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
Jules

I think my favorite was just a random movie I had never heard of and went to see to pass the time — The Lesson. And I thought the best was Oppenheimer.

I wanted to see what a great deal this was for me. For the basic calculations, most movies cost between $15.50-$18.99 depending on the time of day (and all movies on Tuesdays are only $9). For simplicity’s sake, I’m going to say the total cost to me with the Movie Pass over the course of the month was going to be $30+$1.89m (where 0<m<31) for the price of the pass and the cost of the service fee per movie.

And without the movie pass, it would have been around $17m (since I saw some movies during the day, and some movies at night).

So the break-even point was seeing less than two movies! I spent a total of $52.68 with the pass to see 12 movies, while I would have spent out of pocket $204 if I didn’t have the pass and saw all 12 movies. I know money doesn’t really work like this, but in my mind I like to pretend I saved $151.32!

Another way to think about this is to calculate the price per ticket:

So at 12 movies, it was like each movie only cost me $4.39. (I was saving $12.61 per ticket!) And the more movies I would have watched, the cheaper each ticket would have been!

But of course, this isn’t totally realistic. The thing about the Alamo is that you have at your disposal when you go there delicious foods and drinks. When I got the pass, I vowed I wasn’t going to always get something to eat or drink — and it would be a rare occurrence. But… life happens and I ended up getting something to eat on 5 of the 12 times I went. And I calculated the total and it came to $91.13 in food/tips.

So in reality, I spent a total of $143.81 at the movies, and it was in total $11.98 per movie on average.

Psychologically, it’s a little bit sneaky. You think “oh, I can see so many movies for $30.” Then there’s that $1.89 fee per movie that isn’t a lot but adds up. And of course the impulse food purchases is something Alamo surely is counting on. So I can go around telling people (and myself) “I saw 12 movies for $30″… when the reality is that what I should be saying is “I saw 12 movies and spent $143.81.”

Overall, was it worth it?

Absolutely.