USA Times · The 1.43 Project
America’s single biggest movie screen holds 480 seats. We read the live seat map for every IMAX 70mm showing of The Odyssey on sale at AMC Lincoln Square for July 17 through 19 — all 13 of them. Every single one was completely sold out.
By the USA Times Data Desk · Reported from New York · July 17, 2026
Batmandir · Guest Passes Step inside for a day. Guest passes from $161/day — brought in by a member. See guest passes →At AMC Lincoln Square 13 on the Upper West Side — home to the largest IMAX screen in the United States — the biggest film in the format is doing something screens rarely do: selling out completely, showing after showing, around the clock. On the night of July 17, USA Times read the theatre’s own seat-selection maps for every IMAX 70mm showtime of The Odyssey that was on sale for that night and the next two days. The house seats 480. Across all 13 showings, the map showed zero seats available — a wall of taken seats, at 7 a.m., 3 p.m. and 3 a.m. alike.
What the seat map shows: a 480-seat house
The IMAX auditorium’s sellable count today is 480 seats (464 standard, plus eight companion and eight wheelchair spaces), laid out 12 rows deep and up to 42 across in a wide fan beneath the screen. That is the number AMC’s booking system will actually sell for these showings. It is not a claim about the room’s marketed or historical capacity, which we have not independently verified.
One caution worth stating plainly, because it is easy to get wrong: Lincoln Square runs The Odyssey in two premium rooms — the IMAX 70mm house and a separate Dolby Cinema auditorium. The Dolby room is a different, smaller space (about 297 recliner seats). Every figure here is from showings whose own AMC page is labeled “IMAX 70MM,” and every seat map we counted was the same 480-seat house; anything that didn’t match was discarded.
Sold out, show after show
Grouped by date, here is how many seats remained when we looked across the three-day window. The answer, every time, was none.
The pressure eases only later in the run. A week out, a spot-check of three July 25 showings found the house still 99.6% full — down to its last two seats apiece. That is as much breathing room as this screen currently offers The Odyssey.
By the numbers
| Showtime (Jul 17–19) | Sold | Available | Full |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7/17 11:00 pm | 480 | 0 | 100.0% |
| 7/18 3:00 am | 480 | 0 | 100.0% |
| 7/18 11:00 am | 480 | 0 | 100.0% |
| 7/18 11:00 pm | 480 | 0 | 100.0% |
| 7/18 3:00 pm | 480 | 0 | 100.0% |
| 7/18 7:00 am | 480 | 0 | 100.0% |
| 7/18 7:00 pm | 480 | 0 | 100.0% |
| 7/19 3:00 am | 480 | 0 | 100.0% |
| 7/19 11:00 am | 480 | 0 | 100.0% |
| 7/19 11:00 pm | 480 | 0 | 100.0% |
| 7/19 3:00 pm | 480 | 0 | 100.0% |
| 7/19 7:00 am | 480 | 0 | 100.0% |
| 7/19 7:00 pm | 480 | 0 | 100.0% |
Every show seats 480. “Sold” and “Available” are counted directly from the theatre’s seat-selection map.
How we did this
We loaded AMC’s public seat-selection page for each showtime as an ordinary guest — no login, no booking, and never past the seat map — and counted seat states straight from the page: total sellable seats, taken, and open. We confirmed each showing’s format from its own page label (“IMAX 70MM”) rather than assuming it, and kept only maps matching the 480-seat IMAX house, discarding any that didn’t. This report covers every IMAX 70mm showtime on sale for July 17–19 as read on the night of July 17, 2026, plus a spot-check of July 25; it is a point-in-time snapshot, not a forecast. Seat counts reflect what the booking system will sell for a given show, which can differ from a theatre’s marketed capacity. Numbers are recorded, not estimated.
The 1.43 Project is USA Times’ running measurement of how the world actually watches films in their largest formats. Data on file; corrections to corrections@usatimes.com.
The economics of a sold-out run
The near-instant sellouts documented here are more than a fan-culture curiosity; they are a genuine market signal that the industry has been slow to absorb. When every seat for a format sells out weeks in advance, at premium prices, across a run that keeps getting extended, it is powerful evidence of unmet demand — proof that a substantial audience will pay more, travel farther, and plan further ahead for a distinctive big-screen experience than the prevailing wisdom assumes. The scarcity is not merely a constraint imposed by aging equipment; it is also, paradoxically, part of what drives the demand, turning each screening into a scarce, must-have event.
That dynamic poses a real question for exhibitors and studios alike: if the appetite for premium, film-format presentation so reliably outstrips the supply, why does the supply remain so tiny? The answer lies in the daunting cost and difficulty of the format — the rebuilt projectors, the trained operators, the physical prints — but the persistent, ticket-buying enthusiasm on display in runs like this one is the strongest argument that the investment can pay off. A sold-out 70mm run is, in the end, a market telling the industry something it would be wise to hear.
These listings are a snapshot in time, and availability shifts as shows are added, extended, or sell through; the specific screenings on sale will change even as the underlying pattern — scarce supply, overwhelming demand — holds. That pattern is the durable story, and it is why a simple list of showtimes became, for this release, a genuine object of competition.
