Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is the first feature film shot entirely on IMAX 15/70 film — and the demand to see it that way has stunned even IMAX. But only 41 screens on the planet can actually project it in its full 1.43:1 glory. Here is every one of them.
The runaway story of the summer isn’t a plot twist — it’s a format. Audiences are chasing the 70mm IMAX presentation of The Odyssey so hard that IMAX and analysts have called the demand unprecedented, with shows selling out weeks in advance (CNBC; Fortune). The reason it feels scarce is simple: it is.
What “1.43:1” actually means
Nolan shot The Odyssey on 15-perforation 65mm film — the tallest, highest-resolution motion-picture format in existence, projected from 70mm prints. On a true IMAX film screen it fills a nearly square 1.43:1 frame that towers over a normal “IMAX” digital auditorium and dwarfs a standard multiplex screen. It is the format IMAX was built for, and the one almost no theater still runs. Most auditoriums branded “IMAX” are digital and project a shorter 1.90:1 image; only the 15/70 film houses below can show the picture edge to edge, the way it was photographed.
Batmandir · The Circle Full access to theatres, museums & exhibitions. S2 · ongoing membership, without a Founder’s seat. Explore membership →The 41 screens
Per IMAX’s own participating-theater list — cross-checked against confirmed showtimes — The Odyssey is booked for IMAX 15/70 film at 41 venues worldwide: 25 in the United States and 16 abroad. Equipped and scheduled is not the same as available; many shows are already sold out.
United States (25)
| Venue | City |
|---|---|
| AMC Lincoln Square 13 | New York, NY |
| AMC Metreon 16 | San Francisco, CA |
| Universal Cinema AMC at CityWalk | Universal City, CA |
| AMC Rivercenter 11 | San Antonio, TX |
| Regal Hacienda Crossings | Dublin, CA |
| Regal Irvine Spectrum 21 | Irvine, CA |
| Regal LA Live | Los Angeles, CA |
| Regal Edwards Ontario Palace | Ontario, CA |
| Regal Colorado Center 9 | Denver, CO |
| Regal Mall of Georgia | Buford, GA |
| Regal UA King of Prussia | King of Prussia, PA |
| Regal Opry Mills | Nashville, TN |
| Cinemark 17 | Dallas, TX |
| Cinemark Carefree Circle | Colorado Springs, CO |
| Cinemark Seven Bridges | Woodridge, IL |
| Cinemark Tinseltown | Rochester, NY |
| Harkins Arizona Mills 25 | Tempe, AZ |
| TCL Chinese Theatre | Hollywood, CA |
| Esquire IMAX | Sacramento, CA |
| Celebration! Cinema Grand Rapids North | Grand Rapids, MI |
| Brenden Palms 14 | Las Vegas, NV |
| Providence Place Cinemas 16 | Providence, RI |
| AutoNation IMAX (Museum of Discovery & Science) | Fort Lauderdale, FL |
| IMAX Theatre, Indiana State Museum | Indianapolis, IN |
| Tennessee Aquarium IMAX | Chattanooga, TN |
Canada (9)
| Venue | City |
|---|---|
| Cinéma Banque Scotia Montréal | Montréal, QC |
| Cineplex Cinemas Vaughan | Vaughan, ON |
| Cineplex Cinemas Mississauga | Mississauga, ON |
| Cineplex Cinemas Langley | Langley, BC |
| SilverCity Riverport | Richmond, BC |
| Cineplex Cinemas Bayers Lake | Halifax, NS |
| Scotiabank Theatre Chinook | Calgary, AB |
| Scotiabank Theatre Edmonton | Edmonton, AB |
| Kramer IMAX, Saskatchewan Science Centre | Regina, SK |
Europe (6)
| Venue | City |
|---|---|
| BFI IMAX | London, UK |
| The Ronson Theatre, Science Museum | London, UK |
| Vue Manchester IMAX | Manchester, UK |
| Kinepolis | Brussels, Belgium |
| Pathé Odysseum | Montpellier, France |
| IMAX, Palác Flora | Prague, Czechia |
Australia (1)
| Venue | City |
|---|---|
| IMAX Melbourne | Melbourne, Australia |
Why so few — and why it sells out
A 15/70 film projector is a refrigerator-sized machine that runs prints weighing hundreds of pounds; the expertise to thread and maintain them has nearly vanished. That scarcity is exactly what makes an Odyssey ticket feel like an event: with only 41 rooms on Earth able to show the film as shot, a single screen’s nightly capacity becomes the ceiling on how many people can ever see it that way. It is the rarest way to watch the year’s biggest film — and, increasingly, the hardest ticket to get.
A note on the list. Venues reflect IMAX’s participating-theater list and confirmed 15/70 showtimes as of late July 2026; museum and science-center screens (Fort Lauderdale, Indianapolis, Chattanooga, Regina) are institutional venues and may sell general admission rather than reserved seats. Availability changes daily — check the individual theater before you travel.
Sources: IMAX participating-theater list; venue list cross-checked via The Movie Blog / ComingSoon.net; demand reporting from CNBC and Fortune. Venue verification by the USA Times Data Desk.
Why the number is so small
The reason only a few dozen screens worldwide can present The Odyssey in true 70mm IMAX comes down to a collision of physical, technical, and human constraints that most moviegoers never see. Running a genuine 70mm IMAX print requires a specific and increasingly rare kind of projector — machines that have not been manufactured in decades and must be maintained or rebuilt from salvaged parts. It requires an auditorium large enough to house both the screen and the enormous physical print itself. And it requires a trained projectionist capable of threading and running miles of irreplaceable film without error. Each of those requirements is a bottleneck; together, they narrow the field to a tiny fraction of the theaters that advertise “IMAX.”
This scarcity is precisely what gives the format its mystique, and what turns a screening into a genuine event. A moviegoer determined to see the film as its director intended cannot simply drop by the nearest multiplex; they must seek out one of the handful of qualifying venues, often traveling considerable distances and booking far in advance. That friction, in an age of frictionless streaming, is not a bug but the entire point — it makes the experience deliberate, communal, and rare, the opposite of watching on a laptop.
Our count is a snapshot, and it can shift as theaters add or lose film capability — chains occasionally refurbish a dormant projector to meet demand for a major release, and others retire equipment that becomes too costly to maintain. But the broad reality is stable and stark: the true 70mm IMAX experience exists on a vanishingly small number of screens, and for any film shot in the format, that scarcity is both its greatest limitation and its greatest allure.
For the committed cinephile, then, this list is less a convenience than a map to a pilgrimage — a catalog of the few places on the planet where a particular kind of moviegoing still exists in its fullest form. That such a map is necessary at all is the whole point: in an age of infinite, instant, at-home access, the true giant screen remains stubbornly, gloriously rooted to a handful of physical rooms, and getting to one is part of what makes the experience worth having.
Related from the USA Times Data Desk
- The National Average Movie Ticket Is $10.75. IMAX Routinely Charges Double That in New York and LA.
- Every 70mm Odyssey Show on Sale at America's Biggest IMAX Screen Is Sold Out
- The 1% of Screens That Now Rule the Box Office: How IMAX Won the Post-Streaming Era
- Every True IMAX 1.43:1 Theatre in the World
- Box-office coverage index · the Star Index methodology
