Posted on July 13, 2016 by Natalie Morin
Along with baseball, going to the movies is a treasured national pastime. The silver screen has been a place for innovation, comfort and escape. And as popular date spots, movie theaters have provided the settings for many budding relationships. Film has proven to be a cornerstone of American culture.
Like the country itself, the film industry has changed with the times. In 1940, a movie ticket cost a quarter. Now, some theaters charge upwards of $10 for admission. With this in mind, MooseRoots, a genealogy data site by Graphiq, crunched the numbers see how the average cost of a movie ticket has changed since 1940. The data comes from the MPAA, and the MooseRoots team noted both the nominal (absolute) price and the 2016 inflation-adjusted price of a movie ticket.
Note: The MPAA is missing data for average movie ticket prices for 1946, 1947, 1950, 1952, 1955, 1957, 1958 and 1960. For these years, MooseRoots used the values of the years around them and the BLS inflation calculator to estimate what these omitted prices might have been.
Research More CPI Data on MooseRoots
How do you feel about the rise of ticket prices over time? Do you think they’ve risen inline with inflation? Or have they over-inflated and overtaken inflation rates? How do you feel about movie theaters premium charges on concessions? What do you think of the current movie going experience overall? Is streaming content now king? Or will going to the movies continue to be a cornerstone of American culture? Let us know your thoughts and opinions in the comments below or hit us up on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.
