Online Movie Listings: How to Find Out When and Where that New Movie is Playing

Not too long ago, if you wanted to find out what time a movie was playing you had to call your local movie theater and listen to a long recording that could put an insomniac to sleep. The recording announced every single movie the theater was playing along with their show times. Of course, the movie you were interested in was always the last one.

Thankfully, Internet movie listing websites have made finding movie information much easier. Now you can quickly check online to find out what time each movie is playing, view the latest movie trailers and read reviews from a variety of famous movie critics. You can even purchase your tickets online ahead of time in case the movie you want to see is all sold out when you get to the theater. It seems the only thing you can't do online is buy your popcorn in advance!

Here are a few of the best websites to find movie listings and other online movie information:

Moviefone.com

Why stand on line for an hour outside the movie theater box office when you can buy movie tickets online in the comfort of your home? One of the oldest move listing websites on the Internet, Moviefone.com allows you to purchase movie tickets online in advance. Moviefone.com also has complete movie listings that can be accessed by movie title or theater location. Before the Moviefone.com website went online, Moviefone was a telephone-based service that allowed film buffs to purchase movie tickets by phone. Now owned by AOL, the Moviefone concept is such a big part of popular culture that classic TV programs from Seinfeld to The Simpsons have used Moviefone as a key plot element in episodes of their shows.

Fandango.com

The funny Fandango lunch bag puppet commercials shown at many movie theaters helped to popularize the concept of buying movie tickets at home. The Fandango.com website allows you to do more than just buy movie tickets. You can plug in your zip code to find out which movies are playing in your area, or select a movie title and Fandango will tell you where that movie is playing nearby. The Fandango website also has movie trailers, photo galleries, movie reviews and a top 10 Box Office list.

Rottentomatoes.com

Along with movie listings, Rottentomatoes.com offers one of the best online resources for movie reviews from the country's top movie critics. Rottentomatoes.com is best known for its Tomatometer system of ranking movies. If more than 60% of the critics on Rottentomatoes.com give a movie a favorable review, the movie gets a fresh rating, depicted by a bright red tomato. If fewer than 60% of the critics like the movie, the movie gets a rotten rating, depicted by a splattered green tomato.

Online newspapers

In addition to the popular movie listing websites, many newspapers have online versions that include movie listings for their local area, along with blogs, movie trailers and other current movie information. Type in the phrase "movie listings" and the name of your city ("Sacramento," for example) in your Internet search box, and chances are good your local newspaper's movie listings will pop up on the screen as one of your top choices.

Sources:

www.fandango.com

www.moviefone.com

www.rottentomatoes.com