It's 2021. The COVID-19 Pandemic is still raging, and few industries have been hit harder than live entertainment. Movie theaters have been gutted, struggling to recover even after the end of lockdowns due to many people still being leery about the public health risks of sitting in a crowded theater for two hours. If you're running one of America's largest theater chains, how do you get your customers to come back?
AMC Theaters' solution was to create an extremely melodramatic ad with Nicole Kidman extolling the magic of the movies. And with that, an instant legend was born.
"We Make Movies Better", also known as the Nicole Kidman AMC Theaters commercial, is an advertisement directed by Jeff and Tim Cronenweth and written by Billy Ray released in September 2021 that aired on television and in front of every movie shown at AMC Theaters. Almost immediately, it went viral
due to its earnestness and hyperbolic description of the moviegoing experience that veered straight into pure camp. Quoting its lines became an Audience Participation ritual due to the fact that it was shown before every movie, and it inspired parodies, memes, edits, remixes, salutes, and even Fun T-Shirts. It proved so popular that AMC extended its contract with Kidman to keep the ad in theaters, and released three new promos in 2024.
Watch it here.
We come to this place... for tropes.
- Audience Participation: It is not an unheard-of practice for audiences to recite the lines themselves along with Kidman, treating her speech almost like the Pledge of Allegiance or a cult induction.
- Background Halo: The light of the film projector creates one of these behind Kidman's head after she sits down to watch the movie.
- In the Hood: The ad opens with Kidman lowering the hood on her jacket as she walks up to an AMC theater.
- Lady in a Power Suit: Kidman wears a gray-blue suit with shiny silver pinstripes.
- Melodrama: It's Nicole Kidman extolling the power of cinema in the most dramatic language possible. What else can it be?
- Mundane Made Awesome: Going to the movies as an experience that can make you "not just entertained, but somehow reborn."
- Summer Blockbuster: The films shown in the ad include some of the biggest blockbuster action films of The New '10s, such as Jurassic World, The Force Awakens, and Wonder Woman (2017).
