For much of its existence, the rules at Alamo Drafthouse were simple: Don’t talk and don’t text, or you may get kicked out of the theater. The cinema chain, a pioneer of allowing audiences to order food and drink at their seats, is known for its strict no-phones policy.
Last year, in a promo for the chain, the writer-director Ryan Coogler called using your phone in the theater the first of the “deadly sins” when it comes to moviegoing: “Turn it off, put it away, watch the damn movie.” It’s one of hundreds of no-phones public service announcements that the company has produced over the past two decades.
But this year, Alamo Drafthouse rolled out a phone-friendly change: mobile ordering. The printed menus and notecards that had typically been used to place orders are now mostly gone, replaced by QR codes at every seat. Instead of writing out their choices on pieces of paper to be picked up by an attendant, customers are being asked use their phones to order popcorn, beer and more. They can even digitally report other moviegoers for using their phones in the theater.
The response from Alamo patrons has been largely negative, with many expressing outrage at a perceived about-face. They have taken to social media in droves to protest mobile ordering, and started a Change.org petition asking the chain to reinstate its no-phones policy.
Some moviegoers have refused to pay digitally, leaving cash instead, or have begged on Instagram for the policy to be reversed. Others have even registered their protests on bathroom walls. The actor Elijah Wood called it a “profound and upsetting mistake,” and in a review for IndieWire, the critic David Ehrlich described watching a movie at an Alamo Drafthouse theater in 2026 as “absolute hell,” pointing to mobile ordering as one of the developments degrading the moviegoing experience.
“This is going to sound so silly, but this hurt more than, like, most of the breakups I’ve had,” Andy Young, a film and TV editor in Los Angeles, said of the change. Young discovered the Alamo Drafthouse as a film student in Austin in the late 2000s, going three or four times a week at the time, and has been hooked ever since. “I loved, loved, loved it. It’s where I had my first date with my wife,” said Young, who is considering no longer going to the chain at all. “The first time I heard about mobile ordering, I truly thought it was an Onion bit.’”
Miles Warren, a 28-year-old filmmaker in Brooklyn, goes to an Alamo Drafthouse theater at least once a week. “It was one of the only places that was really serious” about not using phones, he said. “Adding the phone element to it just seems like a reversal that is so antithetical to what the theater is.” Warren is a subscriber to the company’s Season Pass, which allows him to see one movie a day for $30 each month, but is now considering canceling his membership.
Alamo Drafthouse is owned by Sony Pictures, which purchased the chain several years after it declared bankruptcy in 2021, when the pandemic threatened the entire theatrical industry. In a statement, a spokesperson for Alamo Drafthouse cited several reasons for the policy change, including efficiencies in the ordering process and the elimination of distractions like staff members walking in the aisles and dropping off checks in the third act of a film.
The statement also noted that most customers already use phones to display their tickets and that the majority of mobile orders are placed before a movie begins. The company said that it had not eliminated any staff roles to make way for mobile ordering, and that it would be rolling out more changes to make the process more effective.
“Alamo Drafthouse is in a class of its own with a moviegoing experience that guests can’t find anywhere else,” the chain’s chief executive, Michael Kustermann, said in a statement, pointing to handmade food and cocktails. He added, “We’re continuing to invest in the future of Alamo, including our ordering process and digital experience to make sure Alamo remains a one-of-a-kind cinema experience well into the future.”
Tyler Neal, a computer programmer in the Los Angeles area, is the moderator of a popular Alamo Drafthouse subreddit, runs an Alamo Drafthouse Discord and created the website Drafthouse Notifications, which sends alerts when tickets go on sale. He has had a front-row seat to the response from other fans. “Obviously there’s some anger out there, but the vast majority of people are just disappointed,” he said.
According to Neal, the subreddit was receiving about 300,000 monthly visitors last year; since mobile ordering went into effect in February, it’s averaging closer to 700,000 monthly visits. “For at least a couple months after they announced it, that was like 95 percent of the activity on the subreddit,” Neal says. “It was literally kind of overwhelming.”
Neal said that the strong response stemmed in part from the desire for “that sort of digital detox, even if it’s only for a couple hours” that a phone-free setting provided. “The biggest complaint that I’ve seen is just that it’s taken away that third space for a lot of people.”
Twich Collins, a screenwriter in Denver, estimated that he had patronized his local Alamo Drafthouse 140 times last year and described the no-cellphone policy as a golden rule. Mobile ordering meant “you are now allowing — not even allowing, you’re forcing people to use their cellphone,” he said, and added, “They try to say that you’re only supposed to use it for ordering food, but because of the culture as we are, as soon as you pick up your phone to do something, you’ve got to check that notification if it’s on your screen.”
Collins has written an open letter to Alamo Drafthouse and said that every week he has been emailing its chief executive, Kustermann. He hasn’t received a response, and is now trying to organize a boycott calling on customers to attend the theater but refrain from ordering food to communicate their displeasure.
“I love the Alamo. It’s the greatest movie experience that I’ve ever had,” Collins said. “And if you love something like that, you want to try and save it.”
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