AMC Theaters in New York City ranked by how easy it is to steal soda from the Coke Freestyle machines

Every good movie theater got the cuck chair

My wife and I have had a hellish week. Paid subscribers might remember last Friday when I talked about our experience searching for an apartment. Nearly every single day since then has featured either frantic scrambling to get documents together or torturous hours spent waiting for emails confirming that things are moving along. Wednesday was the worst of these days by far. At the end of it, to take our minds off things, we decided to take a long walk that ended at the AMC Orpheum 7 on the Upper East Side. We would get two A-List reservations for Mission: Impossible, sit in the very back row (impressively labeled Row X, because the screens here are very long), and eat popcorn and scroll our phones and leave when we got bored. This is our idea of a relaxing evening out. Around the time we got to the first of several boring exposition scenes in the President’s special boardroom, I looked her right in the eye held aloft the 1 liter Dasani bottle we had already emptied, and said in a voice she would later describe as “with as fierce a determination as I’ve ever heard from her”: “I’m going to get a soda.” She balked. Surely, she said, you’re not allowed to fill a water bottle with soda from the machine. “If they stop me, they stop me,” I replied, in a tone I would personally describe as heroic.

Anyway, my point is that I’ve had a horrible seven days and I wanted to come up with a fun, fluffy post that wouldn’t require too much brain power. Here is every AMC I’ve been to in New York City, ranked by how easy it is to steal soda from the Coke Freestyle machines.

6. AMC Magic Johnson Harlem 9

The AMC Magic Johnson has a lot going for it. Their speaker setup produces some of the best sound you’ll find at a non-premium AMC screen. It’s also the only movie theater I’ve ever been to that’s named after a top 5 NBA player of all time AND has a charming mural of him watching over you as you purchase concessions. In terms of the geometry of the space, you would think this would rank much higher in terms of soda stealability. As you can roughly see in the image above, the Freestyle machines are around a corner from the concession booths, tucked away behind a wall that totally prevents line of sight from employees working the registers. You would think this would make them a prime target, right? But you would be wrong! The AMC Magic Johnson is a terrifying panopticon where rules are enforced with a chilling severity. The last time I was there, I walked out of the screening to get a snack, and when I walked back in the ticket-taker demanded to see my ticket. Now keep in mind that the ticket-taker booth is like a few feet away from the concessions. This woman saw me walk past her from inside the theater, buy a concession, and she still demanded to see a ticket before she would allow me to enter. And of course, what could I say except that my phone was in my bag, which was in my seat! Despite the stealth potential of the placement of the machines, I would not feel safe attempting to break a rule here. I think if they caught me you would never hear from me again.

5. AMC Kips Bay 15

I confess, I’ve only been to Kips Bay once before. They seem to be the go-to location for Brooklynites, but since I moved to New York it’s never really been convenient to me. Last year, they were the only AMC in Manhattan showing the Summer Olympics and I wanted to see my guy Nikola Jokic on the big screen, so Hannah and I paid a visit. Kips Bay is an odd theater, sprawled across multiple floors in such a way that it sort of feels abandoned no matter how busy it is. That’s true of a lot of AMCs in the city, in fact; so many of them have to squish into small footprints and stack their space upwards or downwards. In any case, I don’t remember the layout of Kips Bay very well. I do recall that the concession booth was in an “in the round” style where it’s a big circle in the center of the lobby. I imagine that at their busiest, the circle is fully staffed and thus has eyes on the entire room around it. Therefore I’m going to place Kips Bay here at fifth. If anyone would like to try to steal soda from there, please let me know how it went in the comments below.

4. AMC 84th St 6

AMC 84th St 6 is straight up one of the most terrifying movie theaters I’ve ever been inside. Positioned a short walk away from flagship location AMC Lincoln Square 13, the 84th Street AMC is perpetually understaffed and broken down. It has a haunted vibe, like you’ll walk out after the movie and turn around and suddenly see that the property is condemned and boarded up. But then how did you just spend several hours there watching a movie? You see the old ticket-taker across the street, he gives you a wink and then vanishes. Turns out he died in a fire thirty years ago. Just like in the movie you saw…..wait, can that be true? The harder you try to keep the details solid, the quicker the memory slips away, running through your fingers like sand. In just a few moments, you’ll forget how you ever came to be here in the first place, and move on with your life. But one day you’ll find that ticket stub in the bottom of a drawer, and without knowing why you will start to sweat.

One time when I went here, one of the masking curtains was placed improperly and it was covering about 10% of the screen. You can see what it looked like in the image above. I noticed it during the trailers and went out to tell someone about it. Nothing happened until about halfway through the movie, at which point the curtain did not move, but instead the projector just resized the image to fit. There are Freestyle machines right next to concessions with clear line of sight, but if your screening is in one of the theaters downstairs there’s also one down there that no one will ever pay attention to. It doesn’t really even matter, though. I think you could straight up shoot someone at the box office and they wouldn’t care. The only reason it’s this low is because taking any action within the walls of this theater puts you at risk of a poltergeist or banshee attaching itself to you permanently.

3. AMC Lincoln Square 13

There’s just something special about Lincoln Square 13. Maybe it’s having the biggest IMAX screen in America. Maybe it’s the charmingly retrograde¹ styling that tricks you into thinking the theater has been around since the Golden Age. Maybe it’s that they project non-IMAX 70mm prints on screens big and well-maintained enough to justify showing them. Maybe it’s even the proximity to Film at Lincoln Center, rubbing off some of those classy vibes. AMC Lincoln is an icon, but it’s more than just its IMAX. When you walk in there, you feel like the people in charge really care. It reminds me of being a kid and visiting your rich friend’s house, but like a nice rich friend, the kind of family where if you accidentally broke something they’d be really kind and understanding about it and you would just want to puke because you felt so bad.

That’s why Lincoln Square is in third. Hypothetically it’s rather easy to steal from the Freestyle machines on the main floor (the IMAX and basement are a bit more challenging) because they’re so far away from the concessions booth. But stand in that building and tell me you feel fully okay about stealing from them. Just imagine how compassionately they would ask you to stop and tell me you wouldn’t be overwhelmed with shame. Do it. You won’t.

2. AMC Orpheum 7

And now, I will complete the story from the introduction. The Orpheum is a tiny theater, with three screens on the main floor and four in a sub-basement. The lower floor has a concession booth with both a Freestyle and Icee machine, but I have never once seen it staffed. One time the lower Freestyle machine was active and dispensed free soda, with nary an employee in sight. The next time I was there, it was locked with a passcode. 1234 did not work. They got wise.

The Orpheum is where we go to see movies that we don’t think will be good enough to warrant making longer trips to theaters with better presentation. That doesn’t necessarily mean we think they’ll be bad, just that they won’t suffer from the Orpheum’s beat-up screens and bizarre seating maps, and may in fact benefit from a slightly dingier atmosphere. We like to think of these movies as “Orpheum Bangers.” Madame Web was an Orpheum Banger. So were The Beekeeper and Venom: Let There Be Carnage. The Orpheum has something kind of like 84th St 6’s “who gives a fuck” atmosphere, but it’s less frightening and more welcoming.

There are only two reliable Freestyle machines in the entire theater, and they are directly abutting the concession booth. When I went to fill my water bottle with soda, the employees briefly glanced up from their phones, saw clearly what I was doing, and went back to scrolling. I felt that we had an understanding that while this behavior was technically not allowed, it was nevertheless in the spirit of the location. I love you, AMC Orpheum. I will be sad to say goodbye to you when we move away.

1. AMC Empire 25

The first time I ever went to the AMC in Times Square, it was Christmas 2014. My dad took me and my sister to the city; she wanted to see a Broadway show, I wanted to see Inherent Vice. While the two of them saw their show, I saw mine. I was awed by AMC Empire. It’s four-and-a-half floors of screens, connected via towering escalators. After the movie, I got lost trying to leave the theater; the way in is not the way out. Empire sprawls like no other theater I’ve ever visited. On several occasions, I’ve seen a movie on the top floor and poked my head into every single screen as I made my way down. Empire is a paradise for theater-hoppers.

Naturally, because no one wants to have to go up and down four floors via escalator just to refill on snacks and drinks, each floor has its own concessions booth and soda machines. The one on the first floor is always staffed, and I have sometimes seen the second floor staffed during peak hours on weekends. Maybe there are times when they go beyond that, but I haven’t seen them. But they keep those Freestyle machines stocked. Provided you’re on a floor other than the first one, it’s trivial to take as much soda as you want. The ground floor might be a bit trickier, given how many employees are concentrated in that one area, but sneaking up to floor 2 is hardly a problem.

To me, the Empire feels like home. Stealing soda from the machines doesn’t feel like stealing at all. Is it stealing to get a drink from your own refrigerator? Theater-hopping may be against the rules, but is it illegal to sleep in your own bed? The Empire is the most welcoming multiplex I’ve ever attended. Long may it reign.

---

I hope you liked this one! I needed something fluffy and easy to write this week. The good news is that in the process of writing it, we signed the lease on our new place! And you know what would really help us with making our upfront payments? Some new paid subscriptions, of course!

1. Racist? A little racist? It’s not for me to say.