pianoplayah replied:
"That very first scene, when Trinity floats up in the air and everything freezes, I’m pretty sure everyone in the theatre gasped. And then they just keep topping it. In the bullet dodging scene, you could feel this palpable sense of awe in the theatre. Everyone walked out of that movie realizing that they had just witnessed a something completely new, a turning point in action cinema. I’m so glad I got to witness it. My dad tells the story of everyone gasping in Star Wars when they jump to hyperspace for the first time—the matrix was that for me and my generation I think. A total leap of technology and creativity."

"When Captain America lifted Thor's hammer and the whole room went absolutely bat***t."

"Nothing will beat seeing the T-Rex for the first time in Jurassic Park in theaters. The cup with the water, the sound effects, the acting, all of it was magic. Still gives me goosebumps to this day when I watch it again."

"When the little girl in the red coat (the only color in the movie) was in a pile of bodies. The choked sobs of a large part of the theater."

"Hulk rag-dolling Loki. The whole audience burst out laughing. It was so unexpected and so precisely perfect for the moment."

"Thor arriving in Wakanda in Infinity War. The whole theater exploded!"

"When Aragorn fights the leader of the Uruk Hai, the crowd popped at the ending like a wrestling crowd pops when a wrestler hits their finisher. That whole movie experience to this day is one of the best I’ve ever had. Everyone was super into it, and this is before the day of huge hype for movies like MCU or Star Wars. The end of that duel was just a chef's kiss. Not giving away the details cuz if you haven’t seen it, watch it. Also, watch the extended versions."

"‘I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you!’
 
The music swelling, the visual. It was just such a powerful moment. And you could hear sniffling throughout the theater..."

"People cheering when Eowin cut the head off of the Nazgûl in Return of the King."

"I saw Borat in the cinema with my brother and there was a lot of laughter throughout. An older couple sitting diagonally in front of us didn’t laugh once… and then Borat comments that his sisters 'v****e hangs like sleeve of wizard.' The elderly woman gives a sudden shout of a laugh and then continues to laugh really, really hard and she can’t stop, and her husband is looking at her with a surprised smile like he hasn’t seen this side of her for many years. It was a really sweet, intimate moment to witness."

"Aliens: the "Get away from her, you B***H!!!" scene. The theater lost its mind."

"Starting credits roll. amazing space battle fills the screen... two hours later, as the closing music rose, I noticed I still had a full bag of popcorn on my lap. The movie blew my young mind so hard that I forgot I had popcorn."

"The Normandy invasion in Saving Private Ryan was by far the most visceral movie experience ever. I doubt I will ever feel that way in a movie theater ever again."

"Seeing A Quiet Place in a crowded theatre a few years ago. The entire audience was deathly quiet. No one was eating popcorn, whispering, or looking at their phone (I was sitting in the back row). You could have heard a pin drop. It was some nice synergy between the audience and the premise of the movie itself."

"Kill Bill Vol 1. I saw it opening night in a Times Square movie Theater that held about 1600 people. When the fight against The Crazy 88’s ended, some guy immediately yelled 'Rewind!' and the whole theater went crazy."

"I remember leaving the theatre feeling completely exhausted, overwhelmed, and physically drained. It was like 2 straight hours of constant intense stimulation - drums, guitars, loud cars, dust, fire, sun, yelling, and shouting. It was just so intense and it is like that from what felt like beginning to end. That being said, I thought it was incredible. Loved feeling that visceral reaction to a movie."

"When Gandalf was fighting the balrog at the beginning of Two Towers. I was just enthralled by the whole beginning of that movie, so epic. That scene where they're falling into the water gave me goosebumps."

"I remember people cheering when the Joker first pulled off his mask during the opening bank heist, and when Gordon arrested the Joker after revealing he was still alive. But during Joker's hand-recorded tape, it was deathly quiet and you could hear people flinch when he yelled 'Look at me!'. Absolutely amazing theater experience."

"It was my 30th birthday. Was a child of the 1980s, so I grew up on the original cartoon. Got all my friends and family together to see it because I knew it was going to be the biggest hit of nostalgia for us all.  2I was sitting next to my brother. When Optimus Prime started reading that opening narration, I’ll never forget hearing my brother whisper, 'Holy s**t, it’s Optimus.' And just like that, we were 10 again."

"When the T-1000 first comes out of the fire after crashing the big tow truck, the dude behind me yelled out 'S**t! How they goin’ stop this guy?'"

"I was 14. My best friend's father took us to a huge, old 600+ seat theater. The type that had a stage. It was completely sold out. I was sitting right next to the wall. When Vader turned on the Emperor, the crowd got so loud that the walls shook. Not figuratively, either. They legitimately shook. 40 years later, it's still the greatest movie moment of my life."

"When Michael Keaton opened the door in Spiderman Homecoming as the girl's dad. The loud audible gasp from the audience. You can feel the movie shifted gears and the scenes that followed were intense."

"I saw Cats in theaters 4 times. You could FEEL the sadness from the fans of the Broadway show, the confusion from the people whose first experience of Cats was this film, and the disgust from everyone, the barely contained laughter, the audible “wtf”s, every single time I saw it. It was a weird feeling. And I loved it."

"When I saw Captain America: Winter Soldier, the audience was dead, dead silent through the whole movie (except for when the Winter Soldier's identity was revealed). I wasn't sure if this meant that the audience loved it, or if the audience hated it. But once the movie ended, the theater erupted with applause."

"The shoes in JoJo Rabbit. Packed theater gasped at once."

"When Samara climbed out of the tv in The Ring. The only time I’ve been in a theater when practically everyone let out a scream. I saw it with my girlfriend (now wife) and her two sisters. One of her sisters grabbed my leg ha ha."

Choppergold said:
"In Rogue One near the end when you hear Vader breathing in that fight scene. The entire theater gasped and moved."
 
BaconFlavoredToast replied:
"He did even more than that than what people realized. His chest apparatus has lights on it. They were off. He turned off his life support just to instill more fear in people who were about to die in about 10 seconds."

"I saw Batman on opening night. When the batwing flies in front of the moon everyone cheered."

"No noise as such but when Maverick completed the simulation, I looked around and everyone leaned forward in their seats in unison."

"When I was watching It (2017) in a theater. It got to the garage part where the projector falls over and a giant Pennywise comes out of the wall. An older lady in front of me throws her popcorn straight up and screams terrified, "These white people are crazy!" I haven't laughed so hard since. I still think of it and chuckle to myself everyone once in a while."

"Night vision scene in Silence of the Lambs. Everyone held their breath."

"Saw Inception in a packed theater, but you could have heard a pin drop during the movie. When it ended with the spinning top, the whole place erupted."

"Honestly, How the whole theater was when The Expendables came out, the whole theater was just loud and excited at that film."

"Arrival when Amy Adams asks, 'Who is this child?' What a stone-cold stunner."

"Watching the John Wick movies in theaters is always super fun! During the scene in John Wick 3 where it shows the knife going slowly into the guy's eye, everyone yelled out in horror lmao."

"The audience counted down with the ref and absolutely erupted when Drago was counted out!"

"I saw this at an early afternoon showing. the audience reacted to every single moment of that movie perfectly. Laughter, excitement, shock, and a massive standing ovation afterwards. I saw it on a $5 Tuesday so this was a crowd that didn’t normally see movies like Parasite, so to see them all loving it was amazing. As I walked out, people were calling their friends on the phone to tell them to get to the theater right now, because they were buying tickets to see it again & they wanted their friends to see it with them."

"I would give just about anything to experience the utter chaos of that unspoiled moment at a midnight premier again."

"Speaking of 22 Jump Street the scene when Jenko finds out Schmidt f****d Ice Cube’s daughter was the hardest I’ve ever heard a theater laugh."

"I'll never forget because of the online hype and online advertising they were doing for the movie. Showed up at the theater and the lines were incredible for The Blair Witch Project.
 
The huge thing all the people who'd already been in a showing were hanging around the theater seemingly shocked and confused and crowds of people still waiting to get in.
 
It was less like a movie and more like an experience for everyone involved I'd never seen anything like it there was nothing casual about it."

"When 127 Hours came out, I saw it opening weekend. Aron Ralston was actually at the theater and gave a little talk beforehand. He made some jokes and talked a bit about his experience. Well, one thing he said was a kindof a warning that the movie got pretty intense and if you're feeling lightheaded just stay in your seat. You may pass out and that's OK, you'll wake right back up where you are. No big deal. Everyone laughed and we got on with the show. Cut to the climax of the film when (spoiler alert) he is using his dull pocket knife to cut the nerve in his arm, and some guy at the front of the theater stands up and starts walking up the aisle. He gets about 20 feet then face plants."

"It was playing for a week at an independent theater, I just knew the basic premise and wanted to check it out. The absolute silence when the credits started rolling at the end of the movie. Nobody even got up right away. We all just sat there then slowly people started to get up and quietly leave. My favorite movie experience ever. I don't think any of us had any idea what we were in for."

"The Steve Martin introduction. Never experienced a theater laugh that hard before or since."

"At the end of Rise of Skywalker when Rey and Ben kiss it was dead silent and one guy just goes “ugh”. The whole auditorium erupted after having to sit through that awful film."

Dragonborn83196 said:
"Rise of the Planet of the Apes, you know the scene. Absolute dead silence."
 
ProfessionalNight959 replied:
"There has to be some kind of study made for why this scene had such a universal reaction. I remember this vividly also when I saw it and this always comes up in this kind of post. Usually, big scenes like this have at least some people saying 'oh f**k' or something, but nope, it was just complete silence in awe."

"Midnight opening of Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood. The theater was mostly quiet with a few laughs for most of the 3 hours, then the final part happened and the crowd exploded. It was great fun haha."

"The movie got started and two minutes in, you could hear a pin drop with how quiet it was. This packed movie is filled to the brim with people all just going on this one moment. When the movie ended, everyone was completely silent walking out of it."

"The end of The Devil Inside. The theater I was in went insane - people were yelling "This is b******t" and actively booing the credits. If this was after the days of alcohol in theaters I think we might have burnt the place down. I've never seen a theater so united in hatred of a movie."