What PremiumCinemaIQ is

Why it exists

The same logo covers very different rooms. Two cinemas can both sell you an IMAX ticket when one shows the full 1.43:1 frame on 15/70mm film and the other crops to 1.90 on a projector sold for a screen two-thirds the size. Nothing at the point of sale tells you which you are buying.

PremiumCinemaIQ records what is actually installed in 2,752 screens across 89 countries, scores them all the same way, and shows its working.

The one idea worth taking away

The screen is not the picture. Screen size is the number cinemas publish; lit picture area is the number that determines what you see, and the two come apart more often than they agree. There is a worked example of two cinemas eight miles apart where one has 40% more screen and shows an almost identical picture.

Where the figures come from

Published dimensions from operators and exhibition-industry references, cross-checked against community databases and, where it exists, the manufacturer’s own roster. A specification is only marked confirmed when two independent sources agree — sources that copy from one another are treated as one. The full method is here.

What it does not claim

This is not a review site and there are no opinions about films, programming, seats or service in the score. It does not know current showtimes for most venues, it cannot tell you which screen at a multiplex you have been sold, and it does not measure brightness or sound in the room — only what is installed.

Where something is unknown, the site says unknown. That is the reason a large share of records still read as unconfirmed: the alternative is filling gaps with plausible guesses, which would make the site look more authoritative and be worth less.

Corrections

Errors here matter more than on most sites, because the whole proposition is that the numbers have been checked. If a room is wrong — wrong size, wrong projector, closed, renamed, or missing entirely — that is worth reporting to corrections@premiumcinemaiq.com. A source makes it actionable immediately, and corrections are applied to the data rather than argued with. Known open questions are tracked alongside the data in the project’s repository.

Who publishes this

PremiumCinemaIQ is built and maintained by IQ Labs, a small independent outfit that builds reference databases. There is no newsroom and no editorial board — the work is compiling published figures, checking them against each other, and being explicit about which ones are not settled.

The site deliberately does not ask you to take anyone’s word for anything. Every specification carries the sources behind it and links out to them, so a claim here can be checked without knowing or trusting who compiled it. Where two sources disagree, the page says so rather than picking a winner quietly.

Independence

PremiumCinemaIQ is an independent project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or funded by IMAX, Dolby, or any cinema chain or exhibitor, and it carries no advertising or affiliate links. Format and company names are trademarks of their respective owners and are used here to identify the systems being described.

Data reconciled 2026-09-21 · 2,752 screens · 2,933 records including closed rooms · Method