Houston Museum of Natural Science IMAX

Houston · United StatesSingle source

PremiumCinemaIQ rates this IMAX room C, 36/100 — a modest premium screen, 313 m² of lit picture, with 29% of the screen never lit. The projector generation was never established, so the score is indicative. Data read 21 October 2026.

We don't have a link to this cinema's own page yet.

Map position approximate (city centre)

~IQ 36provisional

Respectable, but not the full IMAX proposition.

Spec sheet

Projection: Digital — generation not established
Screen: 24.4 m × 18 m (439 m²)
Picture area: 313 m² — 29% of the screen is never lit
Screen shape: 1.36:1 — the fabric itself
Picture shown: 1.90:1
15/70mm film: No
Sound: Not published
Seats: 395
Screen type: Not a dome — curvature not recorded
Opened: 1989
Operator

⚠ Still trading, but no longer an IMAX venue. Now the 'Wortham Giant Screen Theatre', 4K digital on 60x80ft; converted from IMAX 70mm in March 2012.

⚠ The 2021 listing records a xenon projector here, but this screen is 24.4m wide and IMAX specified that system for screens no wider than 21.3 m. Nobody has stated the projector directly, so we don't assert one — the score treats it as unknown rather than assuming the older, dimmer system.

Why IQ 36

Screen size17/38

313 m² of lit picture · full marks at 700 m² · one source

Projection11/36

digital, generation never established · recorded 2021 · one source

Full 1.43 frame8/18

1.90:1 · the widest frame this room can show

Sound0/8

no sound specification published

⌷ Size is scored on the picture, not the fabric. This screen is taller than its projector's frame, so a chunk of it is never lit and doesn't count.

How big, really?

Drawn to scale · figure = 1.7 m

1Traumpalast Leonberg IMAX · 38.8×21.0 m · picture 792 m², 3% never lit
2BFI IMAX · 26×20.0 m · picture 473 m², 9% never lit
3Houston Museum of Natural Science · 24.4×18.0 m · picture 313 m², 29% never lit
4Typical multiplex screen · 12 m wide, height not published

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Scale check

Familiar objects, same scale as the screen

8 double-decker buses fit on this screen (2 across × 4 up · 439 m² total)

What you actually see

Switch format — watch what lights up on this screen · why this matters

IMAX digital — what most “IMAX” showings actually are

dark

Screen: 439 m²
Picture: 313 m²
Screen used: 71%

5.2 m of this screen's height — 29% of it — stays dark for an IMAX 1.90 showing. The projector here can't produce the full 1.43 frame, so the top and bottom of the screen are never used at all.

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•Where to next

Every premium screen in Houston · All of United States

Also in Houston

Elsewhere in United States

Where this comes from

Single source

We treat a figure as confirmed only when two independent sources agree.

Screen dimensions: single source
Projector: single source
Operating status: verified not-imax (2012)

The projector here rests on a single source. It is the weakest field we hold across the network.

Showtimes

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