The Texas Theatre is one of our favorite places to catch a film in Dallas.

Preston Barta for Dallas Observer

A video making the rounds on social media lately lays out a bold plan for running a movie theater: like the Navy. Talking during the film? Firing squad. Checking Snapchat? The gallows. And for the patron filming the screen like it’s a Nelly Furtado concert, the punishment is too humiliating to print. The creator saves his best line for last: Tom Cruise did not dangle from a helicopter so you could mindlessly thumb through TikToks.

Harsh? Absolutely. Unreasonable? Ask anyone who has sat behind a phone screen glowing at full brightness during the quietest scene in “Oppenheimer.”

Everyone agrees that movie theater etiquette has slipped in recent years. We’re just the messenger here, and the uncomfortable question is this: what the hell is wrong with us? And, more pointedly, is “us” also you?

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And there’s plety more where that came from in the Oct. 7 issue of the Observer’s etiquette guide — how to be a good concertgoer, tips for not being annoying on the Katy Trail and much more.

We aren’t exactly Emily Post, but we are writing the guide to manners in Big D for our latest issue.

The living room has left the building

We’ll start with the obvious suspect. During the pandemic, we spent months watching movies on our own terms. We paused for snacks. We rewound the parts we missed while texting. We narrated plot twists to the dog. The couch became our cinema, and we were the projectionist, usher and critic all at once.

Then the theaters reopened, and many people brought their living room behaviors with them.

The trouble is that a theater has no pause button, and the stranger in seat F12 didn’t sign up for your director’s commentary. Pair that remote-control mindset with a phone that has trained our brains to expect a fresh hit of content every 15 seconds, and two uninterrupted hours in the dark start to feel like an endurance sport. Some critics see a deeper cultural rot, a broad loss of civility in public spaces. Others argue it depends on the movie. The truth, as usual, lives somewhere in the middle row.

A view from the booth

Jason Reimer has seen it all. He’s the founding partner of Aviation Cinemas and creative director of the Texas Theatre, where he’s worked since 2010. He’s also preparing to open the Fine Arts Theatre in Denton later this year. By his account, the rules of the road have changed.

“My whole life, talking in a movie was the sin,” Reimer says. “Then, the phone was the same.”

Lately, he and his staff have spotted something new: whisper-talking. It happened during genre screenings like Zach Cregger’s “Resident Evil.” It wasn’t loud or obnoxious, but it was unignorable as small groups quietly chat through the film. Maybe they were comparing plot points to the video game.

“It’s not like a grievous [thing] where you’re like, ‘Hey, that’s really loud,’” Reimer says. “It’s more just people chatting as the movie goes.”

He suspects it may be generational. For a 19-year-old digital native, the idea of watching something in total silence, with zero interruptions, may genuinely feel foreign. Serious repertory and classic screenings? “People don’t say a word,” Reimer says. A fun horror movie with a few laughs, though, invites folks to get a little comfortable.

The good news is that the Texas Theatre crowd largely polices itself.

“There’s kind of an egalitarian, democratic thing happening,” Reimer explains. Patrons will often tap an offender on the shoulder before staff even notice. After roughly 15 years in the business, and after seeing how things have gotten “a little wild” at other theaters since the pandemic, Reimer admits, “We’re pretty spoiled.”

Keep your rowdy to a minimum if you’re watching a candidate for an Academy Award.

Forget the Alamo Drafthouse

For years, the Alamo Drafthouse was the gold standard. Its no-talking, no-texting policy was the stuff of legend. If a neighbor got chatty, you could quietly jot a note on a slip of paper, raise it and let a staff member handle the problem. No confrontation. No awkward stare-down. No wondering whether your polite “excuse me” would go viral.

Under new ownership, that experience has changed. Ordering food now largely happens on your phone, which makes a no-phones rule a little hard to enforce. Tickets are mostly bought online, and some nights the lobby has barely anyone in it. Efficient? Sure. But the loss of staff presence strips away something important: the sense that someone is minding the room, and that we’re all part of a shared community for the next two hours.

Read the room (literally)

To be fair, silence isn’t always golden. Some screenings are built for noise. “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” practically demands audience participation. Tommy Wiseau’s “The Room” is incomplete without flying spoons. The Texas Theatre’s Tuesday Trash nights invite hooting, hollering and heckling.

Reimer calls it a “when in Rome” approach.

“If it’s a chill screening, be chill,” he says. If it’s clearly a hang-out-and-yell-with-your-friends kind of show, go for it.

Fan events fall into a gray area. At the Texas Frightmare “Scream” screening with Matthew Lillard and Skeet Ulrich, some attendees were live-streaming. Reimer sees both sides. A superfan who can’t make it to Dallas would love that footage. But if you’re sitting behind the person holding up the phone, “it always sucks.” His advice: keep it low, stay aware of the people around you and “be a cool neighbor.”

The rules, abbreviated

Consider this your pre-show announcement:

Silence is the default setting. If the screening isn’t advertised as interactive, assume it isn’t.
Your phone is not a co-star. Dim it, stash it and let it rest. Your group chat will survive two hours.
Whispering still counts. Quiet commentary is still commentary.
Know your screening. “The Room” welcomes chaos. “Tár” does not.
Film responsibly, if at all. If recording is allowed, keep your device low and out of everyone’s line of sight.
Be the neighbor you’d want. A good shoulder tap beats a bad attitude every time.

The magic of a movie theater has never been the screen size or the sound system alone. It’s the shared gasp, the collective laugh and the silence so thick you can hear the person next to you hold their breath. That experience only works when everyone agrees to protect it.

So, do your part. Put the phone away, save the hot takes for the parking lot, and give the film the room it deserves. Tom Cruise is counting on you.