With the price of just about everything going up these days, there’s still one place we can always go to escape the constant terrors of the world – the movies. Except that’s also going to cost moe now. AMC Theaters has announced, with a very bizarre email to subscribers, that rising costs means it’s raising the price of its own a Stubs A-List subscription by two dollars a month.
Stubs A-List members latest email from AMC Theaters promoting upcoming releases also included news of a prince increase. (Which we first heard about at Variety.) It’s the first since May 2025 and will start on July 15. That will raise the cost in New York and California to $29.99 per month, with other going up to $27.99.
Obviously no one is ever happy about paying more for anything. And combined with last year’s three dollar increase, that’s a not insignificant percentage increase in just 14 months. In a vacuum, though, two more dollars a month is not exactly an outrageous amount since the service is still a good deal for movie lovers who go a lot.
And yet, the theater chain seems highly defensive about the whole thing. In the email, AMC wrote, “Price Update: We should point out, though, that we have not advised you of a price increase in A-List for more than a year, while our costs of operating our theatres are rising.” They then added, “Even with this necessary price adjustment, A-List continues to offer you exceptional value, often costing only the price of seeing about one to two movies per month, especially when you enjoy premium formats or reserve tickets online. It really is now — and will continue to be — a terrific bargain.”
Settle down, AMC. The angry, pre-defense is worse than just saying, “Everything costs more so we need to charge you a little more.” We know everything costs more right now. Believe me, we know. But you don’t have to yell at us about it. There’s enough of that everywhere else . We want the movies to continue to be an escape for us.