The IMAX auditorium at AMC Lincoln Square, at 1998 Broadway on the Upper West Side, measures seventy-five point six feet tall by a hundred and one feet wide. It is the largest IMAX screen in the United States and, as of 2026, the second largest in the world after a venue in Germany. People travel across the country to watch films in it.
Karpo can tell you which films are actually running in the big IMAX house tonight rather than in the smaller screens, and how early to book.
Size is only half of the reason
The other half is that this house projects 70mm film. The combination is what makes it genuinely unusual — there are other very large screens and there are other 70mm venues, but the intersection of the two at this scale is close to unique globally.
That matters for a specific category of film. Directors who shoot on IMAX film stock rather than digitally are producing images with a resolution and a frame shape that only a handful of venues can actually reproduce, and this is one of them. Watching one of those films here versus at a digital IMAX is not a marginal difference.
Check which auditorium you are booking
This is the single most important practical point. AMC Lincoln Square has thirteen screens and only one of them is the enormous IMAX house. It is entirely possible to book a ticket at this cinema, for a film advertised in a premium format, and end up in an ordinary auditorium.
Read the format and the screen number carefully at the booking stage. If the reason you are coming is the big screen, confirm before you pay — and if a film you care about is running on film rather than digitally, that will be specified and it is worth planning around.
Booking, because it sells out
Major releases in this auditorium sell out well in advance, and the good seats go first. The room is large enough that seat choice genuinely matters — too close and you cannot take in the frame, too far back and you lose the scale that you came for.
The middle of the auditorium, slightly back from centre, is the consensus position. Book early enough to get it rather than taking whatever is left three days before, because the difference between a good seat and a bad one in a screen this size is substantial.
The Upper West Side around it
Sixty-eighth Street and Broadway puts you a short walk from Lincoln Center and within easy reach of Central Park's west side. That makes the cinema easy to build an evening around rather than treating it as a standalone destination.
The 66th Street-Lincoln Center station on the 1 line is directly outside, and the 72nd Street station on the 1, 2 and 3 is a short walk north. Between them the cinema is easy to reach from most of Manhattan without changing trains.
Timing the crowd
Opening weekends for major releases are the busiest and the queues for the IMAX house extend into the lobby. Weekday afternoons and the second or third week of a run are considerably calmer, and the film is exactly the same.
If a film has been shot for this format, it will typically hold the IMAX house for a few weeks and then be displaced by the next major release. Waiting for week three is a good strategy for the crowd and a bad one if the run is short — check how long it is booked for before you delay.
The rest of the building
The cinema has thirteen screens and the other twelve are a perfectly ordinary, well-run multiplex. That is worth saying plainly, because a lot of the writing about this venue treats the whole building as an event when only one auditorium is.
It does mean the location is useful even when the big house is showing something you do not want to see. There is almost always something on across thirteen screens, and the Upper West Side has relatively few cinemas for its population, so the standard auditoriums do real work for the neighbourhood.
Is it worth the trip
For the right film, unambiguously yes. A large-format film in the largest screen in the country, projected on 70mm, is a genuinely different experience from ordinary cinema and it is one of the few remaining reasons to leave the house rather than watch something at home.
For an ordinary release shot digitally and shown in a standard auditorium, no — you are paying a premium ticket price for a normal screening in a busy multiplex. The whole skill in using this cinema is knowing which of those two situations you are in before you book.
- Address: 1998 Broadway, New York, NY 10023, at West 68th Street
- The IMAX screen measures 75.6 feet tall by 101 feet wide — the largest in the United States
- As of 2026 it is the second largest in the world, after a venue in Germany
- The house projects 70mm film as well as digital, which is rare at this scale
- Only one of the cinema's thirteen screens is the large IMAX auditorium; confirm at booking
- Best seats: middle of the auditorium, slightly back from centre; book early
- Quietest: weekday afternoons and the second or third week of a run
- Getting there: 66th Street-Lincoln Center on the 1, or 72nd Street on the 1, 2 and 3
- The other twelve screens are an ordinary well-run multiplex; the premium is only in the one house
- Nearby: Lincoln Center and the west side of Central Park are both a short walk
Tags: #MoviesNearMe #NewYorkCity #AMCLincolnSquare #IMAX #SeventyMillimetre #UpperWestSide #Broadway #WatchParties #BigScreen #NYCMovies #FilmProjection #LincolnCenter #Cinema
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Ask Karpo first
Ask Karpo which films are in the true IMAX auditorium at Lincoln Square this week, how far ahead tickets are going, and what else around Lincoln Center is worth building the evening around.
