If you’ve been to a movie at AMC in the last two years, you’ve seen their now-legendary in-house ad starring Nicole Kidman where she walks into a theater extolling the magic of movies, moviegoing, and AMC. It’s sincere, borderline saccharine, and immediately after its debut in September 2021 became a lightning rod for hot takes and memes and parodies—all of which I read and enjoyed.

But a funny thing happened recently when I went to see a movie for the first time in a while: I realized just how true and meaningful that ad is.

Read my essay at Cinema Sugar where I write about this moment of clarity and explore why movies matter, with cameos from Babylon and Back to the Future Part II.