I started disliking movie nights recently so tried to formalise some thoughts about it.

A movie night is a framework for watching movies. Enjoyment of a movie should not correlate to the quality of the framework, unless framework issues have impinged on the enjoyment of the movie

What makes a successful (in the fullest sense) movie night:

• everyone wants to watch a movie with each other, e.g. participants as nodes and inclusion as edges form a complete graph
• everyone has a willing and reasonable¹agreement to watch the movie, alternatively participants are aware about who is low-agreement
• if on Discord, someone is volunteering to stream the movie
• participants are receptive of any distractions/interruptions during the runtime of the movie night and accommodate²

Some good predictors of an unsuccessful movie night:

• movie night is suggested by a time-waster³
• movie night is suggested (not even a movie!) late in the evening, it’s very hard to achieve full, informed participation in such a short span of time. 2100hrs leaves enough time to complete a movie before bedtime so becomes a hard deadline for meeting movie-night criteria, 2000hrs for suggesting a movie-night
• participants are attempting to coerce someone to stream the movie. Results in the streamer not meeting the runtime criteria of the movie night, only the bare minimum of a movie stream that can be viewed by others

Some signs of an unsuccessful movie night during runtime (be honest/transparent in raising concerns):

• participants aren’t reacting to events within the movie/silent
• participants are not receptive of disruptions or framework concerns from other participants

Some signs of an unsuccessful movie night after completion (helpful for fast feedback loop):

• no critical review, either silence or hyperbolic/fawning from elation of the framework terminating.