Arclight is awesome. They are one of the few chains that actually truly care about the full "experience" of the theater. In addition to checking the sound and image (and actually knowing what they're checking for), they also don't run adverts before the film, which I appreciate.

My local cinema usually has reserved seating but not for early showings of big new films. I've always assumed that this is to encourage people to get in early so they can get a decent seat - with the added bonus that they have to sit through ~20 minutes of adverts.

If I buy a ticket with a reserved seat then I'll usually go in a few minutes after the advertised start time so that I miss most of the commercials.

Possibly the UK? I've never heard of a cinema here without reserved seating - I didn't realise it was anything special...

Victoria, Australia

Both http://villagecinemas.com.au/SessionTime/SessionTimes.htm and http://www.hoyts.com.au/vista/visSelect.aspx (the two big chains) have online booking with the option to pick your own seat. There might be a couple of their smaller cinemas that don't have allocation -- but all the one's close to me certainly do.

Way back in the day, in the small town in Ireland I grew up in, reserved seating was the only kind of seating. It almost seemed like an excuse to hire extra people, so they could check your ticket and show you to your seat. Then, when the multiplex came in, revenue maximization was the goal, and reserved seating went away; probably helped with ad impressions too. Now, in London where I live, if I want to reserve a seat, I need to pay extra (e.g. VIP ticket in Vue cinemas), and get a marginally larger seat etc. (though still, no-one shows you to your seat unless it's a really big feature).