This was still somewhat the case in the late 90s and early 00s before Youtube and IMDB were really big. We'd go watch Star Trek Nemesis because it had Star Trek in the name or watch whatever looked good in the trailers last time we went. What was your alternative? Watch it on your CRT tv a year later, probably with ads? Rental existed, but at least where I lived it was very uncommon. I honestly miss it. Driving to the cinema with a bunch of friends, sometimes not even certain what we'd watch and how it would turn out. Really great! Recently I visited an old friend at his new (to me) apartment and it came up that he had kept all his cinema tickets from back in the day. We went through all of them swimming in nostalgia, a little blurry-eyed, while our wives laughed at us.

I feel like we all have a “I saw it in middle of the night on PBS and it really screwed with my head” movie.

For me it was being maybe 13 and tuning in to the last half of Lord of the Flies at about 1am. Those kids abandoned on a lonely island, followed by the rescuer showing up, followed by credits, followed by the national anthem and test colour bars will forever be burned into my brain.