"Dune: Part Three" and "The Odyssey" have fans camping out for tickets like its the 1990s

Xincheng Zhao (left) and Liam Yang (right) were successful at getting tickets.

Juliana Kaplan/Business Insider NYC moviegoers began showing up at midnight to secure tickets for December's "Dune: Part Three." Sky-high demand for premium formats has brought back the art of the movie ticket line.

To avoid platform crashes and online snafus, movie lovers are returning to queuing.

Twenty-somethings Justin Joseph and Anthony Ortega sat triumphantly on the stairs of Manhattan's AMC Lincoln Square 13 , spools of " Dune: Part Three " tickets laid out beside them.

They had arrived at 7:15 a.m. to battle the 1500-foot-long line of hopefuls clamoring for tickets to see the film in the rare, premium 70-millimeter Imax format, and won.

Justin Joseph and Anthony Ortega got their tickets after arriving at 7:15 a.m.

Juliana Kaplan/Business Insider Moviegoers at the front of the line told me they arrived at midnight, while other early birds arrived between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m.

By 11 a.m. — around half an hour before the box office opened — the line wrapped around the block and then some.

Earlier this summer, Imax 70-millimeter Imax tickets for "The Odyssey" spurred a ticket-buying frenzy, leading to platform crashes and resellers flipping seats for $165.

After that debacle, some movie lovers realized buying in person was more reliable than battling it out online.

The in-person Dune line marks the reversal of one larger movie-going trend: the rise of advance digital ticketing .

At AMC, 73% of tickets were purchased online in 2025, per the company's SEC filings, up from 8.5% in 2013 and 53% in 2020 .

But as blockbuster 70-millimeter Imax movies like "Dune" and "The Odyssey" become eventized, the industry has reinvented one of the problems advance ticketing was meant to solve: hordes of fans camping out for tickets to the biggest movies.

The lines remain an anomaly in the wider exhibition business, spurred by demand for the 70-millimeter Imax format, which is only shown in around 25 theaters in the US.