I am writing this after watching Odyssey (2026) at QFX Labim Mall and perhaps that is what made me think about all the cinema halls I have visited over the years.
Looking back, my relationship with movies is almost a journey through the changing face of Kathmandu itself. From old single-screen theatres and handwritten ticket counters to multiplexes, reclining seats, Dolby sound and 3D.
The movies themselves have changed but so has the experience of going to watch them. And when I try to remember where it all began, I go back to Ranjana Hall.
—
I remember going to Ranjana Hall to watch the Nepali film Anyaya (1989). I don’t remember much about the film itself. I was probably five or six years old. This was probably the first cinema outing with my parents that I can remember.
We had probably left my younger brother with my grandparents. I remember a taxi arriving in front of our home. I remember buying a popsicle and some hot snacks wrapped in newspaper. I remember going shopping afterwards and getting a new pair of shoes. These are fragmented memories, but they have stayed with me for decades.
My parents have always been avid film lovers. They have another story about my very first encounter with a cinema hall.
Apparently, when I was about one year old, they took me to Jai Nepal to watch the Hindi film Pyar Jhukta Nahin (1985). I cried throughout the film. Eventually, my father had to stay outside the hall with me to keep me calm while my mother continued watching the movie.
That experience probably taught my parents an important lesson: cinema halls and infants do not necessarily go well together.
—
In the early 1990s, Kathmandu had only a handful of cinema halls. Among the ones I remember were Ashok* in Patan Dhoka, Jai Nepal in Hattisar, Ranjana in New Road, Vishwajyoti in Jamal, Kumari* in Kamalpokhari and Navadurga* in Bhaktapur. I don’t know if there are any other names.
Of these, I remember Ashok Hall particularly well because it was close to our home.
By today’s standards, Ashok was hardly what anyone would call a comfortable cinema. It was rather chaotic and unorganised. If you were determined enough or perhaps physically strong enough, you could probably find a way into the hall even without a ticket. The toilets were so bad that you could sometimes smell them before you even reached them. Installed seats were mostly hard plastic or old wooden ones. Some of the fans really didn’t work.
But there was one thing I remember fondly: the food. The cinema premises had some of the tastiest local snacks pakauda, alu chop, gwaramari and other hot, freshly prepared treats. They were simple snacks but they were an essential part of the cinema experience.
As a child, I didn’t care much about uncomfortable seats, bad toilets or poor organisation. Watching a film on a huge screen was an event in itself.
I remember watching few more Nepali and Hindi films in Ashok with my parents. With availability of TV at home, going for movies dropped entirely. Once or twice, I asked them to take me for movies but they declined. Now, I understand why my parents were reluctant to take me to the movies. Many of those old cinema halls were simply not suitable for young children.
By the late 1990s, Kathmandu had more cinema halls. Guna in Gwarko, Manakamana* in Anamnagar, Hira Ratna* in Gyaneshwar, Tara* in Sinamangal, Metro Plaza* in Kuleshwar, Gopi Krishna* in Chabahil and Barahi* in Sallaghari were among the theatres I remember.
Guna, in particular, felt remarkably modern to me. The picture was clearer, the sound was better, the seats were more comfortable and, importantly, you could even book tickets in advance.
—
Kathmandu itself also felt different.
This was the Kathmandu of my school days. Narrow roads, open fields and far fewer vehicles. Outside a few busy areas, traffic was rarely the nightmare it is today. The city was less crowded and somehow felt much more accessible.
We could walk to the cinema. We could cycle there.
I remember cycling to Manakamana to watch Ishq (1997), and those funny acts of Aamir and Ajay are still in my mind. I remember taking a public bus to Gopi Krishna to watch Zor (1998). I also have a fond memory of walking to Tara to watch Major Saab (1998).
If I were the parent of a young child in today’s Kathmandu, I would probably worry about letting them do the same things I did so casually.
—
Cinema tickets were also quite different in those days.
Seats were divided into categories such as balcony, dress circle, special, first class and second class. There were separate ticket counters for different classes.
My family could usually afford what was called the “special” ticket. These were generally the seats at the back of the lower section of the theatre.
There was something interesting about this hierarchy. The cinema experience was literally divided by class not just in terms of ticket prices but also in where you entered, where you sat and sometimes even which counter you used.
Today, multiplexes have largely replaced this system. But the old categories remain part of my memories of Kathmandu’s cinema culture.
—
I think True Lies (1994) was probably the first Hollywood film I watched in a cinema hall. An action film with Arnold in it. I could recognise Arnold even without watching any of his films.
It was screened at Vishwajyoti, probably around 1998. What I remember most was the sound.
For the first time in my life, I experienced what I understood as surround sound. It felt incredible. The sound seemed to come from everywhere, and I was fascinated by the experience.
I talked about it endlessly with my friends afterwards.
I also remember watching Balidaan (1997), a politically themed Nepali film, at Vishwajyoti.
Vishwajyoti had a particularly wide screen, and Nepali films at the time were still produced in formats that did not fill the entire width of such a screen.
The result was distracting. There were large blank spaces on both sides of the image and it somehow made the film feel smaller rather than bigger.
Perhaps partly because of this, I gradually lost interest in watching Nepali films in cinemas.
This was also a time when Kathmandu’s cinema culture was being shaped by another powerful medium: FM radio.
—
FM radio was at its peak in Kathmandu.
Some radio programmes were sponsored by cinema halls. They would run quizzes based on particular films, and sometimes the only way to answer the questions was to actually watch the movie.
This gave us another reason to go to the cinema.
Guna Cinema was particularly popular among us because it sometimes offered heavily discounted weekday evening shows. I remember watching quite a few Hindi films there because the tickets were much cheaper.
We would save our pocket money to go to the movies.
That sentence probably captures the economics of cinema for my generation better than anything else. Going to a movie was not an everyday activity. You had to plan for it. You had to save for it. And because it was not so frequent, the experience felt more valuable.
—
After school, I joined the science stream in higher secondary school. Suddenly, life became dominated by classes, practicals and laboratory work. We had so much to study and so many lab assignments that going to the cinema became almost impossible.
My regular moviegoing years were effectively over. At least for a while.
Then came Spider-Man (2002). I instantly fell in love with Kirsten Dunst.
I watched Spider-Man at a newly renovated and much more modern Jai Nepal.
The difference was astonishing. The picture was sharp. The sound was powerful. The seats were comfortable. For the first time, I felt that the technology of the cinema itself was becoming part of the entertainment.
It felt as though you were inside the movie.
The renovated Jai Nepal was managed by QFX, which would eventually become almost synonymous with the modern movie-going experience in Kathmandu.
But there was a problem. The tickets were expensive.
For someone who had grown up saving pocket money for discounted weekday shows, the new cinema experience was a significant jump in price. I think I went several years, perhaps four or five, without watching another film in a cinema hall.
Yet QFX had introduced something that would eventually become standard: the idea that going to the movies was not merely about watching a film. It was an experience.
—
And that experience included popcorn.
I remember seeing a live popcorn machine at new Jai Nepal for the first time preparing fresh popcorn for the audience. That was new to me.
Previously, we were more familiar with packaged popcorn. And honestly, popcorn was not something you necessarily associated with cinema in Nepal.
Corn was an ordinary food. It was readily available at home. Buying popcorn at a cinema could even make you the subject of jokes. Instead, we would buy spicy-flavoured crackers and guchcha soda.
Today, however, popcorn has become almost inseparable from the cinema experience. The smell of freshly made popcorn drifting through a multiplex is now part of what I associate with watching a film.
It is interesting how something so ordinary can become part of a cultural ritual.
—
One Nepali film I remember particularly fondly is Sano Sansar (2008). It was technically well made, but more importantly, I thought it had a good story and a fresh sensibility.
I also have a personal memory associated with the film. A friend of mine booked tickets for our group to watch it. Only later did we discover that he was actually part of the film. We were incredibly proud of him. For a group of friends, seeing someone you knew appear in a movie on the big screen was a special experience.
Then came The Avengers (2012).
This was the first 3D film I watched in a cinema, at QFX Civil Mall.
And my reaction was basically: Wow.
The 3D experience felt extraordinary at the time. Objects seemed to come out of the screen, and the technology itself was a major part of the attraction.
There is another reason I remember this film. It was a movie date with my future wife.
So, The Avengers occupies a special place in my personal cinema history, not just because it was my first 3D movie, but because of the person sitting beside me.
Ironically, I don’t particularly enjoy watching 3D films anymore. Modern 3D cinema tends to make my eyes uncomfortable, and I now prefer the simplicity of 2D films.
We were supposed to watch Resham Filili (2015), on a day when the earthquake struck in this city. I had tickets of this film in my pocket. I never watched that film.
—
And now, in 2026, I find myself sitting in QFX Labim Mall watching Odyssey.
I already knew the story. But that was not really the point.
You go to the cinema because you want to see how a story is presented on the big screen. You want to experience the scale, the sound, the visuals and the atmosphere together.
Christopher Nolan has always been a filmmaker who understands the theatrical experience. His films are often ambitious, technically spectacular and sometimes complicated enough to make you wonder whether you have understood everything correctly.
Tenet (2020) tested my intelligence and I hated that.
So, before watching Odyssey, I had one small hope: I just hoped Nolan wouldn’t make a film so complicated that I would spend the entire evening trying to figure out what was happening.
He didn’t disappoint me this time. The film was a wonderful cinema experience.
—
And as I sat there, I couldn’t help thinking about the journey that had brought me to that seat.
From a small child being taken to Ranjana to sitting in a modern multiplex watching a Christopher Nolan film in 2026.
The cinema halls have changed. Kathmandu has changed. The technology has changed. Even I have changed.
But the fundamental reason for going to the cinema remains surprisingly constant.
You know you can watch a movie at home. You know the technology in your living room may be better than what some old cinema halls once offered. You know you can pause, rewind and even watch a film in your pyjamas.
Yet, you still go. Because cinema is not only about watching a film.
It is about the anticipation before the lights go down. It is about the giant screen. It is about the sound surrounding you. It is about eating something you probably don’t need. It is about sitting among strangers and experiencing the same story together. And perhaps, most importantly, it is about the memories that remain long after the movie itself has faded.
I don’t remember much about Anyaya.
But I remember the taxi. I remember the popsicle. I remember the hot snacks wrapped in newspaper. I remember the new shoes.
And perhaps that is what cinema has always been for me – not just a collection of films, but a collection of memories that happen to have a movie playing in the background.
*Defunct cinema halls