20 Vintage Photos of Drive-In Movie Theaters

A traditional movie theater has a set of rules, though only one of them is truly the important one: Sit down, turn your phone off, keep your trap shut, and don’t socialize. Looking at you, every single teenager in the world. 

But at the drive-in? Things are loose. Things are fun. It’s a party. Come and relive the good times with these 20 vintage photos of drive-in theaters.  

The Camden Drive-In opened its non-existent theater doors in June of 1933 in Camden, New Jersey. Movie buff Richard Hollingshead helmed the business, charging 25 cents per person. It’d be nice to have those movie ticket prices again. 

What a backdrop, Utah! It’s a lot prettier than watching Charleton Heston play an Egyptian person, at least. Crazy to see how similar every single car looked. 

You put a drive-in theater next to some train tracks? I’m no city planner, but this is a bad call. Bad sound feels like the minimum amount of risk here. 

At least get inside a suitcase or something.  

This is probably the Fly In Drive-In in Washington Township, New Jersey. If so, this bad boy had room for 500 cars, and you guessed it, 25 airplanes. 

Date night is going well! Congrats, you two. Now lock it down, you’re in public, and some weirdo is taking a picture of you. 

Now this place seems like a good time. I’d like to watch from up there on the top of that guy’s hat. 

You know when you see a photo of a cat watching a cat on tv? This is like that. 

Double-sided! Nice. 

Not a huge turnout for this one. 

The Circle Drive-In was bumping from the ‘40s through the ‘70s, and was one of Waco’s biggest hotspots. By 1980, it finally shuttered. 

“The African Queen” was released in 1951, so this is probably around then. Fun fact: This movie majorly inspired Disneyland’s Jungle Cruise ride. 

Look at the size of this sucker! This feels easy to get lost in. I know I’d find a way. 

The Starlite was demolished in the '80s, but if you’re in Niagara Falls, there’s probably a better view than a movie screen. 

This West Virginia drive-in doesn’t really have the size, glitz, and glam of some of the big city drive-ins. But that’s fine, because that’s where the charm comes from. 

Orange County was a calmer place in the '40s, and it was a lot of fun to see movies just a few miles from where they were made. 

The 1973 Italian horror movie “Torso” is often thought of as one of the first slasher movies. “Autopsy” is another Italian horror movie from the ‘70s. We’ve got an angsty, Italian crowd on our hands, it seems. 

According to somebody on Reddit, this theater was blown down in Hurricane Celia in 1970, and the owners put “GONE WITH THE WIND” up on the marquee. 

In the '40s, drive-ins began sticking their own speakers right into your car so you could have your own sound system. By the '70s, most had switched to their own FM radio channel.