At one time, Moviefone was the hottest way to find movie showtimes. It was so hot in the 90s that Seinfeld even made fun of it in an episode (embed below). Sadly, now run by AOL, its website is a cluttered mess. I don’t know about you, but when I visit it, I expect to find a way to easily find movie showtimes. I don’t care about the latest celebrity gossip, nor do I want to see all this behind the scenes stuff. Just movie showtimes, please.
That’s what a new site, ShowtimeFu offers. And it’s so much better than Moviefone You simply visit the site, put in your city (or it may remember it if you’ve been there before), and you get a full listing of every movie playing around you, at what time, and at what theater.
On the left side navigation, you can deselect certain movies, as well as rule out theaters. You can also deselect certain ratings, and filter the time. In the main column, you simply have a list of the movies and the showtimes. If you click on one you’re interested in, it loads a new page in this main column which contains a description of the movie (along with links to its IMDb and Rotten Tomato pages), a map of where the theater showing it is, and the play times (including a beginning and end time).
Unfortunately, one thing you cannot do is purchase tickets from the site. But it seems like that would be an easy enough feature to add. And to be honest, I never buy tickets over the web anyway, I just want the showtimes then head to the theater to get the actual tickets. So this option is perfect for me.
I long ago gave up on Moviefone. Fandango is slightly better in terms of easy access to movie times, but it’s even more cluttered. Recently, to find movie times, I’ve been using Google Search with queries like “movies ZIP CODE”. But that leave a bit to be desired if I do actually want to know a little more about the movie.
ShowtimeFu is a simple site, that won’t lead to any Seinfeld spoofs (that would be hard considering the show has been off the air for a decade), but it works — at least when I’m at my computer, otherwise there are plenty of good iPhone apps for finding movie times.
This is exactly the way a site should work. Let’s hope it is copied mercilessly.
Really? I mean, they win points for stripping a user interface but, where’s the revenue? Ongoing web concerns do actually have to make money, ya know.
Not to be an AOL apologist (and, disclaimer, I work for them under contract, although not at Moviefone) but, there’s a huge difference between a UI stripped and slickened ad free upstart and an established web property with overhead, a brand, and entrenched competition.
Yes, the difference being one sucks and is a cluttered mess while the other one gives me the information I want.
Oh, give it time… the ads will come. Many a site starts off ad-free, only to switch over to ads once a critical mass has formed.
Awesome
Why has finding movie times online been so painfully difficult? Nice work, showtime fu.
a long time favorite of mine “why don’t you just TELL ME the name of the movie you selected”
ha yes.
MG, the second item on the nav is “Showtimes/Tix” – is it really that hard to find showtimes on Moviefone or has Twitter turned your brain into an ADD mush?
Wow! Great!
Only bad decision on their part is the name. I’m not likely to spread word-of-mouth if I’m embarrassed to say it out loud.
have no fear, viacom will put an end to that name quite soon.
sorry, i still prefer google. Just type in “movies 90210″ or whatever your zip code is and boom a listing of all local show times and theaters after only 2 clicks./
I’m not terribly impressed by ShowtimeFu either. If you’re looking for something simple and quick, just type “movies 90210″ or “movie name 90210″ as Sam mentioned and Google will pull up the best results rather than an unnecessarily complex matrix.
As Sam and Rick mentioned above, and MG mentioned in the article, you can simply type [movies 90210] to see movies near a zip code. You can also type [movies] to see movies near our guess of your location. If you click on a movie name, then you can click the “IMDb” link to see more information about that movie.
wow 525 million acquisition
Peak of the peak of the bubble
really nice find.
Nice blog. Informative & impressive content.
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I am trying to do this same kind of thing but for TV shows, and listings. like A new TV Guide, Stay Tuned In.
Can someone tell me where these sites get their data from? Sorry, nub question…i know
I have used Yahoo movies forever now, I think it’s just about the only thing I use Yahoo for though. It is very simple as well, just put in your zip and see a list of theaters near there with the movies. Then you can use ctrl-F to find the movie you want. Although I do like it parameterized and the long list of movies that Fu has, the formatting is terrible, kind of unreadable, and glitchy. Also, clicking on a movie on the left shouldn’t deselect it, it should select it. Annoying to click on all movies and then the movie you want. Will prob stick with Yahoo, especially since it is easy to read on the iPhone.
Only a matter of time before this site gets shut down for scraping. I highly doubt they are paying the ridiculous amount of money for the private APIs for movie times.
They’re just scraping off of movies.yahoo.com.
Unsolicited feedback: needs a new color scheme. Black on green is kind of bad.
ShowtimeFu is a great site. I went to the movies today and used it. I live in the mountains where broadband is still dream. Fandango is as useless as our local newspaper. It takes a good five minutes to get the listing for just one theater. ShowtimeFu gives me everything I need.
IMDb has worked great for me forever.
I put in my zip code (and I tried my city name) and it says no results found. Wth.
What’s new here? This same functionality is available at movies.yahoo.com or even flixster iphone app
What’s new hear is that MG got paid to post this. That’s about it.
There is no need for this comment, it’s both distasteful and rude.
I love Kramer!
OK – not sure whats going on above – but back to the “moviefone” and “showtimefu” websites.
I pretty much thought that the old “moviephone” site was obsolete, I’ve checked out the “Showtimefu” site and it looks the goods.
“moviefone” probably isn’t as cluttered as bad as mentioned above but I’d have to say thats it far from perfect either! “Showtimefu” on the other hand looks loads more focused and user friendly. very nice…
I think there’s something very similar right here.
http://startupsketch.com/
There’s like 5 iphone apps that do this – and they automatically know your location.
America only?
well, someone has to give ShowtimeFu a big thumbs down, and I guess it’s me … I put in my New Jersey zip code and guess what, NONE of the local NJ movie theaters showed up. The only results I got were of theaters across the river in Manhattan! I’ll stick with Movies.com
I always use Google to find movies simple and best. AOL should feed peanuts to these crunch bloggers who seem to have a brain smaller than a termite and IQ less than a nut cracker. It took me 2 secs to figure out how to find a movie in the moviefone site. MG, how much did you get paid for this story!
Movie phone ruled! Go Cramer!
Canada Card World
great PR piece.
This comes off as a blatant PR piece when you compare the site to the now obscure, worst of breed moviefone site instead of to the go-to sites for this information such as google.com/movies, movies.yahoo.com and imdb.
Try writing about something a little more innovative than movie showtimes with checkbox filtering. Sometimes I wonder when exactly you discovered the internet. It sounds like it was about 6 months ago.
Also, can you please post a price list for what you charge for PR posts? And do you charge extra to let me hand pick the worst possible web 1.0-era competitor for you to compare my site to in the post or do you do that for free?
Slick but ineffective design. I just want to know what movies are playing at the 2 theaters near me and what times they are playing at, all in one screen. Google does this perfectly with their characteristic minimalist design.
right….
The site is utter crap (while simplistic and useful). It’s a brand new site that happens to have it’s domain name registered by proxy (hidden registrant details) which leads me to believe this is a techcrunch employee’s site?
Doesn’t work for me for any zip codes I try around my area (Michigan). I tried some larger cities, but the only one that worked for it was “Detroit”. I guess it’s only a few big cities that it works for.
I’ll stick with Google.
OR, you could simply go to Google and type ’san francisco movies’ and get the same stuff. Every movie, every time, + reviews.
Try this – “your zip code” + space + “movies” in the Google toolbar. Keep up with technology and you won’t so amazed next time.
once again, doesn’t work for Canada…:(
perhaps you should put US Only in the title
Went to the site. Slow (granted, that could have something to do with being front page on TC) …oh, but then it crashed my browser! FAIL!
I use http://www.sfga...movies/playing/, but I like ShowtimeFu, too. The Google option is good, but I also like the SF Chronicle reviews.
Yes!
Why don’t you just tell me what movie you want to see.
Good reference. I’m excited for the reunion this year on Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Kramer as the MoviePhone voice is a classic Seinfeld scene!
As far as the site reviewed, I have to agree with others above. Google’s http://www.google.com/movies site is a cleaner, easier implementation of searching for local movies than ShowtimeFu’s. I’d never to Google’s site until just now (thank you mgbff, if that IS your real name
), but then, I hadn’t ever been to ShowtimeFu’s site until just now either. I like what they are trying to do at ShowtimeFu and it has some great filtering options, but Google’s movie site has pretty much the same options, though by sorting rather than filtering. In the past, I’d used Fandango or searched for the site used by the theater (Edwards Cinema, Loews Cineplex, etc.), but http://www.google.com/movies will be my first choice from now on. I also liked that both sites were able to detect my location, negating the need for me to enter anything at all, though in Google’s case it is most likely due to the fact that I use it’s products quite frequently anyway, though I wasn’t signed in at the time.
I did take a look at movies.yahoo.com as well to see which one I liked best, but I found the listings to be less easily perused. It does sort by distance from the zip code entered, but if I’m not sure what movie to see, Google’s and ShowtimeFu’s site give better overall information and in a more compact format, which means that I don’t need to scroll as much (Google’s results are the best of the three for this). If you’ve ever tried to pick a movie with two or three other people, then this really helps make it easier not to get into an argument about when or when not to scroll!
Yeah. For about 2-3 years I’ve been doing the Google query for Movies 94105 (32086 / 32080 back in Florida) It worked great! Lately, the fandango app for iPhone is nice.
This site rocks though! totally replacing Google movies for me.
movie name + zip code = movie times
Google.com FTW
Does anyone else think a move showtimes experience that doesn’t let you purchase tickets is a piece of crap?
Moviefone is still an awesome way to find showtimes and purchase tickets, and they are revamping their showtimes hub next week. This showtimesfu garbage, they obviously googled showtimes, and wrote an article bashing the #1 result for showtimes – moviefone, and # 1 result for movie tickets – fandango. Which they neglect to mention, moviefone started doing content when AOL bought them because they were forced to pull their ticketing machines out of theaters, this angered the theater industry who in response formed an anti moviefone conglomerate. Its name? FANDANGO. That’s why you never see moviefone ad’s in theaters anymore, regal, ect, won’t allow it.
So Moviefone started doing movie based content to keep their showtimes experience, and entire company afloat, and over the past 2 years, has now climbed back up to being the #2 over all movie site behind IMDB and the #1 ticket sales site over fandango once again despite everything working against them, and they are now looking to expand further by listening to their users demands, and create even more content. They more than any other site, have been all about giving people what they want, its just been a struggle since people forgot about them for a time. So don’t let BS articles like this fool you; its still the only site where you can find showtimes, buy tickets, than read a review, interview, and check out a bunch of other content abouut the movie your going to see before you go to see it.
Hey call me loyal, but I loved the 90’s, and hell, that seinfield episode was freaking classic.
Mr.Moviefone forever!!!
wow nice post thanks for sharing I love Kramer!……