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I made the two-and-a-half-hour trek to the Long Drive-In in Long Prairie, Minnesota, specifically to give my two teens and their friends a drive-in movie experience. You’d better believe we were among the cars waiting in the long, winding line before the gate opened.
We came prepared: Tickets purchased online, cash for concessions, nearby lodging secured and plenty of blankets, pillows and chairs for cozying up to watch the show. Soon enough, our early timing paid off in the form of a front-central parking spot. I backed in and opened the rear hatch. The kids grabbed a football and joined the growing group playing games in the grassy space in front of the massive screen, as the sun lowered in the sky, an atmospheric real-time countdown to showtime.
Make the most of your drive-in experience
Drive-in owners and managers share their top tips.
Learn how to turn off your running lights. Along with your headlights, you’ll need to turn these off too, which many people don’t know how to do, Shankweiler’s McChesney says. Check your vehicle’s manual for help.
Bring an FM radio. The old drive-in speaker systems typically don’t function, if they even exist. Plus, your car’s radio may not get the sound where you want it and may end up draining your battery, too. Find small, inexpensive, portable radios at garage sales or dollar stores.
Arrive early. Many theaters have additional activities, but even if they don’t, just soaking in the atmosphere is part of the experience.
Get comfortable. This one’s personal. “You have the people [who] bring their truck and they put stuff in the bed of the truck,” says Rhianna Schlief, executive director at Hull’s Drive-in. “And then you have the people that sit in the front row and put out air mattresses and quilts and blankets, and the people that just like to sit in the lawn chair.”
BYO entertainment. “When I go with my family, we love to bring lawn games,” says Lehew from the Tee Pee. “One time … we brought our own badminton.” Balls, Frisbees and cornhole are common.
Eat in. Most theaters provide affordable on-site food, and purchasing it is a great way to show support. “That is exactly where most theaters do make their money, because … a good portion of those tickets go right back to the movie companies and not us,” Lehew says.
In the 1950s, this scene wasn’t a novelty but rather everyday life. Drive-ins had been born decades earlier but got a boost from the postwar economic prosperity that stoked American car culture: tail fins, convertible tops and all. Drive-in numbers topped 4,000 in the late ’50s and early ’60s, their peak, and grew to symbolize classic American life — youth, in particular. A night at the drive-in was a boomer rite of passage.
As a Generation Xer, I experienced the aftermath, the part where cars shrank and suburban land value grew. Movie-watching migrated to air-conditioned cineplexes or, if you were lucky, the comfort of your home on a wondrous invention called a VCR. Drive-in numbers dwindled. My friends and I sought out the experience, charmed by the quaint link to our parents’ past. Today, it’s become even harder to track down. According to the United Drive-In Theatre Owners Association’s most recent count in October 2024, 283 drive-ins remain in the U.S.
One of them is Shankweiler’s Drive-In Theatre, thanks to Lauren McChesney and Matt McClanahan, a recently engaged couple who took out a million-dollar loan in 2022 to save it. Shankweiler’s has operated continuously since opening in 1934, making it the world’s oldest drive-in theater.
“Everyone seems to have memories of the drive-in when they were a kid,” says McChesney. “People come a couple hours prior to the movie even starting. They play games, and they hang out with their family or their friends or eat dinner and snacks, then settle down and watch the movie. It’s a whole experience.”
Our little group liked it enough to stick around for the second feature. We had a blast doing our part to ensure the legacy continues. Below are five drive-ins across the country where you can, too, whether you’re reliving old memories or creating new ones.
