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Movie Tickets 1980 vs 2026: What a Ticket Really Costs After Inflation
Oct 20, 2026
The average US movie ticket cost $2.69 in 1980, about $11 in today's dollars. In the second quarter of 2026 it was about $12.27 (The Numbers estimate): about 12% more after inflation, even though it is 4.6 times as much in plain dollars. The bigger change: the US and Canada sold about 724 million tickets in 2025 (computed), less than half the 1.57 billion of 2002, the high of data going back to 1987.
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