We put on some music and thought it’d be fun to check out Yahoo Movies in our online movie ticket service reviews. What doesn’t Yahoo offer these days? Honestly, we never thought we’d see the day when we could buy our tickets on the Net and even print them out if we wanted. Star Reviews utilizes Yahoo’s search engine in our everyday line of work, but we never realized how extensive and feature-rich their movie section was until today. See what unique features we discovered below.
What’s New with Yahoo Movies?
- High definition trailers for more than 90 movies
- Top movie news and celebrity gossip
- List of top rated and lowest rated movies
Star Reviews Favorite Yahoo Movies Feature
Movie Mom reviews--For most new releases, Nell Minow, a renowned writer and Yahoo Movie’s “Movie Mom” gives parents the 411 on child-appropriate (or not) films. Besides giving film summaries, she also provides a breakdown of whether the movie includes alcohol/drug references, nudity, profanity, and violence.
Yahoo Movies Features:
- Quick links to online movie ticket buying through MovieTickets.com
- Browse show times for theaters all over the country
- Top Box Office
- Compare reviews by national critics and read member reviews listed by thousands of users
- Trailers & Clips
- My Movies-build a movie profile, create favorite lists, rate films
- Movie News & Gossip
Navigating the Yahoo Movies website:
We felt the Yahoo Movies website interface was super intuitive and fluid, as well. ‘Get Showtimes and Tickets’ was clearly indicated in the right margin, sitting above ‘Movie News & Gossip.’ Useful links such as ‘In Theaters,’ ‘Trailers & Clips,’ and ‘Box Office’ are on the top of the main page, making your browsing experience relatively easy. We really liked the ‘Red Carpet Photos’ section, so all you Paris Hilton fans can catch her at the Rush Hour 3 premiere (no prison scrubs, sorry). One feature we liked was the Top 10 Box Office, with images, cast interviews and reviews for the most popular films out.
Theater & Ticket Availability:
Since Yahoo Movies does use Movietickets.com for their online ticket service, you’ll be able to buy tickets online for more than 80 theater chains in the United States. However, you’ll have to scroll through plenty of options to find the theaters that accept that service since the results are listed by proximity to your area code and not by their convenient services. Users who already know what movie they want to see would probably be better off going through MovieTickets.com directly and skipping the middle man.
Getting your tickets on Yahoo Movies:
When you first arrive at the Yahoo Movies page, you can either click on the “Showtimes & Tickets” link near the top of the page or you can start your search from the main page by either choosing a movie from the pull-down menu or entering your zip code. When you enter your zip code, you’ll see a list of movie theaters in your area and their movie listings for that day. You can use the pull down menu to change dates. If the show times are in blue, then you can purchase movie tickets for those showings online.
When you click on the time, you’ll be redirected to Movietickets.com to complete your movie ticket purchase. All you’ll need to do is enter the number of tickets you need, provide your payment information, and review your order. If everything looks good, you can submit your order for processing and in just seconds you’ll have a confirmation form to print out (one usually arrives by email, too). The confirmation is not only proof of your purchase; it also includes instructions on how you can pick up the tickets for your particular theater.
Movie Ticket Pricing:
Yahoo Movies does not charge for access to their content. However, if you choose to order movie tickets online through Movietickets.com, then you’ll be charged the price of the ticket plus a convenience fee. Both of these prices are determined by the theaters themselves, so they do vary. However, the cost of the convenience fee is around $1 per ticket, which is common for online movie ticket services.
Customer Support:
While Yahoo Movies does not have email or phone support, they do have a number of FAQ’s you may use to get answers about their content, such as “How do I write a good review?” and “How can I find upcoming movies?” Reaching the section can be a bit of a chore, since you’ll need to scroll to the very bottom of the screen until you see the last line of links, such as Privacy Policy and Ad Feedback. Sandwiched between them is the Help link that will lead you to the FAQ’s.
Upside:
Great looking, high-definition trailers. Convenient way to find local times for movies. Good way to check movie reviews, especially for parents.
Downside:
Customer support is very limited. Ticket buying goes through a third party used by most of the competition so there’s nothing unique about that.
Summary:
We love Yahoo and really wanted to take a look at their online movie ticket service. Yahoo Movies doesn’t provide direct-purchase ticketing, but you can find movie times and listings, which you can then purchase through Movietickets.com. On Yahoo, we really enjoyed some of their features, especially MyMovies. Not only can fans and movie lovers create their own profiles and social network in a sense, they can add their own movie reviews, create favorites lists, rate flicks, etc.
Yahoo, as always, places an emphasis on news and information (which we cannot live without) and offers a unique ‘Movie News & Gossip’ section. Fun headlines like ‘Bruce Willis Rocks Kennedy Space Center’ certainly grabbed our attention. Customer support was limited to a few FAQs here and there, but if you have movie ticket purchasing questions, it’s probably a good idea to visit Movietickets.com.