The Director’s Experience
James Cameron - Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Damien Chazelle - La La Land 10th Anniversary
Jon Favreau - The Mandalorian & Grogu
Kenna Harris - Co-Director, Toy Story 5
Phil Lord - Project Hail Mary
Christopher Miller - Project Hail Mary
Director's Commentary. In a Movie Theater. From the Filmmakers Themselves.
The Director's Experience is a synchronized commentary track you listen to on your own earbuds while the movie plays on the big screen. Free, in any theater, on the TheaterEars app.
What Is the Director's Experience?
For thirty years, director's commentary lived on a disc — a bonus feature you got months after the film left theaters, listened to alone, on a screen the size of a laptop.
The Director's Experience moves it back to where the film was meant to be seen. A filmmaker records commentary for their own film. TheaterEars mixes and masters it for earbuds, then times it to breathe around the film's own dialogue rather than talk over it. You sit in a real theater, in front of a real projector, with the director in your ear.
It is not a special screening. There is no separate ticket, no reserved night, no participating-theater list. You buy a normal ticket to a normal showtime and bring your phone.
Director's Experience commentary tracks are recorded by the filmmakers in English. TheaterEars' Spanish-language audio and audio description tracks are a separate feature of the app, available on a different slate of titles.
How Does It Work?
The TheaterEars app listens to the film through your phone's microphone, recognizes its audio fingerprint, and locks the commentary to the exact frame playing on screen. If you arrive late, step out, or the projectionist starts three minutes behind, the app re-syncs on its own.
Nothing plays out loud. Nothing is broadcast into the room. Your phone stays dark in your pocket and the commentary goes only to your earbuds — the audience around you hears the film exactly as it was mixed.
Which Movies Have Director's Commentary in Theaters?
Now playing
IT ENDS - Alexander Ullom (Director), Carrie Carusone (Producer), Evan Barber (Producer)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day - James Cameron (Director, Co-Writer), William Wisher (Co-Writer)
Toy Story 5 — Kenna Harris (Co-Director), Bob Pauley (Production Designer), and Thomas Jordan (Visual Effects Supervisor)
Previously available
Project Hail Mary — Phil Lord & Christopher Miller · See details →
Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu — Jon Favreau
Wet Hot American Summer (25th Anniversary) — David Wain (Director), Michael Showalter (Co-Writer), and Janeane Garofalo (Actress/Cast)
La La Land — commentary by Damien Chazelle (Director) and Justin Hurwitz (Composer)
New titles are announced first on TheaterEars News and in the app. A Director's Experience track typically goes live partway into a film's theatrical run, so a title you loved on opening weekend may be worth a second ticket.
Filmmakers Who Have Recorded a Director's Experience
Live-action and animation, blockbusters and anniversary re-releases, studio tentpoles and cult comedies — the format works the same way for all of them, because the audio is delivered by the audience's own phone rather than by the theater.
Directors who have recorded a Director's Experience include Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (Project Hail Mary), Jon Favreau (Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu), and the filmmaking teams behind Toy Story 5 (Co-Director Kenna Harris), and the 25th-anniversary release of Wet Hot American Summer.
