Patron complaints about AMC Metreon 16's IMAX screen — dim projection, gray blacks, 3D fogging — have piled up across platforms for years. A same-building side-by-side last week made the gap concrete. Here's how to choose.

A poster on r/AskSF caught The Odyssey on opening night in the Metreon's 70mm IMAX auditorium — Theater 1 — and found dark action sequences hard to make out. "Black being completely grey, and the theater not going completely dark," they wrote. The next day they returned to the same building for the Dolby Cinema showing. The difference, they said, was "night and day." That test sits inside a thread of similar complaints spanning years and multiple platforms, and it's the clearest evidence yet that the two main auditoriums at 135 Fourth Street are not interchangeable.

The picture complaints in Theater 1 are specific. Yelp commenter Chris C. flagged the 3D laser system directly: "Their 3D glasses have foggy edges due to the laser projection system… it feels like you're watching the movie through one of those VR headsets, with fogged up and distorted edges." He added the problem had persisted "for around 4 years now." Reviewer Elsie M. in the same Yelp thread went further — she watched Mission: Impossible – Fallout in both formats at the Metreon to settle the question herself, then concluded that "the clarity in colors and picture is more brilliant in Dolby." A separate Yelp review collected by postcard.inc, at a stated ticket price of $32, called the IMAX definition simply "fuzzy."

The seating gap runs parallel to the picture gap. Theater 1 has straight, fixed rows and no reclining seats. Yelp reviewer Rodney H., who directly compared both auditoriums at the Metreon, put it plainly: "Dolby has a smaller screen, clearer sound, and reclining chairs. IMAX is the biggest screen imaginable — but no reclining chairs." Reviewer Oliver B. added that Dolby's curved layout "creates more opportunity to actually see regardless of your seating," a contrast to the geometry problem in Theater 1, where the front six or seven rows sit at an angle misaligned with the screen, per the r/AskSF post. Theater staff reportedly direct patrons toward Row J as the best sightline, per reviews on wheree.com — which suggests some internal awareness of the issue.

Theater 1 does hold one distinction Theater 13 cannot match: it is one of just 41 theaters in the world capable of projecting true 15/70mm IMAX film at the full 1.43:1 aspect ratio, per Variety and newsanalysis.net. IMAX Corporation hasn't manufactured new film projectors in roughly 50 years; every machine is rebuilt from salvaged parts. For The Odyssey, IMAX expanded that global footprint from 30 to 41 venues, 25 of them in the U.S. If the physical film stock is specifically why you're going, Theater 1 is one of 25 U.S. venues that can deliver it. Neither AMC nor IMAX Corporation has publicly addressed the image-quality or sightline complaints.

For everyone else: Theater 13. Same address, sharper contrast, and a seat that actually reclines.

The call: Book IMAX if the 70mm film format is specifically the point — sit in Row J or further back. Book Dolby for everything else.

AMC Metreon 16, 135 Fourth St., Suite 3000, San Francisco. Powell Street BART is one block north. Showtimes at amctheatres.com.