Finding Movie Showtimes

Because going to the movies is often one of those spur-of-the-moment ideas you have while you’re out somewhere, you need access to movie listings. That’s how MovieFone was invented. But why waste cell phone minutes listening to endless descriptions of each movie. Now you can get the results you want quickly and right to the point. See which movies are currently playing in your area, as shown in Figure 29.3.

Figure 29.3: Typing films and a ZIP code returns all the movie showtimes in or near that ZIP code.

You can use Google SMS to find movie showtimes, theater locations, and information such as the running time, MPA rating, movie genre, and critics’ ratings.

To find movies and theater listings, send a text message to Google using one of the following formats (but don’t type the + sign):

• movie name + location

• movie: movie name + location

• movie: theaters + location

• movie: showtimes + location

• movie: movies + location

• movie: films + location

• movie name (displays only information about the movie)

• theaters + location

• films + location

Note 

When typing only the movie name and location, Google may not understand the movie name and may return a business listing instead. If that happens, try typing movie: first.

The location can be entered as simply a ZIP code, or a city and state. If you enter a city name, you must also enter a state. Here are some example queries:

• little miss sunshine los angeles ca

• movie: little miss sunshine los angeles ca

• movie: theaters 90210

• movie: showtimes 96760

• movie: movies phoenix az

• movie: films cleveland oh

• harry potter retirement of doom

• theaters myrtle beach fl

• films honolulu hi

Remember that the film you are looking for must be playing in a theater near you or the query will not return a result. Before checking the movies, you may want to see what the weather is going to be like. See the next section.