Thursday through Sunday nights, MSU students attend free movie screenings and get free popcorn in Wells Hall. The weekend screenings are a tradition that unifies students under the big screen.

The movie showings are currently put on in a joint effort from the University Activities Board, UAB, and the Residence Halls Association, RHA. Students involved in both organizations come together to put on the events.

Packaging junior Nathan Fox is the Films Director for the UAB. He leads a subcommittee of students who help him choose films to show that are popular and relevant, he said.

“Generally, I look over some of the statistics about certain films that are available to us to choose, like which ones have been successful in theaters and maybe more so which ones are still relevant,” Fox said. “I put together some of my recommendations into a Google Form and I send it out to all of my committee members on a weekly basis and ask everybody to vote ... I usually pick the top two films that were voted on and talk about them at the next meeting and make sure everybody is OK and on board with that.”

Mathematics senior Amber Smith and special education sophomore Mikayla Lezovich are also students involved with Campus Center Cinemas. They help with the screenings by taking tickets and swiping MSU IDs on the nights of the screenings.

“I’ve been here for three years. But this has been going on for forever,” Smith said.

Both Smith and Lezovich want to continue to work for Campus Center Cinemas.

“I like the job and the people I work with, so I’ll just continue working as long as I can,” Lezovich said.

When the showings began in 1966, then-student Tom Leach was put in charge of running the Campus Center Cinemas, back when the showings would move from building to building, where students could view the movies from auditoriums in Wilson, Conrad, Wells and Brody halls, Leach said.

“And again, this is long before, you know, cable and cell phones and streaming and DVDs, so back then, it was a popular program,” he said.

Leach worked with Campus Center Cinemas until leaving in 1991 and then was rehired in 1999. During his time at Campus Center Cinemas, he has been able to see the ways the program has changed and how it has stayed the same.

“It has changed over the years, way back when, there were other showings on campus besides us, but in 1981, it was offered free for all the students in the residence halls...it was a great way to increase our attendance,” Leach said.

The Campus Center Cinemas also used to bring in celebrities for special screenings.

“We brought in some celebrities at one point in time. We had almost the entire Star Trek cast here back in the 70s. Rod Serling, who created the Twilight Zone, was here, Vincent Price, the actor, so we did some live things as well as movies,” Leach said.

While the Campus Center Cinemas have changed, they still try to show popular films, Leach said.

He said In addition to showing movies that have recently come out, they are occasionally able to offer advanced screenings of films.

“I think it brings a lot of people together into the same room,” Fox said. “And there’s something about being together in a movie theater, whether it’s a horror movie or a comedy, you’re all in the same room together experiencing similar emotions.”