IMAX: Analog vs Digital

"IMAX" is a brand covering several unrelated projection technologies. The single biggest source of confusion is that a room can be legally and commercially called "IMAX" whether it uses a 70mm film print run through a 2.5-tonne mechanical projector, or a pair of off-the-shelf 4K laser projectors bought from Barco. This page separates the formats so you know what you are actually walking into.

The core distinction

flowchart TD
    A[IMAX brand] --> B[Analog: 15/70 film]
    A --> C[Digital IMAX]
    B --> B1["GT film projector<br/>real 70mm print<br/>1.43:1 native"]
    C --> C1["IMAX Digital<br/>dual 2K xenon<br/>~2.9K perceived"]
    C --> C2["IMAX with Laser / GT Laser<br/>dual 4K laser<br/>1.43:1 capable"]
    C --> C3["IMAX Digital Laser 1.90:1<br/>retrofit, smaller screen<br/>nicknamed 'LieMAX'"]

	Analog IMAX (15/70 film)	IMAX Digital (2K xenon)	IMAX with Laser (GT Laser)
Light source	15 kW xenon arc lamp	Xenon lamp	RGB or laser-phosphor
Resolution	~18K equivalent (film grain)	~2.9K perceived (dual 2K, half-pixel offset)	>4K perceived (dual 4K, half-pixel offset)
Native aspect ratio	1.43:1	Usually 1.90:1 retrofit	1.43:1 possible on full-size screens
Screen size	Large, purpose-built (18–27m+ wide)	Often small, retrofitted multiplex screens	Varies; large on GT-format screens
Contrast	High (film)	Standard	"Double" that of 15/70 per IMAX's own claims
Sound	6-channel, separate magnetic/digital track	6-channel	12-channel (adds overhead + side speakers)
Where it exists	A handful of theaters worldwide	Most multiplex "IMAX" screens	Most new/renovated IMAX installs since 2014

The two axes that matter are independent: film vs digital (how the image is stored and projected) and screen/room size (whether it's a purpose-built giant screen or a retrofitted multiplex auditorium with a modestly bigger screen). A room can be digital and still have a genuinely huge screen — that's the case for most flagship city-center IMAX installs today, including Barcelona's.

Why "digital IMAX" doesn't mean small or bad

The "LieMAX" nickname (coined around 2010–2014) targeted a specific abuse: multiplexes installing the cheapest digital IMAX package (dual 2K projectors, 1.90:1 screen) in a converted standard auditorium barely larger than the room next door, then marketing it identically to a full-scale 70mm GT theater. That criticism was aimed at screen size and resolution parity, not at digital projection itself.

Since IMAX with Laser (GT Laser), launched in 2014, this gap has narrowed substantially:

Dual 4K laser projectors with half-pixel offset super-resolution (perceived resolution above 4K, still short of a 70mm print's ~18K film-grain resolution, but far ahead of early 2K digital).
Capable of the full 1.43:1 aspect ratio on large-format screens, not just 1.90:1.
Rec. 2020 color gamut, higher contrast than IMAX's own xenon-lamp 15/70 projection, and a 12-channel sound system (adds overhead and side-surround speakers versus the 6-channel legacy system).
No film logistics: no platters, no 250 kg reels, no humidity-controlled booth, no manual threading before each show.

So "digital IMAX with Laser" on a full-size screen is a legitimately high-end, non-degraded IMAX experience — it is just not film, and it is not 12K–18K resolution.

The 15/70 film format, briefly

15/70 = 70mm film stock run horizontally through the projector, 15 perforations per frame (vs 5 perforations for conventional vertical 70mm). This gives a frame nearly nine times the area of standard 35mm.
Native aspect ratio: 1.43:1 — nearly square, taller than any standard cinema format.
The system requires a "rolling loop" mechanism (patented, IMAX-specific) because sprockets alone can't move film at the needed speed without tearing it; a compressed-air puffer and vacuum-held field-flattener lens handle registration and stability instead.
A 2.5-hour feature print can weigh 250 kg and run to tens of kilometers of film, requiring forklifts to move and hours to splice into a single platter.
Because of this bulk and the cameras' historical noise and short film loads (30 seconds to 2 minutes), no feature film was shot entirely in 15/70 until Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey (2026) — every prior Nolan/Coogler/Peele IMAX film mixed 15/70 sequences with standard 35mm or 70mm dialogue scenes shot on quieter cameras.
Only a small number of theaters worldwide still run a physical 15/70 projector: examples include the BFI IMAX (London), the Science Museum (London), Kinepolis Bruxelles, Cinema City Flora (Prague), Pathé Odysseum (Montpellier), and Vue Printworks (Manchester).

Case study: Kinepolis Brussels

Brussels illustrates the analog/digital split inside a single theater, over time:

timeline
    title Kinepolis Brussels IMAX room, technology over time
    1988 : Original IMAX screen opens
    2005 : 15/70 film screen closes (content shortage)
    2016 : Reopens with Barco dual-laser 4K digital IMAX + 12.1 sound
    2026 : New 70mm film projector installed alongside the existing digital rig, for The Odyssey

The 2016 upgrade replaced the original 15/70 projector with digital laser — for a decade, Brussels had no film-based IMAX at all. In July 2026, Kinepolis installed a new, separate 70mm projector specifically to run Nolan's The Odyssey (and planned future 70mm titles such as Denis Villeneuve's Dune: Part Three). Reporting on the reinstall (RTBF) gives concrete figures:

The projector plus supporting equipment weighs ~2.5 tonnes; the cinema's floor had to be structurally reinforced.
A 15 kW xenon lamp requires continuous water cooling.
Film runs horizontally, per the 15/70 design.
The Odyssey print alone: 385 kg, 17.4 km of film, occupying nearly the entire platter room for the 2h50 runtime.
Projectionists needed dedicated IMAX training; the projector is assembled from three major parts before each run and requires cleaning of all rollers before every screening.
Kinepolis Brussels' screen: 27m × 19m (>500 m²), supporting the native 1.43:1 ratio.
IMAX quotes 15/70's resolution at up to 18K equivalent versus ~4K for even the best current digital laser projectors.

As of 2026, Brussels runs the digital laser projector on rails alongside the new 70mm rig — the theater switches mechanically between the two depending on the release format, a setup pioneered by IMAX in 2012 for The Dark Knight Rises.

Other cities with a real, currently-operating 15/70 film projector in Europe: Prague (Cinema City Flora), Montpellier (Pathé Odysseum, since July 2026), London (BFI IMAX and the Science Museum), and Manchester (Vue Printworks).

France: a single 70mm room, brand new

Unlike Brussels, France did not have a legacy 15/70 installation to reopen or replace — Pathé Odysseum in Montpellier is the country's first and only IMAX 70mm theater, installed from scratch for the July 2026 release of The Odyssey. Multiple French outlets (Le Figaro, BFMTV, Midi Libre) independently confirm it is the sole French cinema showing the film in genuine 70mm film:

Third installation in continental Europe at the time of opening, after Kinepolis Brussels and (per some reporting) one other site — putting Montpellier in the same small European cluster as Brussels, Prague, and London rather than a standalone case.
Screen: 22.39m × 16.76m, roughly 375 m² at the native 1.43:1 ratio — smaller than Kinepolis Brussels' 500+ m² screen, but still a purpose-built GT-format installation, not a retrofit.
One of only 41 IMAX 70mm prints struck worldwide for The Odyssey, and reportedly the first French print struck directly from the original camera negative.
Reception was strong enough to sell 13,000 advance tickets within the first month, with the single room reported fully booked through September 2026.
Christopher Nolan personally endorsed the installation ("C'est parfait!") during promotion for the film.

The practical upshot for French audiences: as of 2026, Montpellier is the only place in the country to see a 70mm IMAX print at all — every other French "IMAX" screen, including any in Paris, is a digital (Xenon or Laser) installation. This mirrors the Spain situation almost exactly, except Montpellier's opening flips France from zero to one real 15/70 screen, while Spain remains at zero.

Spain: no analog IMAX

According to Digital Trends' survey of Spanish IMAX venues (updated February 2025), Spain has six commercial IMAX screens, and none of them project 70mm film — all are digital installations:

City	Venue	Notes
Madrid	Cinesa Parquesur (Leganés)	Digital
Madrid	Cinesa Heron City Las Rozas	Digital
Madrid	Kinépolis Ciudad de la Imagen (Pozuelo de Alarcón)	Largest screen in Spain: 35m × 29.5m
Barcelona	Cinesa Diagonal Mar	Digital laser, ~200 m² screen
Mallorca	Cinesa Festival Park	Digital
Valencia	L'Hemisfèric (Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias)	Digital; documentary/science programming only

L'Hemisfèric in Valencia is the outlier: it runs educational documentaries and audiovisual shows (e.g. Pink Floyd: The Dark Side of the Moon) rather than Hollywood releases, closer to a museum/planetarium IMAX than a multiplex screen.

Barcelona: Cinesa Diagonal Mar

Barcelona's only IMAX room is inside the Diagonal Mar shopping center (Cinesa Diagonal Mar, Avinguda Diagonal 3). It opened in December 2019 as IMAX with Laser:

154 seats, reclinable seating.
Screen described as ~200 m² panoramic curved screen (La Razón, July 2026).
12-channel surround sound — the channel count specific to IMAX with Laser (6-channel legacy IMAX plus 4 overhead and 2 additional side-surround channels).
Laser illumination (not xenon) confirmed independently by multiple Spanish outlets covering both the 2019 opening and the 2026 The Odyssey run.
The room is number 9 of the Diagonal Mar multiplex, confirmed on Cinesa's own theater page.

So: digital laser, not analog film. For Nolan's The Odyssey (2026), which was shot entirely on 15/70, Barcelona audiences see the movie the way most of the world does — as a high-resolution digital laser presentation rather than an actual film print — since Spain has no theater capable of projecting 15/70. The nearest true analog 15/70 screening of that film is Kinepolis Brussels (see above), alongside Prague, Montpellier, London, and Manchester.

Sinners (2025) and dual large-format shooting

Sinners is a useful reference point for how "shot in IMAX" and "shown in IMAX" can diverge, and for how large-format film shoots increasingly mix formats:

Cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw shot the film simultaneously on IMAX 65mm (15/70) and Ultra Panavision 70, switching between them scene to scene — the first film to combine both formats in production.
IMAX sequences render at the native 1.43:1 ratio; Ultra Panavision 70 sequences render at an extreme 2.76:1 — the aspect ratio itself becomes a storytelling tool, expanding for open, desolate moments and narrowing (taller) for intimate or supernatural ones.
Roughly 30 of the film's 137 minutes were shot with an IMAX MSM 9802 camera on genuine 65mm stock (Wikipedia, citing IndieWire reporting).
Regardless of shooting format, most audiences — including all Spanish audiences — see Sinners in IMAX Digital or IMAX with Laser, not on a 70mm print, for the same reason as The Odyssey: the exhibition side depends entirely on whether the specific theater has kept (or reinstalled) a physical 15/70 projector.

The distinction between shot in IMAX and shown in IMAX 70mm matters: even in cities with a real analog IMAX screen, most showtimes of any given IMAX release are still digital, because there are far more digital IMAX screens worldwide than film-capable ones, and prints are limited and expensive to strike and ship.