Recent Dominance of Sci-Fi/Fantasy Films

You started to touch on my reasons for preferring a cinema over a television in your last paragraph. In a theater, the audience is forced to watch the film in one sitting, as one unbroken performance. At home, it's too easy to pause the film to get a snack, or have to pause it for someone else to do something, or decide to stop it and watch the rest later.

An even bigger reason I prefer the cinema is that I get more enjoyment when watching with a crowd. Something about seeing it in a room full of strangers allows people to become more invested in a film. Think of a comedy-- how often, if ever, do you find yourself laughing out loud and losing yourself in a film when watching alone at home? Yet, in a theater, audiences spend the entirety of comedies laughing in unison. The same goes for horror films and thrillers, though there isn't as obvious a marker of the experience as laughter, as a palpable sense of emotion can fill a theater in a way it simply can't in one's living room.

Finally, better films, and often older films, are made with the big screen in mind. Every part of the screen is utilized to tell the story or to convey an emotion, and small details that are impossible to catch on even the largest of televisions are obvious and unmissable on the silver screen.

Movies were made to be seen on giant screens with large groups of strangers.