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Who likes forking over $10 for a movie. The only thing worse than that is paying $20 for you and a date plus another $30 in concessions that will make you feel like jogging for the rest of the week. But you don't have to pay for a movie if you live in certain major cities. Nearly all movies go througha screening process where the movie studios rent out a theater and give away tickets for free so that they can gauge audience reaction. In places like Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, it's hard not to get approached for screenings anytime you go to certain movie theaters, albeit for lesser movies. It also doesn't take long if you have a good group of friends before one of them sends you a forwarded email with an offer of screening tickets. The person sending the email has one objective: fill the theater. For good movies though, you have to act quickly, but if you setup a relationship, you'll be watching at least a movie a month for free.

A couple ways to increase your chances to get invited to screenings:

1. Get to know somebody in the movie business and ask them
2. Start writing film reviews on a blog, screenings are created to get reviews out ahead of the release date in addition to gauging audience reaction
3. Check the entertainment sections of relevant newspapers to see ads for screenings
4. Check out FilmMetro.com they have free screenings listed by city although don't expect to see Avatar or Transformers this way.

Like anything in life, if you focus on it, there's a really good chance that it will happen. And at $10 a ticket or more, you've got plenty of reasons to make it happen.

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