In 1970, movie theater attendance in the Soviet Union was more than five times higher than attendance rates in the United States, before this difference gradually dropped in the following two decades. In 1980, there were over one billion cinema tickets sold in the U.S., compared to 4.3 billion in the USSR.
Cinema in the Cold War
During the Cold War, the U.S. and Soviet Union used cinema as an effective tool for propaganda, both domestically and internationally. The U.S. film industry was already much more advanced than that of the Soviet Union, which did not start to create large numbers of films until the 1960s. The rise in popularity of spy thrillers was reflective of the political climate, censorship laws prevented criticism or any potential negative light being cast upon the respective governments, and war films tapped into the patriotic side of the audience. Stalin himself was heavily involved in the censorship and direction of the Soviet film industry until his death in 1953, from which point censorship gradually became more relaxed. While Hollywood was the global leader in film production during the Cold War, the embargo of American films in the East Bloc allowed creators there to replicate popular films from Hollywood, and new genres such as the "Eastern" or "Red Western" (the east's version of cowboy or western films) emerged.
Attendance differences
The main factor that contributed to the difference in theater attendance were the fact that the Soviet Union had upwards of ten times the number of movie theaters than the U.S. in the 1970s, while television and VCR ownership was much higher in the U.S. and provided a greater variety of entertainment. Additionally, the later development of the film industry in the USSR meant that this was still a comparatively "new" pastime in the Soviet Union, whereas going to the cinema was less of a novelty in the U.S.. In 1986, Soviet citizens went to the cinema, on average, 13 to 14 times per year, in comparison, U.S. citizens went between four and five times per year.