This was still somewhat the case in the late 90s and early 00s before Youtube and IMDB were really big. We'd go watch Star Trek Nemesis because it had Star Trek in the name or watch whatever looked good in the trailers last time we went. What was your alternative? Watch it on your CRT tv a year later, probably with ads? Rental existed, but at least where I lived it was very uncommon. I honestly miss it. Driving to the cinema with a bunch of friends, sometimes not even certain what we'd watch and how it would turn out. Really great! Recently I visited an old friend at his new (to me) apartment and it came up that he had kept all his cinema tickets from back in the day. We went through all of them swimming in nostalgia, a little blurry-eyed, while our wives laughed at us.