WordPress Movie Themes: 9 Compared by Site Type

The best WordPress movie theme depends on which of five sites you are building, and for the most common one — a film review or news site — the pick is JNews at $59, with 30,008 sales, a Celebrity & Movie Review demo and a release on 9 September 2026. A cinema that lists screenings wants AmyMovie at $49, the only theme here with a showtime post type; a film festival or movie database wants Noxe at $85; a production company or filmmaker wants Pelicula at $75 or Frames at $60; and a streaming catalogue wants StreamVid at $59 or Streamit at $199, both of which run their subscriptions through Paid Memberships Pro, a plugin that left WordPress.org on 17 October 2024. Nothing free with “movie” in its name has more than 300 installs, so a zero-budget site starts on Kadence or Astra.

Jump to: which theme fits your site · the comparison · what the showtime, booking and membership features really are · the themes · the verdict · questions

Which WordPress movie themes are worth comparing in 2026?

Nine paid themes and two free bases survive verification against their ThemeForest and WordPress.org listings today. Only four of the nine store a film as a record of its own, with a poster, a runtime and a cast attached; the other five are publishing or portfolio themes that happen to have a film demo. That distinction, not the screenshots, is what the table sorts on.

Prices, sales, ratings and release dates read from each theme’s ThemeForest or WordPress.org page on 9 September 2026. ThemeForest prices are the regular licence for one site.

Which movie theme fits your site?

A review blog, a cinema with a screening schedule, a festival programme, a director’s showreel and a subscription catalogue are five different products, and the theme that is right for one is dead weight on the others. Set the three things below and tick the box if visitors will hand over money, and the answer narrows to one theme, with a note whenever your budget and your needs do not meet.

Sales, ratings and release dates in the widget read from ThemeForest and WordPress.org on 9 September 2026; Paid Memberships Pro’s closure notice read from WordPress.org and WPBakery’s licence terms from kb.wpbakery.com the same day.

What are the showtime, booking and membership features really made of?

Every movie theme listing shows a screenshot of a showtime grid or a “subscribe” button. Read the listings for what those are made of and the picture changes. One theme stores screenings as data. None of the nine names the mechanism that takes a cinema-goer’s money. Two of the three streaming themes require a membership plugin that is no longer distributed on WordPress.org. And two of the film-database themes bundle a builder that stops updating when the author does.

Days counted from each listing’s last-update date to 9 September 2026. WPBakery’s $82 single-site price read from wpbakery.com and its bundled-licence terms from kb.wpbakery.com the same day; Paid Memberships Pro’s closure notice read from its WordPress.org page the same day.

Three things follow. First, if the site is a cinema, AmyMovie is the only theme that models a screening at all, and its ticketing is a sentence on the listing rather than a documented flow, so the money part is yours to add. Second, a streaming site is a plugin stack: both StreamVid and Streamit hand billing to Paid Memberships Pro, which is still free and open source but now distributed from paidmembershipspro.com, and its paid Standard plan is $499 a year if you want the premium add-ons; video hosting is a separate bill again. Third, WPBakery’s knowledge base says a copy that came inside a theme waits for the theme author to push updates and cannot open a WPBakery support ticket, so Noxe’s $85 is $167 if you want the builder updating on its own. If you have not settled on a builder at all, our page builder comparison is the place to decide before spending anything on a theme.

The nine WordPress movie themes, by the site they suit

JNews: the film review and news site

Suits: a review site or film news site publishing daily, with or without a paywall.

JNews by jegtheme is $59 with 30,008 sales, a 4.83 rating from more than 1,000 ratings and version 12.0.13 released on 9 September 2026; its listing names WordPress 4.9 to 7.0 and Elementor, WPBakery and the block editor as supported. Among its 150+ demos is a Celebrity & Movie Review Magazine, and the pieces that matter for film are all in the box: a review system with several score types, a floating video player that keeps the trailer on screen as the reader scrolls, a paywall and content locker, dark mode, AMP and front-end post submission for contributors.

The limitation is weight: JNews ships more than 30 companion plugins and a small blog will spend time switching things off. It has no film record and no showtimes.

JNews on ThemeForest

Soledad: the review blog in the block editor

Suits: a reviewer who wants reader ratings next to their own and no page builder.

Soledad by PenciDesign is $69 with 60,424 sales, a 4.87 rating from around 1,400 ratings and version 8.7.6 released on 21 August 2026, which added compatibility with WordPress 7.1; its listing names WordPress 6.0 to 7.0. It is optimised for the block editor and compatible with Elementor and WPBakery, so the builder is your decision. For a film site the useful parts are the bundled Penci Review plugin, post comment ratings so readers score a film alongside your verdict, post reactions and a video post format for trailers, with more than 6,886 homepage demos to pick a layout from.

The limitation is that it knows nothing about film: no film demo, no cast list, no certificate field. Everything movie-shaped is a custom field you add.

Soledad on ThemeForest

AmyMovie: the cinema with a screening schedule

Suits: an independent cinema, a small chain, a listings site or a festival programme on a budget.

AmyMovie by amytheme is $49 with 1,350 sales, a 3.97 rating from 61 ratings and a release on 24 January 2026; its listing names WordPress 4.9 to 6.9, answers Gutenberg optimised with No, and lists Elementor plus a bundled WPBakery under its old Visual Composer name. It is the only theme here where a film, a cinema, an actor, a director and a genre are each records, and where a visitor picks a film and a cinema and sees that venue’s dates and exact times with a map. It imports films in bulk from IMDb, holds several trailers per film from YouTube or Vimeo and has a streaming mode.

The limitation is the money: the listing says it “includes support for online ticket bookings” and names no gateway, seat map or booking plugin. WooCommerce 6 to 9 is listed as compatible, so a ticket as a product is the fallback; check the demo’s booking flow before buying. The 3.97 rating is also the lowest of the kept themes.

AmyMovie on ThemeForest

Noxe: the film festival or movie database

Suits: a festival, a studio slate or a database site that wants film pages to fill themselves.

Noxe by GloriaThemes is $85 with 1,119 sales, a 4.34 rating from 68 ratings and a release on 9 May 2026; its listing names WordPress 5.0 to 7.0. It is the one listing on this page that names film festivals as a use, and it backs that with a movie and TV show listing, cast management with name pages, and both TMDB and IMDb API integration, so a programme of forty films is an import rather than forty afternoons. It lists the Events Calendar and Events Calendar Pro, WooCommerce 5 to 10, bbPress and WPForms as compatible.

The limitation is the builder: WPBakery is bundled, so the layouts only update when Noxe does and a direct licence is $82 on top. There are no showtimes; screenings are an events plugin’s job. For a festival with a music or multi-venue programme, our festival themes guide covers event-first themes.

Noxe on ThemeForest

Pelicula: the production company on Elementor

Suits: a production company, a director or an agency presenting a body of work.

Pelicula by Edge-Themes is $75 with 2,536 sales, a 4.16 rating from 31 ratings and version 1.10 released on 6 February 2026; its listing names WordPress 6.5 to 7.0. It is fully Elementor, with Qode’s own core and framework plugins, portfolio layouts, a Movie List shortcode, video and image backgrounds in sections and a bundled Slider Revolution the author values at $109. WooCommerce 9 and 10 are supported, with Qode’s quick-view plugin required.

The limitation is that a Movie List shortcode is a layout, not a film record: there is no cast, no showtime and no database import. Cinerama, the WPBakery sibling from the same author family, has 3,643 sales at $85 but its last release was 30 July 2025, 406 days before this check, which is why Pelicula is named instead. For a portfolio of shoots rather than films, our videographer themes page is the closer fit.

Pelicula on ThemeForest

Frames: the filmmaker portfolio at $60

Suits: a filmmaker whose work lives on YouTube, Vimeo or Twitch and who wants it on one dark page.

Frames by HaruTheme is $60 with 405 sales, a 5.00 rating from 11 ratings and version 1.6.7 released on 5 August 2026; its listing names WordPress 4.9 to 7.0 and WooCommerce 6 to 9. It is an Elementor theme with header and footer builders, seven or more homepages in dark and light, a mega menu, a newsletter popup and a video gallery in isotope layouts that takes YouTube, Vimeo, Twitch, Dailymotion, Facebook, Google Drive, embed code or self-hosted files. Slider Revolution and Contact Form 7 are bundled.

The limitation is the sample size: 11 ratings is not a track record, and the listing says it is not Gutenberg optimised. There is no film record and no showtimes.

Frames on ThemeForest

StreamVid: paid streaming under $60

Suits: a subscription or pay-per-view service, including live broadcasts, on a small budget.

StreamVid by jwsthemes is $59 with 899 sales, a 4.55 rating from 56 ratings and a release on 7 August 2026; its listing names WordPress 5.7 to 7.0 and bundles Elementor, its own StreamVid core plugin and a TMDB import plugin. Movies, TV shows and episodes are records, the TMDB importer fills them in bulk with filtering, membership and pay-per-view run through Paid Memberships Pro, and live broadcasts run through Cloudflare Stream or Bunny.net with signed URLs so a stream cannot be shared by link.

The limitation is everything around it: Paid Memberships Pro has been closed on WordPress.org since 17 October 2024 and now comes from the vendor’s site, video hosting is your bill, and 899 sales is a small community if you get stuck.

StreamVid on ThemeForest

Streamit: the OTT service with the biggest track record

Suits: a streaming service that will run for years and can pay for the safest choice.

Streamit by iqonicdesign is $199 with 2,733 sales, a 4.70 rating from 129 ratings and a release on 9 July 2026; its listing names WordPress 5.6 to 7.0 and it is the most-bought theme in ThemeForest’s film and TV category. Its documentation lists Elementor, its own Streamit Extensions, MAS Video, WooCommerce, Advanced Custom Fields and Paid Memberships Pro as required, with import from TMDB, OMDb, YouTube and Vimeo, viewer watchlists and ratings, and genre and trending filters.

The limitation is price and dependency: $199 is $140 more than StreamVid, live streaming is a separate Streamit plugin, and the required membership plugin is the same Paid Memberships Pro that left WordPress.org in October 2024. If viewers upload the videos rather than you licensing them, that is a video portal, and our video themes comparison covers those.

Streamit on ThemeForest

Vodi: the browsing catalogue without billing

Suits: a site whose job is browsing and discovery, with trailers and embeds rather than a paywall.

Vodi by MadrasThemes is $59 with 2,360 sales, a 4.87 rating from 47 ratings and version 1.2.14 released on 24 March 2026; its listing names WordPress 5.9 to 6.9. It is a block-editor theme with 47 blocks and no page builder, and its bundled MAS Videos plugin adds movies, TV shows, episodes and videos as records, with genre and rating filters, watch history for logged-in users and structured data on film pages, which is how a movie page earns a rich result. Its demos cover magazine, sports, Tube, Prime and Stream looks, with four headers and four footers in light and dark.

The limitation is monetisation: the listing has no membership, no pay-per-view and no TMDB import, so Vodi shows what exists rather than charging to watch it.

Vodi on ThemeForest

Kadence and Astra: the free start for any of the five

Suits: anyone with no theme budget, whatever the site is.

Kadence is free on WordPress.org at version 1.5.2, released 24 July 2026, with more than 500,000 active installs and a 4.9 rating from 453 reviews; it requires WordPress 6.3 and PHP 7.4 and builds in the block editor with header and footer builders in the free version. Astra is free at version 4.13.11, released 8 September 2026, with more than 1 million installs and a 4.9 rating from 6,522 reviews, and pairs with free Elementor. Either gives a dark palette, a video-background hero and a review post for nothing.

The free themes with movie in the name do not compete: on WordPress.org, Movie Theatre shows 30+ active installs, Cinema Theater 100+, Movie Review Hub 100+, Movie Studio 200+ and Film Maker Lite 300+, with a single review between the five of them. Our Kadence review and Astra review show where each free tier stops.

Kadence on WordPress.org · Astra on WordPress.org

Which WordPress movie theme should you choose?

For most movie sites, JNews at $59. Most sites that search for a movie theme are review or news sites, and a publishing theme with a movie review demo, a review system, a floating trailer player and 30,008 sales beats any niche theme with 400. Take Soledad at $69 if you want the block editor and reader ratings.

If you run a cinema, AmyMovie at $49; a festival or database, Noxe at $85; a production company, Pelicula at $75 or Frames at $60. AmyMovie is the only theme with a screening schedule as data, Noxe the only one with TMDB and IMDb import behind a cast database, and the two Elementor studio themes are the ones with a recent release.

If viewers will pay to watch, StreamVid at $59 or Streamit at $199, and go in knowing that both bill through Paid Memberships Pro, downloaded from the vendor’s site since WordPress.org closed it on 17 October 2024. If nobody pays, Vodi at $59 is the catalogue without the dependency. If the budget is zero, Kadence or Astra, and accept that the film look is yours to build.

Skip Coppola, the $89 theme that tops most filmmaker lists: it had a release on 23 March 2026 but holds a 3.11 rating from 18 ratings, the lowest of any theme checked for this page. Skip the themes older lists still carry: Vlog’s last release was 30 August 2023; VideoPro’s vendor changelog stops at version 2.3.5.8 on 16 November 2018 and a ThemeForest search for it returns nothing; Specto, the only other “cinema” theme, was last updated on 6 March 2020; Filmic’s listing tops out at WordPress 6.0 with a changelog that ends in June 2020; and Dali, the cheaper MadrasThemes catalogue, has 46 sales and a last release on 30 July 2024.

Once you have chosen a theme

WordPress video player plugins — the trailer or the film itself plays through a player, not the theme, and this compares the ones that handle ads, chapters and self-hosted files.

Page builder plugins compared — if the builder column above is what decided your theme, this is where the builders themselves are weighed on cost, speed and lock-in.

Best WordPress hosting — a site that embeds trailers and serves poster-heavy grids, or streams at all, needs a host that survives a release-day spike.

Videographer WordPress themes — if the site is a showreel of shoots rather than a slate of films, these portfolios are built for that.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best WordPress movie theme?

It depends on the site. For a film review or news site, JNews at $59 is the safest buy, with a movie review demo, 30,008 sales and a release on 9 September 2026. For a cinema, AmyMovie at $49 is the only theme with a showtime post type. For a festival or database, Noxe at $85 imports from TMDB and IMDb. For paid streaming, StreamVid at $59 or Streamit at $199.

Which WordPress theme has real cinema showtimes and ticket booking?

AmyMovie is the only theme here that stores showtimes: a visitor picks a film and a cinema and sees that venue’s dates and times, with a map. Its listing says it supports online ticket bookings but names no payment gateway, seat map or booking plugin, and lists WooCommerce as compatible. Treat ticketing as something you add and check the demo’s booking flow before buying.

Can you build a Netflix-style streaming site with a WordPress theme?

Not with a theme alone. StreamVid at $59 and Streamit at $199 both store movies, shows and episodes, but both hand subscriptions to Paid Memberships Pro, which WordPress.org closed on 17 October 2024 and which now downloads from paidmembershipspro.com, and neither hosts video. Budget for the theme, the membership plugin’s add-ons if you need them, and a video host such as Cloudflare Stream or Bunny.net.

Is there a good free WordPress movie theme?

Not among the themes that call themselves movie themes. On WordPress.org, Movie Theatre shows 30+ active installs, Cinema Theater and Movie Review Hub 100+ each, Movie Studio 200+ and Film Maker Lite 300+, with one review between them. The better free route is a maintained general theme: Kadence has 500,000+ installs and a 4.9 rating from 453 reviews, Astra 1 million+ and 4.9 from 6,522.

Which movie themes work with Elementor, and which need no page builder?

Pelicula, Frames, StreamVid and Streamit are Elementor themes, and JNews and AmyMovie list Elementor as supported. Vodi and Soledad are built for the block editor without a page builder. Noxe bundles WPBakery, which means builder updates arrive only with theme releases unless you buy a direct licence at $82. No streaming theme on this page uses WPBakery.

What is the best WordPress theme for a film festival?

Noxe at $85 is the only listing that names film festivals and backs it with a movie listing, cast management and TMDB and IMDb import, and it lists the Events Calendar as compatible for the screening programme. On a budget, AmyMovie at $49 stores films with screenings per venue and date, which is what a programme is, but has no jury or submission pages. Neither ships ticketing.