This product was not featured by Product Hunt yet. It will not be visible on their landing page and won't be ranked (cannot win product of the day regardless of upvotes).
Put on your Quest headset and step into a real cinema with a real audience, watching the same film at the same moment together. Nobody pauses and nobody skips ahead. When the credits roll, you vote on what screens next. This is what going to the movies used to feel like. This is Virtual Cinema.
I built CONTRABAND because I enjoy watching movies, and lately have been enjoying some of the old movies on my VR headset. And it is amazing how close the experience is, to going to a real theatre.
CONTRABAND is a scheduled, ticketed VR cinema running inside a Meta Quest headset. You walk into a lobby, find your seat, and watch a film with a real audience at a set time. Nobody pauses. Nobody skips ahead. When the film ends, you vote on what screens next.
Two problems we are trying to solve:
For audiences - streaming gave us convenience and took away the ritual. The shared moment of watching something together, in the dark, at the same time, is what made cinema special. CONTRABAND brings that back, and makes it possible with people who are not even in the same city as you.
For filmmakers - independent and AI-made films have no real distribution home. Distributors won't touch them, theatres won't book them, and YouTube pays $30 for a thousand views. CONTRABAND gives them a scheduled screening, a real audience, and direct ticket revenue via Stripe.
We just launched. The Quest app is live and our first public screenings are coming up.
Would love your feedback, your votes, and your honest questions. Happy to answer everything.
I can relate to missing the feeling of actually going to the cinema. How do you keep the social experience feeling natural inside VR?
the filmmaker distribution angle is actually the more interesting problem to me than the audience experience, since the audience side has been solved-ish by watch parties before, just badly. for an indie or AI-made film getting a slot, what determines the audience size at a screening - is it just whoever happens to buy a ticket for that timeslot, or is there some discovery/marketing layer helping a first-time filmmaker actually fill the room instead of screening to three people?
"nobody pauses and nobody skips ahead" is such a small detail but it's actually the whole point - most watch-party apps let everyone pause whenever which kills the shared-event feeling entirely. the vote-on-what-screens-next bit after credits is a nice touch too, feels like an actual midnight-movie crowd instead of a Zoom call with a movie playing. does the audience reaction (laughing, talking) carry over between people or is it just the movie audio?
The shared screening idea is genuinely cool, love that voting mechanic. One thing that would make it feel even more like a real cinema is letting a small group of friends lock a private room so you can pick a film ahead of time and watch together, while the open rooms keep the public schedule. Would help on nights when nothing in the vote matches what your crew wants to see.
@vijayanands This is very cool, futuristic like a black mirror eposide coming alive. Love the ticket pricing as well. Very budget friendly. Limiting it to premium headsets, limits the TAM. Any plans on running it on Mobile devices and let it play via affordable headets?
About CONTRABAND VR Cinema on Product Hunt
“A theatrical experience with friends, from home.”
CONTRABAND VR Cinema was submitted on Product Hunt and earned 32 upvotes and 16 comments, placing #7 on the daily leaderboard. Put on your Quest headset and step into a real cinema with a real audience, watching the same film at the same moment together. Nobody pauses and nobody skips ahead. When the credits roll, you vote on what screens next. This is what going to the movies used to feel like. This is Virtual Cinema.
CONTRABAND VR Cinema was featured in Virtual Reality (46.2k followers) and Movies (15k followers) on Product Hunt. Together, these topics include over 4.5k products, making this a competitive space to launch in.
Who hunted CONTRABAND VR Cinema?
CONTRABAND VR Cinema was hunted by Kevin William David. A “hunter” on Product Hunt is the community member who submits a product to the platform — uploading the images, the link, and tagging the makers behind it. Hunters typically write the first comment explaining why a product is worth attention, and their followers are notified the moment they post. Around 79% of featured launches on Product Hunt are self-hunted by their makers, but a well-known hunter still acts as a signal of quality to the rest of the community. See the full all-time top hunters leaderboard to discover who is shaping the Product Hunt ecosystem.
Want to see how CONTRABAND VR Cinema stacked up against nearby launches in real time? Check out the live launch dashboard for upvote speed charts, proximity comparisons, and more analytics.
Kevin William David
Hey Product Hunt 👋
I built CONTRABAND because I enjoy watching movies, and lately have been enjoying some of the old movies on my VR headset. And it is amazing how close the experience is, to going to a real theatre.
CONTRABAND is a scheduled, ticketed VR cinema running inside a Meta Quest headset. You walk into a lobby, find your seat, and watch a film with a real audience at a set time. Nobody pauses. Nobody skips ahead. When the film ends, you vote on what screens next.
Two problems we are trying to solve:
For audiences - streaming gave us convenience and took away the ritual. The shared moment of watching something together, in the dark, at the same time, is what made cinema special. CONTRABAND brings that back, and makes it possible with people who are not even in the same city as you.
For filmmakers - independent and AI-made films have no real distribution home. Distributors won't touch them, theatres won't book them, and YouTube pays $30 for a thousand views. CONTRABAND gives them a scheduled screening, a real audience, and direct ticket revenue via Stripe.
We just launched. The Quest app is live and our first public screenings are coming up.
Would love your feedback, your votes, and your honest questions. Happy to answer everything.