A Hyderabad advocate has managed to do what a lot of frustrated moviegoers only complain about on their way out of a theatre, actually take a cinema chain to court over it, and win.
The advocate had booked a 10:35 PM show for Kubera at PVR Cinemas in 2025, only for the screening to run around 22 minutes behind schedule, eaten up entirely by advertisements and trailers before the film began. He said the delay meant he reached home nearly an hour later than planned, causing him real inconvenience. Rather than letting it go, he filed a consumer complaint against the theatre.
The Consumer Commission that heard the case ruled in his favour, ordering PVR to pay ₹20,000 in compensation to the advocate directly, along with ₹5,000 towards his legal costs. On top of that, PVR was directed to deposit ₹50,000 into the Consumer Welfare Fund. Added together, the total payout ordered against PVR comes to ₹75,000.
This isn’t the first time a case like this has landed a cinema chain in trouble. A near identical dispute played out in Bengaluru last year, where advocate Abhishek MR complained that 25 minutes of ads delayed a screening of Sam Bahadur, making him miss a work commitment afterward. That commission also found PVR guilty of unfair trade practice, noting that only one of the 17 ads shown actually qualified as the public service announcement cinemas are legally required to screen.
Seen against that backdrop, this Hyderabad ruling isn’t really an isolated incident, it’s the same complaint showing up in a different city, with a similar total payout attached. For a habit most viewers simply sit through, actual legal consequences for cinema chains are starting to become a pattern rather than an exception.
