Mandatory Milwaukee: The popcorn at the Oriental and Downer theaters is the best

Some Milwaukee things come and go, while some become icons. Mandatory Milwaukee is all about the latter. This week: the popcorn at Oriental and Downer theaters!

Popcorn and movie theaters—only the dynamic duo of peanut butter and jelly rival this potent “things that go together” combination. And in Milwaukee, the movie theater/popcorn combo doesn’t get much better than at the Oriental Theatre and Downer Theatre.

We’ve written a “Mandatory Milwaukee” article about the Milwaukee Film-operated Oriental before. (“Oriental Theatre is a majestic movie palace of memories.”) We’ve written a “Mandatory Milwaukee” article about the Milwaukee Film-operated Downer before. (“Downer Theatre is a no-frills neighborhood theater at its finest.”) But have we written a “Mandatory Milwaukee” article about their popcorn before? No, we haven’t. And for this we should be ashamed.

So let’s right some wrongs! Ready? Here we go:

The popcorn at the Oriental and Downer is the best.

First of all, it’s fresh. It’s never stale, never burnt, and always soft and delicious. And it stays fresh. The popcorn you’re munching at the beginning of a special screening of Andrei Tarkovsky’s devastating 1972 film Solaris is the same popcorn (if a little colder) you’re munching at the end of the screening 14 hours later. It’s that good! (Anyone remember the 2002 Soderbergh remake with George Clooney? It was…okay?)

Second of all, the butter—should you choose to accept it—is real butter. That’s right: real butter. It’s not the greasy butter-flavored oil you encounter at scuffed-up megaplexes and life-support malls. It’s light, never overbearing, and delicious. It’s real, and it’s spectacular.

Not a fan of butter and/or salt? Enter the third thing that makes the Oriental and Downer popcorn the best: nutritional yeast. YES. Should you choose to accept this unlikely popcorn condiment, you’re in for a wild regional ride. And yeah, it’s a mystery to us, too.

Do we need to say more? Is the simple and uncomplicated idea of “good popcorn at a good movie theater” one of the last things we can all get behind? Is the popcorn at the Oriental and Downer so self-evidently good that calling it “mandatory” is an understatement? Is the popcorn at the Oriental and Downer a rare example of Kant’s “subjective universality”? (Sorry, we’ve been reading Kant.)

No, we don’t need to say more. And yes—a full-throated, Tom-Cruise-firing-popcorn-into-his-mouth YES!—to everything else. The popcorn at the Oriental and Downer theaters is the best. Fin.