15 perforations · one frame · no compromise
An interactive guide to the largest film format ever created — and why it matters in the age of synthetic images.
Today, the vast majority of films are shot digitally. But cinema was born on celluloid — and a handful of directors still choose to shoot on film, not out of nostalgia, but as a deliberate artistic choice.
Film stock comes in different gauges: 8mm (home movies of a bygone era), 16mm (long the format of choice for documentaries and independent cinema), 35mm (the universal cinema standard for nearly a century), and 65/70mm (large format, reserved for a select few epic productions).
And then there is IMAX 15/70mm — the largest motion picture film format ever created.
Each frame spans the full 70mm width of the film stock, driven by 15 perforations running horizontally through camera and projector. The result: a single frame of approximately ~3,400 mm² — roughly 10× the area of a standard 35mm frame. This isn't merely "bigger." It is a different kind of magic — a photochemical reaction between light and silver halide at a scale no other format can match.
Choosing IMAX 15/70mm was never just about shooting on film. It is the pursuit of capturing the physical world with the greatest possible fidelity — because there is no replacement for displacement.
(Technical note: "70mm" refers to the release print width. The camera negative is 65mm — the extra 5mm accommodates the soundtrack area. This 65/70 naming convention is standard across all large-format film systems.)
This is the largest motion picture frame ever created.
No pixel grid. No compression. Just light on silver.
A standard cinema screen shows you a letterbox.
15/70 IMAX opens a window.
At 24 frames per second, 5.6 feet of 15/70 film races through the projector gate every single second. A typical 2.5-hour IMAX screening consumes over 3 miles of film — weighing approximately 250 kg.
Unlike standard projectors that pull film vertically, the IMAX 15/70 film projector feeds film horizontally — each frame advancing across 15 perforations with the precision of a Swiss chronograph. The "rolling loop" mechanism ensures each frame is held perfectly flat against the gate, pinned by vacuum pressure, for absolute optical clarity.
In an age of synthetic images, the grain is the truth. Each of 15 perforations holds a frame ten times the area of 35mm — a window, not a representation. This archive exists because some things deserve to be witnessed, not merely watched.