The difference between Shot with IMAX and Filmed for IMAX

A movie can be both “Filmed for IMAX” and shot with IMAX cameras, which is why the two labels are easy to confuse.

"Shot with IMAX" and "Filmed for IMAX" sound like two ways of saying the same thing. They aren't, although IMAX's own branding makes the difference less obvious than the names suggest. The simplest way to think about it is that shooting with IMAX film cameras describes the camera used to capture the movie, while "Filmed for IMAX" describes a broader production process built around an IMAX presentation.

A "Filmed for IMAX" movie can be shot digitally, as Dune was, but IMAX also includes productions using its own film cameras. Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey shows the overlap: it was shot entirely with IMAX film cameras and is also officially part of the "Filmed for IMAX" program.

IMAX's own marketing generally uses the more specific phrase "Shot with IMAX Film Cameras" rather than "Shot with/in IMAX." In this case, the description is literal: filmmakers captured at least some of the movie using IMAX's large-format film cameras.

IMAX film cameras use a 15-perf 65mm format. The 65mm film runs horizontally through the camera, with each frame spanning 15 perforations across the film. That creates the large, tall 1.43:1 image associated with IMAX film, meaning the image is about 1.43 times as wide as it's tall. The camera film is 65mm, while theatrical release prints are 70mm, which is why those screenings are advertised as IMAX 70mm .

A movie doesn't necessarily have to use IMAX cameras for the whole movie to receive the label. Oppenheimer , for example, was shot partly with IMAX film cameras, with those sequences expanding into the taller IMAX image in compatible theaters. The Odyssey goes further: IMAX says it is the first feature shot entirely with IMAX film cameras, helped by a newly-engineered camera enclosure that made synchronized dialogue scenes practical at that scale.

That makes The Odyssey a clear example of what people usually mean when they say a movie was "shot in IMAX": every frame was captured with an IMAX film camera. Seeing it projected from an IMAX 70mm print , however, requires one of the select theaters equipped for that format.

IMAX's "Filmed for IMAX" program begins in pre-production, when filmmakers choose either IMAX film cameras or IMAX-certified digital cameras. During production, they shoot with IMAX's taller 1.90:1 or 1.43:1 aspect ratios in mind, while IMAX's post-production team later works with them to optimize the movie for its theaters.