Hank Stuever has long been my favorite Washington Post Style writer. Whether he’s tackling Mormon underwear or plastic chairs, he always puts good writing first, which is hard to find in major newspapers these days. He doesn’t write as often as he used to, but today he’s got a great rumination on the final demise of the AMC Dupont 5 movie theater that you shouldn’t miss.

Think back to being sardined into one of the Dupont 5’s teensy auditoriums on a freezing Friday night, to see another new Woody Allen movie blow it yet again. Everyone would be exhausted from just trying to get into the theater alive, get tickets, get popcorn, get seats, which always creaked, which did nothing for the lumbar, and there was that wet, woolly smell of overcoats and scarves. Everyone in a Dupont 5 audience had coughs. Always the same dumb Fandango ads before the trailers, with the paper-bag puppets. The bathrooms always smelled, and 10 people were always waiting to get into them. Management swapped the men’s room for the women’s room a few years ago, which only made things worse.

It certainly isn’t a great theater, but it’s the last of the small cinemas in this city, and it deserves to be remembered. We’ll always remember it as the only spot in town to catch a film where you and your friends could end up being the only people in the theater even during peak hours.

It’s still unannounced what will take the place of the Dupont 5, but the real estate broker in charge of the deal told Stuever it’s going to be some big national chain that’s not a movie theater.

The movies playing on the final weekend of the Dupont 5 are Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, I’m Not There, I Am Legend, P.S. I Love You and Charlie Wilson’s War, with the schedule suggesting that the very last film to play will be a 10:30 p.m. showing of Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead on Sunday. You can purchase tickets here.

Photo of a projector in the Dupont 5 by cyaneyed