A retrospective of New England drive-in movie theaters

Drive-in movie theaters have been disappearing over the last 80 years, and now technology is accelerating their decline. As movie studios phase out 35 mm film prints and go to all-digital distribution systems, the drive-in industry says a good chunk of the approximately 350 drive-ins left may close because they can’t afford to make the transition, according to an Associated Press report. Take a look at New England drive-in theaters through the years.

Pictured is a drive-in movie theater in Weymouth.

Richard Hollingshead is generally credited as the first to come up with the concept of the drive-in movie in New Jersey in the 1920s after he tacked a screen onto trees in his backyard and placed a Kodak projector on the front of his car. Pictured is a drive-in theater in the 1940s.

A sign at the Neponset Drive-In listed the features playing on Aug. 10, 1977.

Pictured from left: Katie Mance, Julie Thibeau, and Jason Mance watched “Jurassic Park’’ at the Tri-Town Drive-In in Lunenburg on a summer night in 1993.

A carload of moviegoers at the Wellfleet Drive-In drove their auto into outer space watching the blockbuster hit “Apollo 13’’ in the summer of 1995.

A drive-in on Route 1 in Maine is pictured in the late 1990s.

Ernest Tosi stood in front of Shrewsbury’s Edgemere Drive-In in late 2000, shortly before it was bulldozed to make way for a Home Depot.

The Gomez family watched “Finding Nemo’’ at the Milford, N.H., drive-in movie theatre while “Bad Boys II’’ played on another screen behind them. Pictured from left: Marcia, Cassy, Joshie, and Rosa Gomez.

Pictured is the Fairlee Drive-in in Vermont.

The Mendon Twin Drive-in opened in 1954, according to its website.