Looking for something to do that will bring your friends or family together, that won’t cost the earth and doesn’t involve and absolute mountain of effort? Then what you need is a movie night.

Movie nights are great, even more so now that practically every movie ever made is available through on demand services on the internet. Long gone are the days of relying on what your local video store had in stock – just fire up Netflix or Amazon Prime and away you go.

Sounds like a great idea, doesn’t it? Here are five tips for hosting the perfect movie night.

Get your film choice right

The whole point of having a movie night is to watch a movie, so you’ve got to get your choice right. Is it a family event? Are the girls coming over? Or is it a set of movie buffs getting together to critique the latest blockbuster release? You’ll want to pick your film accordingly. While most will go for a film that most of the guests have never seen before, one smart idea that can help turn this into a regular event is working your way through the IMDb Top 100 movies. You can even get your guests to rate them, allowing you to come up with your own ranking system to see how it compares with IMDb.

Know if you should make a last-minute switch

You can have the best laid out plan in history when it comes to which movie you are going for, but don’t be afraid to change it at the last minute. The Shawshank Redemption might have been set in stone as your next movie night flick, but if it becomes readily apparent once all the guests have arrived that everyone is in a silly mood, don’t be afraid to switch track and go for a more light-hearted movie to reflect that.

Get the snacks in

Only a sadist goes to the cinema and doesn’t snack on something or other. For the full movie night experience, you need to supply your guests with snacks. These can vary from the classic staple of the movies, popcorn, to hotdogs, burgers, fries or how about giving these Irish Nachos a go?

Make sure everyone is comfortable

You can’t enjoy a movie if you spend half of it thinking about how uncomfortable you are or how hot it is. Make sure everybody is happy with the temperature in the room and provide adequate seating for all your guests. You don’t need to have a luxury sofa costing thousands of dollars to do that – just good old fashioned pillows, cushions and blankets to ensure everybody is comfortable.

Leave time to talk at the end

The very best part of any movie night comes at the end, when you get to discuss what you’ve just seen. Make sure you set aside some time once the end credits have finished rolling to sit down around the table and talk about what you made of the film. You can do this with questions to lead the discussion – “What did you think the director was trying to do?”, “Did the movie succeed in its aims?”, or by just going for the jugular and blurting out whatever you thought – “That was absolute rubbish.” See if they everyone else agrees.