Relationships thrive on private couple time, but too many couples get caught up in the day-to-day tasks of raising a family and maintaining a home, often forgetting to take time to just enjoy each other. Having a regular date night can do wonders for your relationship, but going out is not always practical. When finances are tight or your favorite babysitter has other plans, improvise and have a great movie night date at home after the kids go to bed. Snuggling on the couch watching an awesome movie that you’ve both been dying to see is just as good- if not better- than sitting next to each other in a dark movie theater!

3 Tips for an Awesome Movie Night Date at Home

Set the Mood

 Prepare for a movie date night at home by setting the mood. Turn out the lights, toss some cozy blankets on the couch for snugging, and unplug from the outside world. When you go to the movies, you have to turn off your cell phone so you don’t disturb other movie goers. Do the same for your movie night date. Your focus should be on each other, not your job, your best friend’s latest drama, or your kids’ ever-changing activity schedules. Very little ruins a date night faster than watching your partner deal with a stream of texts in the middle of the movie.

Get creative with the snacks

Popcorn is a must for movies, but when it’s date night and the kids are in bed, you can get a little more creative with your snacks. Of course, popcorn is still a must! Start with a big bowl of Pop-Secret, then add in some flare. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top, add some spicy seasoning or toss in some chocolate chips. Chocolate and popcorn taste awesome together!  I don’t recommend cheese and chocolate, though, that doesn’t work out too well! The key is to make your snacks something that you enjoy together, but don’t get to eat at regular family movie night because the kids aren’t into it.

Choose a movie that you’ll both enjoy

This is often the hardest part. If you love romantic comedies and your partner loves shoot-em-up action flicks, it can be difficult to find a compromise. Even if you both have similar tastes, deciding which movie to watch is a challenge. If you’re like me, you’ve missed a ton of great films simply because you don’t have time to watch everything that looks even remotely appealing.

Using Rotten Tomato’s new Find your Critic tool can help with both issues. If you’re having a hard time finding a compromise, use the tool to rate movies, then hand it over to your partner to do the same. Once you’ve both rated 12 movies, the tool will recommend Rotten Tomato critics who share your taste. Simply read through the critics and find a movie that appears on both your lists. Don’t waste precious time of your movie night date trying to pick a movie! It took me literally about three minutes to go through the Find your Critic tool, rate the 12 movies, and discover critics with the same taste in movies as I have.

At Pop Secret, we love movies as much as you love movies. That’s why we created the Find Your Critic tool with Rotten Tomatoes. It helps you figure out which movie critics you should listen to. All you have to do is rate some movies and the tool figures out which critics share your taste in movies. It even helps you follow your critics’ new movie reviews and recos. So when it comes to enjoying movies, the only thing you have to worry about is which kind of Pop Secret to make. Check it out!

Disclosure: Compensation was provided by Pop Secret via Glam Media. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not indicative of the opinions or positions of Pop Secret.