I do not like to go into a movie theater when the previews are already running, let alone going in late altogether and missing the beginning of a movie. Regarding entering late into a performance, the excerpt below is from Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo, the book I am currently working my way through.
The curtain rose, as usual, to an almost empty house, it being one of the absurdities of Parisian fashion never to appear at the opera until after the beginning of the performance, so that the first act is generally played without the slightest attention being paid to it, that part of the audience already assembled being too much occupied in observing the fresh arrivals, while nothing is heard but the noise of opening and shutting doors, and the buzz of conversation. “Surely,” said Albert, as the door of a box on the first circle opened, “that must be the Countess G—.”
Needless to say, I would not fit well into Paris society in 1840.