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NBC Saturday Night at the Movies, was the first continuing prime time network series to show relatively recent feature films from major studios, broadcast in color [1].

Previously, movies on television were usually low cost B-grade films or older films that the major studios no longer found suitable for theatrical presentation. Movie audiences had grown to expect films to be shown in widescreen color, so older black and white standard-width films had lost much of their value to the theatres. By the mid-1950's, these older films had become standard fare for independent stations and the non-prime time schedules of the network stations.

For their 1961 television season, NBC obtained the rights to broadcast 31 post-1950 movie titles from 20th Century Fox. On September 23, 1961, Saturday Night at the Movies premiered with the 1953 Marilyn Monroe film "How to Marry a Millionaire", presented in color.

Saturday Night at the Movies attracted sufficient ratings so that NBC and its competitors added more movie series to the prime time schedule. ABC, then a distant third in the ratings, immediately added "The ABC Sunday Night Movie" as a mid-season replacement. CBS was leading the other networks in the ratings at that time and did not immediately add a prime time movie series. However, over the next few years, each of the three networks added weeknight movies to the schedule and by 1968, there was a prime time network movie for every night of the week.

• The ABC Sunday Night Movie
• The NBC Monday Night Movie
• The NBC Tuesday Night Movie
• The ABC Wednesday Night Movie
• The CBS Thursday Night Movie
• The CBS Friday Night Movie
• NBC Saturday Night at the Movies

The popularity of these movie broadcasts also provided a windfall profit to the movie studios, since competitive bidding for popular movies raised the price for broadcast rights. This, in turn, made it cost effective to produce "made for TV" movies.

This trend continued and reached it's peak in the mid-1970's, when there were 11 or more movies in the weekly schedule - though some of the "movies" (like Columbo) were actually just a regular television series with longer episodes.

NBC broadcast Saturday Night at the Movies until 1978. Loss of ratings for movie series in the late 1970's has been attributed to increased competition from cable television, especially pay movie channels that were able to show the movies uncut and without commercial interruptions.

The NBC Saturday Night Movie has been periodically broadcast on the namesake American television network on Saturdays 8:00 p.m.–11:00 p.m. since 2000. It commonly consists of a theatrical release which has been edited for time and format and may be introduced by a host, originally Ryan Seacrest. NBC's prime time Nielsen Ratings and thus advertising revenue made the relatively inexpensive offering of a movie appealing, particularly after the spectacular failure of the XFL. It is frequently preempted for television specials.

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