Encouraged by the ratings success on NBC's Saturday Night at the Movies, ABC initially purchased 15 United Artists films released in the late 1950s for its April 1962 premiere.

Unlike the British broadcasts of the James Bond films, the franchise was not presented in production order.

Broadcast on February 16 and February 23, 1976, the edit involved the film being split into two for a two-night broadcast while including a voiceover (primarily for the first showing) meant to sound like George Lazenby that starts with the ski chase scene before including flashbacks to prior scenes.

ABC broadcast the films again as a promotional tie-in when Die Another Day was in theaters in 2002, dubbed as The Bond Picture Show on Saturday nights.

The Movie Specials invariably consisted of blockbusters, such as The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Robe, Oliver!, and The Ten Commandments.

A commercial would then follow, and when the program started up again, one would see the screenwriter and the director's names respectively - superimposed over the film's opening scene in credits manufactured by ABC.

The ABC Sunday Night Movie was also famous in the mid 1970s for its theme music and brightly colored marquee.

During the 1980s, films with more mature and politically charged themes, such as The Day After and Consenting Adult (homosexuality) aired under the ABC Theater banner.

Movies also alternate on various other nights of the week, for sweeps and also as holiday-based programming, such as the annual pre-Easter telecast of The Ten Commandments.

The advent of such cable television networks as HBO, Cinemax, Showtime and The Movie Channel (all of which broadcast theatrical films on cable before they appear on commercial television), along with the emergence of various home video formats, led to the decline of theatrical films regularly airing on commercial network TV.

The grand opening sequences of the past are now usually eschewed by merely mentioning the airing title in an 'up next' sequence, or a direct cut to a disclaimer noting the film has been edited and presented for a broadcast television presentation with the assumption viewers have already viewed the basic electronic program guide information for the film.