When considering the screen size, Asher Weinstein of ProjectorScreen.com recommends you don’t go too small. “You’ll want to get a screen that’s at least 100 inches diagonal,” says Weinstein. “This will give you the cinematic feel that you’re hoping for.” We looked at dozens of screens and considered factors like durability, screen materials, and available screen sizes to bring you all of the best options. Our top recommendation, the 120-inch Elite Screens Yard Master 2, features a durable screen that offers a bright picture, a heavy-duty frame that one person can set up by themself in about 15 minutes, and it’s also available in a wide variety of other size options.  Here are the best outdoor movie screens. The Elite Screens Yard Master 2 is our top overall recommendation for its heavy-duty frame that’s easy to set up and take down and excellent picture quality without sacrificing durability.  Every version of the Yard Master 2 comes with a screen made of the same CineWhite UHD-B, a rugged PVC material that’s strong enough to stand up to outdoor use while still displaying fantastic image quality and color accuracy. The 1.3 gain (a measure of reflectivity) even lets you use a bigger screen than you might have expected your projector would be able to handle, as it’s nearly 30 percent more reflective than a standard 1.0 gain screen. Yard Master 2 owners suggest that it only takes about 15 minutes to set up, but some report difficulty stretching the screen on the initial installation. Both the frame and screen are durable enough to stay outside, but both pieces will last a lot longer if you take them inside in between viewings. If you have space in your home for the assembled frame, the legs fold up in seconds for flat storage. However, note that you have to remove the screen for safe stowing of the frame. While we recommend the 120-inch Yard Master 2 because it’s an excellent value and sized to fit most yards, you can also get this screen in sizes that vary between a modest 58 inches if you’re tight on space and a massive 135 inches if you have more room to spread out. Price at time of publish: $234 Part of the reason this screen is so affordable is that it doesn’t come with a frame. The screen has a border of a rugged black material set with heavy-duty metal grommets. It comes with plastic mounting hooks and rope that you can use to mount it to an exterior wall or tie it up, or you can provide your own nails for a sturdier installation. Getting this screen set up takes a little extra work and ingenuity, but you can’t beat the value. This screen is a great choice for parents looking to set up an outdoor movie night for the kids without a huge investment or for anyone who wants an easy-to-transport, inexpensive screen. Price at time of publish: $50 This screen comes with a durable sealed-edge frame that’s strong enough to withstand the elements, but it’s also heavy, so it’s a bit more difficult to set up and move around than Elite Screens’ other Yard Master products. However, the legs are adjustable, allowing you to set up the perfect viewing angle. The CineWhite screen is also suitable for 4K content, so break out your ultra high definition (UHD) Blu-rays and send out invites to all your fellow film enthusiasts. Price at time of publish: $360 This screen has a built-in tripod mount in addition to the wall mount. This functionality gives it a great deal of flexibility for both indoor and outdoor use. While it’s available in only one maximum screen size, the Duet offers two screen sizes in one. In addition to the 80-inch size, you can set the screen to 65 inches for a 4:3 aspect ratio if needed. Alternatively, if you lift it off the wall mount, you can extend the built-in tripod and set it up on the floor or a tabletop. It isn’t very stable in the wind, but this screen does work well in that configuration if you have a protected outdoor area or use it indoors. Price at time of publish: $150 This projector screen is right in the sweet spot of sizes, with enough real estate to provide a cinematic experience while remaining small enough to work in most yards. The screen is prone to wrinkles, and the inflatable frame doesn’t exert enough pressure to stretch it tight, so rolling it up for storage yields better results than folding it. You will have to fold it if you want to use the convenient carrying case, though, making it easy to pack up and take with you wherever you need it. Price at time of publish: $250 This screen features a lightweight freestanding frame that leverages tension rods to stretch the screen tight and remove wrinkles. The screen’s robust nylon material is thin enough to support both front and rear projection. However, it doesn’t do well in front projection situations if there’s any ambient light shining from behind, so either use it in a rear projection setup or place it against a wall to block ambient light. Price at time of publish: $155 The screen’s spandex-like material is thin enough to support both front and rear projection. It works best with rear projection due to the thinness of the material, as it isn’t very reflective. The thin material also allows it to work with projectors that aren’t quite up to the task of illuminating a screen this size. If you have the hardware (more substantial spikes) and space to really go big, this screen will get you there. Price at time of publish: $220 Elite Screens uses their SilkWhite material for the screen, which is a white synthetic fabric with a 1.0 gain. That base level of reflectivity is pretty good, considering that this screen works with both front and rear projection. The only significant drawbacks are that the screen tends to wrinkle very easily, and putting it away is an exacting process of twisting and turning the frame that takes some time to figure out. Make sure to practice it at home, so you don’t end up fumbling in the dark after a late-night outdoor movie viewing. Price at time of publish: $80 The screen itself is a durable polyester fabric that attaches to the frame with Velcro for easy setup and teardown. The frame stands on two tripod legs that aren’t adjustable, so you can’t set a custom height for the screen, but they do snap into place quickly. The other issue with the tripod legs is that they aren’t terribly stable in the wind, but Vamvo provides four sections of rope and a number of ground stakes to help you secure the screen. Price at time of publish: $101 In addition to the 100-inch version, the Manual B Series is also available in sizes that range between 80 and 135 inches and in both 1:1 and 4:3 aspect ratios. We typically recommend 16:9 projector screens, but it’s worth considering a slightly bigger 4:3 ratio if you watch a mix of 4:3 and 16:9 content. The screen locks at 2- to 4-inch intervals when you pull it down, so you can easily configure a standard screen to display widescreen content when necessary.  Price at time of publish: $81 Weinstein warns that the material’s texture can affect the picture quality. “Unless you have a gigantic budget, there are no affordable outdoor projector screens that can resolve a true 4K image. The best you’ll be able to find is a 1080p screen. These near-textureless screens would be good enough for most outdoor movie theaters.” The color of the screen material is also important because it affects the picture quality. “You’ll likely want to get a white screen that will give you a brighter image while sacrificing the black levels you’d get from a gray projector screen,” says Weinstein.

Brightness

The American National Standards Institute rates projector brightness in ANSI Lumens. This number and the size of the screen are what determine the brightness of the picture projected on your screen. Smaller screens result in brighter pictures, while a larger screen with the same ANSI Lumens will have to spread it out over a larger area and yield a picture that isn’t as bright. Aside from its size, a screen’s gain (how reflective it is) also impacts the brightness of the projected image. A standard, highly reflective screen has a gain of 1, while brighter screens have higher numbers. The higher the gain, the brighter the perceived image. For example, a screen with a 1.3 gain will appear 30 percent brighter than a screen with a gain of 1. The catch is that higher gain screens also have narrower viewing angles.

Screen Size

The best thing about watching movies outdoors is that you don’t have the same screen size constraints that you run into indoors. Outdoor screens range from 80 inches to over 20 feet, but it’s important to remember you’re limited by the brightness of your projector and the size of your outdoor space. For a middle-of-the-theater experience, consider picking a screen with about 10 inches of diagonal screen size per foot that you plan on sitting away from the screen. So for a 10-foot screen, you’d want to be able to sit 12 feet away. For a 20-foot screen, you’d want to be able to sit about 24 feet away for the best experience. If you don’t have a specific reason to do otherwise, you should select a screen that has a 16:9 aspect ratio. That’s the aspect ratio of high-definition (HD) television, and it’s also pretty close to the aspect ratio of movies, so it’s likely to match most of the content you watch.

Why Trust The Spruce?

This article was written by Jeremy Laukkonen, a freelance writer and product tester for The Spruce. He’s been running backyard movie nights at his own home for years and has over a decade of experience reviewing electronics for outlets like Lifewire and Digital Trends, in addition to the Spruce. “There are three aspects you’ll need to know to figure out if your projected image will be bright enough,” says Weinstein. “The projector’s lumens, the size of the screen, and the gain of the screen. Together, these make up the system’s foot-lamberts.” The calculation works by dividing the lumens of your projector by the area of the screen in square feet and then multiplying that number by the gain of the screen. That yields the foot-lamberts, which you can use to tell how good the projection will look in varying levels of light.  Indoor setups can usually work well with lower foot-lamberts, but outdoor systems usually have to deal with ambient light even after the sun goes down. “For an outdoor projector setup, you’ll want to have at least 40 foot-lamberts,” advises Weinstein. “However, you ideally want to have over 60 foot-lamberts.” To determine the size of the largest screen that will work with your projector, divide the projector’s ANSI Lumens by the desired foot-lambert total. It will work if the area of the screen you want, in square feet, is smaller than the number you calculated. If it’s bigger, the picture may not be bright enough. For example, let’s say your projector outputs 2000 ANSI Lumens, and you’re aiming for 60 foot-lamberts for a nice bright picture. You would divide 2000 by 60 and see that your screen could be up to 33.33 square feet. A 100-inch screen has an area of 29.6 square feet, so that would be just about the biggest screen you would want. You could select a bigger screen if you’re okay with a picture that isn’t as bright and clear or find a bigger projector. Most screens come with a frame that you snap or bolt together and then secure in some way to keep it from blowing away. You then attach the screen to the frame using snaps, rope, or Velcro straps. This style isn’t that difficult to assemble, but the bigger ones are much easier to put together with two or more people. Mounted outdoor movie screens are either permanently or temporarily mounted or hung on a wall. You can mount the screen permanently if you have a protected outdoor area. Otherwise, you want to install hooks or other mounting hardware on the wall that allows you to hang the screen temporarily and then remove it to store it inside. Inflatable screens come with built-in blowers, so assembly is typically just a matter of plugging the blower into power and securing the screen with tie-downs, so it doesn’t blow away. These models are usually the easiest to set up because they tend to stand up independently as they inflate. To get a better grasp on the latest developments in outdoor movie screens and what to look for, Laukkonen contacted Asher Weinstein, the director of e-commerce and marketing at Next Projection/ProjectorScreen.com. With Weinstein’s expert insight, Laukkonen looked at factors like screen materials, durability, and portability along with ease of setup and use. Size was another important concern since the size of your outdoor projector screen is limited by the output of your projector.