It has been described as the most immersive cinematic experience money can buy, adding a genuine "wow" factor to award-winning blockbuster films like Oppenheimer.
And Canberra will become only the third capital city in Australia capable of viewing the curved screen, large-format, high-resolution digital cinema when Dendy opens its dedicated IMAX theatre in Civic this November.
The cinema will be fitted with the latest IMAX with Laser, in which a 4k laser projection system is used in preference to the traditional xenon projection lighting to create what the company describes as a sharper and crisper optical delivery.
A suite of proprietary technology - including an "optical engine" - for the new system delivers brighter images with "increased resolution, deeper contrast, and the widest range of colours exclusive to IMAX systems".
Not just the technical equipment used, but the positioning of the viewing audience changes with IMAX projections.
The seats are repositioned to suit the curvature of the screen and its added width and height. The result is an image that's wider and higher than your immediate field of view, making you feel like you're further "in" the projection.
Speakers are strategically positioned throughout the theatre, including four channels behind the screen, and surrounding the seats.
Sharon Strickland, the CEO of Dendy Icon Group, said her company was the first independent cinema circuit to partner with IMAX in Australia, with Canberra chosen because of its loyal audiences and "long love affair with Dendy".
"It's a very exciting time for our company; we are transforming our largest Canberra auditorium for IMAX, which seats about 300 people," she said.
"It will be a complete refurb; a huge wall-to-wall screen, new seating, plusher seating, different seating for different budgets; a complete makeover."
Details of what IMAX-specific cinematic content is planned for the November launch are being kept under wraps.
"All I can say is it's going to be big, and befitting a significant occasion such as this," she said.
"But following on from that there's a huge body of fantastic content we can tap into, including documentaries, Indian and Japanese movies; a large, high-quality back-catalogue."
Among the IMAX movies she has seen recently, she rated the Denis Villeneuve sci-fi blockbuster Dune Part 2 was "just amazing".
Of the 2025 big global movie releases coming, 14 will be filmed for IMAX.
IMAX's vice-president of theatre development for Australia, Preetham Daniel, said the Canberra screen would have a 1:9 aspect ratio which he described as the "sweet spot" in visual engagement.
"We bring our team in and map the cinema so that when each IMAX film is shown, it is a bespoke experience," he said.
Three Canadian film-makers developed IMAX in the 1960s and then recruited a sound specialist to package the audio component, unveiling it for the first time at Expo 1970 in Osaka, Japan.
Mainstream Hollywood success and a gamechanger for IMAX's acceptance first arrived with the James Cameron sci-fi movie Avatar, which won three Oscars in 2010, including for visual effects.
There are currently more than 1800 IMAX projection systems in operation around the world.
