Why am I suddenly buying up every 3D Blu-ray I can find after 3D became one of the biggest tech flops of all time? It took decades, but the technology is finally ready. The technology’s finally ready for 3D movies to shine, more than 15 years since James Cameron’s Avatar wowed me on the big screen and went on to become the highest-grossing film worldwide. Video glasses are giving me the experience I’ve always desired.

I’ve always loved 3D movies, but viewing them was awkward. Walking into a movie theater with a pair of polarized glasses, I would only get half the resolution and roughly half the brightness, since those glasses had to split one reflected image between my two eyes. Almost every 3D technology cuts something you care about in half, whether it’s resolution (see also: Nintendo 3DS) or the refresh rate and flicker you get with active shutter glasses.

But what if you had a full screen for each eye? That’s what video glasses can provide. Last year, I began testing a pair of Xreal One Pro glasses, which primarily give you a gigantic flat screen, like a private theater, for whatever you plug in. But that screen doesn’t technically need to stay flat. If you press and hold the right button, Xreal can give you independent left and right views for side-by-side (SBS 3D) content. With proper content, you get a full 1080p view for each eye.

There are SBS 3D toggles in popular video player apps for VR headsets like the Meta Quest and Steam Frame, too — and the Apple Vision Pro and upcoming Meta VR Glasses let you natively stream 3D films. They’re breathtaking. The water in Moana, a glass-covered clock in Zootopia 2, the helmets in Gravity, suiting up in giant robots in Pacific Rim, lightcycles in Tron: Legacy, comic book panels coming to life in Into the Spider-Verse — there’s just so much more depth to see.

When I fired up Gravity for what I thought would be a brief test, late at night in bed, I wound up watching the entire film. It all feels a bit like when I bought my first decent set of headphones — I never knew what I was missing, but now I want to revisit all my favorites to experience them more deeply.