Learn English – The movie is playing. Or the movie is being played

passive-voice

First of all I am sorry for asking a question which is very easy for native English speakers. But it is not for me. I know that passive is used when the person in the sentence is not important or when u don't want to describe the person knowingly. But in my sentence, I think it is imperative that I use the second one because the movie cannot play by itself/on its own. But i recently saw the first one being used. So please tell me which one is correct. Thanks in advance.

Best Answer

"playing" and "being played" are active-voice and passive-voice present progressive of "play". The typical way for building active and passive sentences with this verb would be

  1. The cinema is playing the movie.
  2. Test movie is being played by the cinema.

But more often you will find the sentence

  1. The movie is playing at the cinema.

"Play" is used to describe both the action of an instrument (producing music and/or images) and the action of someone or something that causes an instrument to do the above. See for example definition 12 in Collins.

If you find it odd, think if it as if the movie is a sports team that comes to play in a stadium. Every day there may be a different team or different movie that plays. Is is not necessarily equivalent but it may help you get used to the idea.

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