Not really until recently. Projection of actual film has always had issues due to gate weave, which wasn't really solved until Maxvision developed a projector that compensated and gives you rock solid, in focus projection every time. Roger Ebert saw it and claimed it was 4x sharper than traditional projection.

Digital projection is inherently immune to gate weave, and film is pretty much dead, so very few people have ever really been able to see it in all its glory.

: Well, right up until the digital cinema switch-over began a few years ago, of
: course. Which was premature because now we've got cinemas which can only
: display 2 million pixels and tablets which can display 4 million - wtf!?

I can see the pixels in 2K projection if I sit in the first few rows, but sit anywhere else and I can't. 4K has no pixels visible regardless of where I sit. The resolution problem is so unimportant, that ARRI is not that concerned with getting a 4K Alexa out the door, and why the majority of films today are still finished in 2K, including huge blockbusters like Prometheus, Captain America, and Avengers.

The biggest impact on image quality is the image's contrast, gamma curve, dynamic range, noise floor, and colors. This is analogous to effects in Video Game rendering.

Bioshock Infinite still looks nice at 800 x 600.