Rotation-lock the iPad in landscape mode. Lie on your side, tuck your upper arm under your pillow, rest one narrow side of the iPad on the bed, and hold the opposite side with that arm's hand.

Now your arm won't get tired, because it's no longer fighting gravity, and while you will drop the iPad when you fall asleep, it won't hit your face unless you're a lot more nearsighted than my -3.5 diopters. (That's a lot - ~20/120 in old money.) It'll also land face down if you hold it with a slight tilt toward you, which helps prevent the screen light from interfering with sleep any more than it already will because you're watching it in bed.

That delightfully detailed description is definitely HN approved.

I'll add another one: lean your back against the wall sitting upright, pull your knees towards you so they form an inverted V and prop the iPad up against your legs. Slightly awkward but workable.

Unless you wear bifocals, in which case the screen is just outside the comfortable range of focus for the magnifying lenses, yet too low in the field of view to be comfortably seen through the distance lenses - you end up with your chin on your breastbone and a crick in your neck.

Maybe an Air is light enough to prop more up against your knees. My 4th gen certainly isn't!

Perhaps this holder would please you, https://archive.is/bg8fV

And when you fall asleep it hits you on the nose.

Yes. And that REALLY hurts.

(Not movies but the occasional book.)