Over the past twenty years, there has been a gradual shift in film, leaving it feeling different and often unfulfilling. Cinema has faced many crises in the past, weathering cultural storms like the Red Scare, television, streaming services, and a global pandemic. These factors have not only changed the content we consume but also the way we consume it. The development of TV, film, and radio saw people positively viewing content socially, even if advertisements dominated news channels and turned tragic news stories into entertainment. There was still limited control over what you consumed.
Today, people have access to rapidly changing media, available at one click, from any point in time. Media consumption is not communal or tied to a specific time. Algorithms want to grab your attention, being designed to trigger dopamine hits. When we go to see a movie in 2026, we are now taking a break from the most overstimulating, individualized experience in modern society: our phones. In a theater, you are stuck for a predetermined amount of time, watching shots move at a slower pace, unable to control or change it (Szita & Rooney, 2021). The harmful aspects of our phones compared to cinema does not mean that handheld devices are inherently evil or that cinema of the past was better. Just that how people experience film has changed.
The yellow brick road might look a little bit different for film. With so much competition, film needs to bring something unique to the conversation of society. Films made with the intention of immersion and exploration into a single topic, will have the potential of not only reminding its views of how grand a film can be, but offering the chance to tell a story from start to finish. Capitalizing on the emotion only film can produce, requiring from its viewer only the time to experience it. Film needs to turn from producing quick entertainment escape’s to thought provoking questions that add value to the viewer’s life.