Movies aren’t getting worse. A specific kind of big budget blockbuster is getting worse because drawing from and adapting source material made for children where the majority of the interest comes from nostalgia or novelty is always going to have diminishing returns, but studios are going to stick with that until people demand something better.
The other issue that I can see is there is no longer a distinction between made for TV/direct to video type movies and genuine achievements in the art. Before, it was “this movie is in theatres, so it might be good, this movie wasn’t, so it’s definitely trash.” Now these movies are sharing the same space and released the same way, so you have to put in a bit more effort.
It’s good that there are guys like Tarantino, Scorsese, Nolan, Anderson and Cruise who are working hard to protect, preserve, and represent the medium in their own way. But I wouldn’t say any of them are pushing boundaries or presenting something new anymore. They make films that feel like the way films used to be made, or at very least like they used to make them.
But when you look at directors and films like Uncut Gems, Everything Everywhere, Banshees, Lighthouse, Annihilation, Parasite, or Sorry to Bother You, just in the last few years, it’s pretty much impossible to argue that nothing has topped Jackie Brown in the last few years and the entire art form has gotten worse. That’s just nonsense.
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