When Did Movies Stop Feeling Like Events?

THE REWIND / FILM

VOL. 01 / ISSUE 002

There was a time when seeing a movie felt like somewhere you had to be. Now almost everything eventually comes to us. Did we lose something along the way?

I miss when going to the movies felt like an event.

And maybe that makes me sound old.

Fine.

But think about it.

There was a time when a movie coming out didn’t just mean there was something new to watch.

It meant you were going somewhere.

You knew the release date.

You saw the trailers.

You talked about it with your friends.

And when that weekend finally came, you went to the theater.

You bought the overpriced popcorn.

Found your seat.

Watched the previews. The lights went down.

And for the next two hours, everybody in that room was there for the same reason.

To watch a movie.

That was it.

No pausing. No checking another app.

No putting something on in the background while you scrolled through your phone.

You were there.

And when the movie was big enough?

It felt like everybody else was there too.

There were movies you felt like you had to see opening weekend because you knew Monday morning everybody would be talking about them.

At school. At work. At lunch. Online.

You didn’t want somebody to spoil it.

More importantly,  you wanted to be part of the conversation. And I’m not saying that doesn’t happen anymore. Of course it does.

There are still movies that become genuine cultural moments. But it feels different now. Because somewhere along the way, movies stopped asking us to come to them.

They started coming to us.

Streaming changed everything.

And in a lot of ways, that’s incredible.

We have access to more movies, shows, documentaries and stories than any generation before us could’ve imagined.

Something leaves theaters?

It’ll probably be available at home soon.

Missed something five years ago?

You can probably find it tonight.

We gained convenience.

We gained choice.

We gained access.

But I wonder if we lost a little anticipation.

Because when everything is available all the time…

how much of anything actually feels special?

That’s the strange contradiction of entertainment now.

We’ve never had more things to watch.

And somehow, it can feel harder to find something that feels like an event.

Maybe scarcity mattered more than we realized.

Maybe waiting mattered.

Maybe seeing a trailer for months and knowing you couldn’t watch that movie until one specific Friday made that Friday mean something.

Or maybe…

and this is the part I’m not sure we like admitting

the movies didn’t change as much as we did.

Because nostalgia is tricky.

We remember the great movies.

The packed theaters.

The midnight premieres.

The moments everybody talked about.

We conveniently forget all the terrible movies that came out right beside them.

So when we say,

“Movies used to be better.”

Do we actually mean that?

Or do we mean:  “I miss what movies felt like when I was younger.”

Those aren’t the same thing.

Maybe what we’re really chasing isn’t an era of filmmaking.

It’s a feeling.

Being excited for Friday.

Walking into a packed theater.

Hearing an entire audience laugh at the same joke.

That silence right before something huge happens.

That collective gasp.

That applause when the credits roll after something special. For a couple of hours, hundreds of strangers experience the exact same story together.

You can’t completely recreate that from your couch.

And maybe that’s why, every once in a while, a movie still breaks through.

Something comes along and suddenly everybody wants to see it.

Not eventually. Not when it hits streaming.

Now.

And the theaters fill up again.

People talk about it. Memes appear.

Friends argue about it. Everybody has an opinion.

And suddenly going to the movies feels like going to the movies again.

Maybe that means the experience isn’t dead.

Maybe we’ve just gotten harder to impress.

Maybe movies have to compete with too much now.

Streaming. Television. YouTube. TikTok. Video games. Our phones.

Every form of entertainment imaginable sitting inches away from us at all times. Our attention has never had more places to go. So maybe the question isn’t whether movies can still feel like events. Clearly, they can.

The better question is:

What does it take to make us show up?

Because maybe that’s what made those movies we remember feel so special in the first place.

We showed up.

We waited.

We anticipated.

And when the lights finally went down…

we gave the movie our attention.

All of it.

Maybe movies haven’t stopped being events.

Maybe somewhere along the way we stopped treating them like one.

YOUR TURN

Do movies still feel like events to you?

And if they don’t…

What’s the last movie you remember making you feel like you absolutely had to see it?