> Is this true, or you just can’t discover them anymore because everything else competes for your attention?

There is an element of that perhaps: from the past we already have a great number of movies. The more time passes the more great movies will accumulate, so newer movies will be judges compared to that whole set.

However, at the same thinking how many times I was exciting about a movie and how much I liked it. There are lot of fewer of them in the recent times.

> Arguably in the last decade more great content in both movies and TV shows produced than ever,

I could see the quantity but not the quality. Netflix produced a lot of shows and movies, Hollywood did, but I don't think as many good ones in there as say in the decades of 1990-2000 or 2000-2010. Tastes of course are subjective, you may just like newer movies they make that's fine, too.

I recently watched A League of Their Own and Die Hard. In my opinion, these movies are just categorically different from what's being made today, are still totally compelling start to finish, and really capture the magic and the high art of the golden age of cinema. I truly believe movies were just better 30-40 years ago.

That was the era of "every second counts." Every second has meaning and purpose and adds something to the narrative. The Fifth Element is another good example, and almost 30 years old. Now in the age of binging, where a 2 hour plot is stretched into 17 hours of TV, there is SO much filler and downtime and it's honestly just offensive in comparison.

I kind of enjoyed Pluribus, I liked the concept and what they did with it, but there's way too much forgettable filler that dilutes it into a slog. The movies I mentioned are (again, IMO) absolutely gripping and just lean and mean storytelling vehicles.

Whenever someone says online that something's declining (Hollywood movies, video games, UX experiences in desktop environments, etc.), I see a variation on this argument: "actually the options are even better today, they're just buried" (often accompanied by: "you were just younger then and everything was new and that's why you liked it").

Sometimes, cultural decline actually does happen, usually eventually followed by some kind of renaissance. Anyone who has studied the cinema, literature, etc. of a certain country in the past knows that there are "hot" periods and "cool" ones. When we see this phenomenon in the past, it doesn't tend to trigger the same defensive reaction, I guess because it doesn't feel as personal.

About $18 latest price if we go in the evening, and for a the whole family it adds up. Given the HBO subscription is about $20/month for the whole household, you can see the movie has to be really good to be worth it, and most of them are not that good.

Just checked AMC - $18.50 in the app for a normal adult ticket. ($16 + $2.50 fee for using the app). An icee and popcorn would be ballpark $18 as well.

> some of the most influential pieces of art of the last century and it permeated global culture in a way only comparable to Renaissance-era Florence

Not just comparable; easily greater than. US movie business has easily been more influential than Romanticism. That said... TFA makes undeniably valid points:

"Morale has been battered by tens of thousands of layoffs, the exodus of production from California to lower-cost territories, the waning cultural relevance of cinema versus social media, declining attendance at theater chains and fears that artificial intelligence will displace traditional moviemaking.

[...] this year’s Oscar race has been overshadowed by rival Paramount Skydance Corp.’s $110 billion deal to buy the company. It’s the third time Warner Bros. has been sold in less than a decade.

[...] Hollywood’s anxiety — the local industry’s challenges are often compared to the decline of automaking in Detroit — isn’t misplaced. The crisis has grown to such magnitude that last year, California doubled the annual assistance it gives to film and TV productions to $750 million to stop them from fleeing the state."

Agreed. To say "good riddance" to Hollywood scares me. Like we are giving up and accepting generated slop and influencers from now on. There's a lot of bad movies, but just as you said, very few mediums have thusly pierced through across cultures and societies quite like Hollywood.

Influential? Yes. Was that influence for the betterment of humanity? I’m not sure. Beyond the slop many of the classics were deeply racist and built on immoral exploitation. Yes all those artists did great work but they did it in terrible conditions for where near enough pay.

Take apocalypse now: a great piece of art. Was it worth the pain and suffering of its production? Absolutely not.

Yeah reading this comment thread really reminds me how dull and disinterested in art so many people in this community are.

That's funny. I was having this similar discussion with my 16 year old niece, and I was asking her what she's been listening to as a 50 year old trying to broaden my musical horizons. She pulled out her Spotify and shared some of her playlists with me, and I was astonished to see that most of the music that she had been enjoying was produced in the late 1960s to the mid-1980s. We had a good laugh about it, and bonded over some of the classic music that I love that I was suprised to find that she loves. There were some modern things interspersed, and I did learn about some new artists and experimental genres. Seems like a clear example of the Law of diminishing marginal returns in the cinema and music industries in Southern California — leading to those industries collapsing. AI and generative crap being a big evidence point for the argument.

To test whether you’re right, please list 10 movies made in the last 10 years that will stand the test of time as truly great movies. If fewer than one per year is worth watching, it’s a hard sell to say that we should spend our time sorting through the chaff trying to find it.

It’s entirely possible that we’re in a period where most of those with creativity have just stopped making movies. Interestingly, I find TV has everything movies are lacking, creativity, originality, even big name actors that used to make movies.

I didn't say there're no new great movies coming out, I simply stated that there are enough of great old movies than I PERSONALLY don't need new movies.

> it just seems like a very boring way to live out your life.

Quite the contrary, I constantly discover interesting old movies from a wide variety of genres and different parts of the world.

I regularly go to a nearby cinema that also shows older movies. Watching a movie like "Ran" (Akira Kurosawa) in a restored 4k version on a big screen is quite an experience. (Tickets are 10€ btw.) Often I go with a friend, but occasionally I also go alone. There's something about spending 2 or 3 hours in a dark room entirely focussing on a piece of art.

IIRC the book merger lawsuits, they don’t really read many new books. Many are published few are bought.

I think book sales are significantly down compared to most periods in the last 50-100 years? Still a culturally significant thing, but economically not what they used to be ...

It often is made, an the vast majority of new books are slop

What's a eurodollar?