What Has Happened to Movies?

Content by Tony Macklin. Originally published on February 24, 2025 @ tonymacklin.net.

I recently saw The Brutalist, a disappointment in a year of disappointing movies.

It's a 3 1/2 hour slog. It's a disjointed, stilted mess.

Adrien Brody does render a powerful performance as an architect, but his character erects a kitchen sink.

Of course, it received 94% positive on Rotten Tomatoes. Don't those reviewers know what films can be?

What has happened to movies? And criticism?

50 years ago in 1975, for films of 1974, The Godfather Part 2 and Chinatown were nominees for the Oscar as Best Picture. They became classics.

None of the 10 films nominated for Best Picture this year will be remembered.

The next year, the directors who were nominated for an Oscar were Milos Forman, Bob Altman, Federico Fellini, Sidney Lumet, and Stanley Kubrick. This year the directors nominated are Sam Baker, Brady Corbet, James Mangold, Jacques Audiard, and Coralie Fargeat. Who?

The last nomination for a film with the scope and depth of the past may be Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer. Nolan is committed to film in a way that others aren't.

Maybe the downfall started in 2022 when the British journal Sight & Sound had their decadal poll of critics to pick the best films of all time. For decades Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941) had been the top choice. In 2012 Hitchcock's Vertigo replaced Citizen Kane as best film of all time.

In 2022 came the crash. The best film of all time chosen by critics was Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Beuxelles (1975). It was directed by Chantal Akerman. Oh, you know Chantal. Were they kidding?

Vertigo now was 2nd, Citizen Kane was 3rd, and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) was 6th.

Maybe AI will take over. It seems it can't be any worse than RT.