Just like Generation X babies had lead paint, Generation Z babies had smartphones, and our culture has been irrevocably changed, in some ways for better and in others, for worse. Why remember anything when you can look it up in a second? Why go outside when you can text? Why watch a movie when you can watch TikTok?
As a self-identified movie lover, I want to examine that last question. My own answer is simple: when the COVID pandemic began, I was 15 and had to ask for permission to go anywhere, and when it ended, I was 17 with a car and no idea what someone with so much freedom was supposed to do with it. After a few months of driving around with my friends, it seemed natural to stop polluting the environment with my carbon emissions and find something to do. Dinner-and-a-movie night became a staple weekend activity among many of my friends, and my movie obsession is history.
So that’s me, but what’s the joy in movie-watching for other people? What do they like about it? What do they like to see in a film? In a world that’s shortening our attention spans, here’s what others wanted to say about movie-watching, ranging from casual viewers to die-hard cinephiles.
While entertainment was a big motivator for people to watch movies, another was just to feel. Lucia Balestrieri ’26 says that some movies “are thought provoking, some are scary, some are sweet or sad. There’s a movie for every situation.” Gus Dupin ’26 explains that he likes to come away “with a new outlook on life or a deep hard to describe feeling.” Many other respondents expressed similar sentiments of wanting to have a visceral emotional experience, whether that be laughing so hard your stomach hurts or crying your eyes out. Maya Pedalino, a University of Massachusetts student, thinks that watching a movie is like “going on a little emotional rollercoaster for a few hours. I love that feeling.”
From all the responses I received, it seems that people really like to cry. Jordan Scherr’s ’26 favorite movie to come out in the last five years is The Father because it made him “bawl like a baby.” Pen Fang’s ’28 was I Saw the TV Glow because it made them “sob in PSB.” Sofia Garcia, a Carnegie Mellon student, says one of her favorite movie-watching experiences was Ladybird her freshman year of high school: “This was the first time I cried while watching a movie. This is when I fell in love with movies and their ability to touch an audience member so deeply.” Last week, I saw We Live in Time with my friends on a lovely Friday afternoon, and we all sobbed (multiple times — loudly while the credits rolled).
In spite of the dominance of short form media like TikToks and its imitations, there are still many young people who think movies offer something that short form media can’t. Garcia values the communal aspect of movie-watching: “There are so many TikToks in the world, my friends and I could scroll for hours and never see the same one. A movie is a shared experience.” Maddy Fox, a Rutgers student, wants to be challenged: “TikTok is for little in between moments, a movie is an event! A movie doesn’t know what I want, and often challenges me. And I want to be challenged!” Pen Fang prefers movies because movies can make them “feel like an inside-out sock.”
With the rise of streaming and the shuttering of movie theaters during the pandemic, there’s been concern that streaming can replace the theater, but post-pandemic, people are rediscovering the joy of going out to the movies. The Barbenheimer phenomenon produced two films that greatly exceeded box office expectations, and the vast majority of my respondents indicated a preference for watching in a theater vs. on streaming. Dupin says that the theater “provides more of a spectacle” and Hannah Smith ’26 says that “it feels like more of an activity than a passive use of time.” Scherr cites the “bigger screen” as what draws him to the theater, and Fox cosigns that point — she loves “the atmosphere! Watching in a room full of others! The big screen!”
Another question people have about movies in the modern day — where are all the movie stars? While it’s questionable if we’ll see another Leonardo DiCaprio or Tom Cruise, there are still names emerging from the oversaturated actor masses to draw people to the theater. Timothee Chalamet and Paul Mescal are names I heard over and over again, but the two artists that the most people said they’d go out of their way to watch for? Christopher Nolan and Greta Gerwig. Of Gerwig, Balestrieri says she wants to “inspect her brain” and Fox says she loves an artist “who tries things, new genres, new styles.”
Movies are a way for people to come together. When I was home for a few days last year, my dad and I drove two hours round trip on a Sunday night to see Dune: Part Two a week before it came out. After watching Singin’ in the Rain in theaters, my friends and I walked around in the muggy summer air, jumping on light poles and pretending we were Gene Kelly. Dupin says one of his most memorable moments was “going to the library with my dad and brothers and renting movies. We’d spend a long time looking for a movie, often just renting out Return of the Jedi for the billionth time.”
If movies aren’t your thing, I respect it — if I read a dissertation on how fun it is to watch baseball, I still wouldn’t be into it. But if you’re convinced that it’s a pretentious hobby, or your attention span is a little fried, I’d say give it a try. Maybe you’ll like feeling (and crying) as much as my interviewees do!
Chloe Asack is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at [email protected].