I am a huge movie fanatic. I have watched hundreds of movies if not thousands across several genres. Except for horror. The idea of having the shit scared out of me really isn't up my alley.
For today, I wanted to take a look at the trend in movies from 2000 to 2020 and how they influenced people.
The 2000s were all about romance, adventure and fiction. About weddings, best friends, college experiences and people’s wishes coming true. Iconic movies like Mean Girls, 13 going on 30 and American Pie gained popularity. Most of these movies relied on the active imagination of millennials and films like Batman and Harry Potter gained a worldwide fan following.
The Rise of Superhero and franchise films started in this era. Movies like Iron Man(2008), Spider-Man(2002) and Pirates of the Caribbean (2003) gained popularity quickly as they finally made it out of the comics into the cinema.
2000s films portrayed an imaginary, or so-called perfect life in their movies, a no-brainer plot or simple villains and a beautiful happy ending.
At least that's what most of the movies comprised. Of course, there were outlier movies, which experimented with plots and genres like American Psycho, Memento and Donnie Darko. They deviated from the simple blockbuster formula of a protagonist who has it all, a sidekick with some hidden trait, a beautiful actress and a plot where you see the ending from miles ahead.
The 2000s end was marked by movies where our average viewer had to pay more attention to movies. My personal favourites from 2010 to 2015 include:Inception(2010)The Help(2011)Life of Pi(2012)Interstellar(2014)Whiplash(2014)The Imitation Game(2014)
There was also the rise of streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, which had a significant impact on the movie industry. These platforms have allowed for more diverse content and have given independent filmmakers more opportunities to showcase their work.
The Box Office was also hugely dominated by superhero movies, mainly Marvel Cinematic Universe and DC Comics between 2010 and 2020. Long-connected movies like the Avengers excited people and studios benefitted from them.
Post-2015 was when the real theatre took centre. An era of horror revival and realistic movies. Movies like La La Land, Jojo Rabbit, Marriage Story and Parasite became mainstream. They won Oscars and talked about entrepreneurs and this ruthless journey called life. Cinema had finally shifted from escapism to movies that reflected real people.
Movies between 2013–2020 were marked by movies focusing on how life actually turns out, with not-so-happy endings and threw light on important topics like the LGBTQ community, racism and subtle sexism.
The horror and thriller genres also experienced a resurgence in popularity in recent years, with films like “Get Out,” “A Quiet Place,” and “Us” gaining critical acclaim and box office success.
In 2020, however, the world came to a halting stop and people went back to wanting to escape reality😂. Netflix saw this as an opportunity and started churning out its mindless web series people loved binge-watching. Barely one out of 100 have a good plot, but others are simply made for us to consume content.
While movies depicting real people make for great cinema,the very nature of us humans begs us to resort to movies with unbelievable characters. We WANT to escape our boring lives and be someone else, even if it's for mere hours.