Beyond that, my hobby is film and I know tons of people in the industry. I've made indie films with them.
All the jobs have gone to Europe. It's simply cheaper to film there now. Amazon and Netflix built infrastructure and taught local crews how during the pandemic content wars.
Looking at my Gen Z wife, all the eyeballs have gone to TikTok.
There's the answer.
When I was growing up movies were watched in cinemas. It was a big event and we saw maybe 5 a year.
Over time more start appearing on TV, but those tended to be a bit older, but also cherry picked the good ones. (I don't live in the US).
PayTV didn't appear until mid 80s. They had more movies, but again tended to cherry pick. VHS meant we recorded the ones we wanted to see. All these things together meant we tended to watch "good" movies.
Hollywood of course were making lots and lots of movies we never saw, or had and way to see. The bad stuff simply didn't have a channel to the world.
The arrival of Video Stores changed that. Suddenly the mediocre (and worse) had an outlet. And trust me, there was plenty of rubbish in there. But there was still a cost to distribute.
Today, distribution cost is zero. If Netflix commission a movie it'll get onto Netflix. Regardless of the result. Some really good stuff, most mediocre, lots of real rubbish.
Repeat for Amazon, Disney, Hulu, et al.
Overall movies haven't gotten worse. Objectively production values are higher. But your access to mediocre and bad movies has increased.
Judging past output though introduces survivor bias, which in turn makes comparison to today misleading.
The scene workers have gotten better though. And there are a lot of good movies being made still, but not by the mainstream industry that used to really deliver.
1. Beverly Hills Cop
2. Ghostbusters
3. The Terminator
4. Gremlins
5. A Nightmare on Elm Street
6. Police Academy
7. Dune
8. Repo Man
9. The NeverEnding Story
10. Karate Kid
11. Romancing the Stone
12. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Or pretty much any year from the 1980s and 1990s.
At some point we lost good writing in favor of silly jokes and narrative in favor of spectacle.
For a while in the oughts I taught a film history class, though, and even 2 decades ago the kiddos thought anything in black and white, much less with no sound or with subtitles, was literally unwatchable. I'm okay with the idea that the students' tastes in media are legitimate, though I have my own tastes and think they are differently-informed.
And further, I dunno if "silly jokes and narrative in favor of spectacle" are new. Think Keystone Cops and Busby Berkley.
I like Battleship Potemptkin and Citizen Kane as much as the next person, but that's not all of what was popular.
Paring the thousands of films from the 80s down to a list of 10 does a lot of work to make that looks like it was better, when in fact I was in middle school and I could literally go see a movie for 75c. I remember some really bad ones, and I am certain I've forgotten a lot of bad ones.
I also have problems making a list of good films from the last decade, but I think that's because I got burnt out and stopped watching long-form video mediums when I left my PhD program. I am not sure I have seen 10 long form narrative works in the last 5 years.
Funnily enough, those happen to be two movies I didn't enjoy beyond their historic relevance.
I'm not saying that spectacle and one-liners are bad - movies like that are included in my list for 1984. It is when you substitute good writing with funny lines and have spectacle instead of a compelling narrative that I see a problem.
...No wait, to be fair, they're very good at influencing. They can influence like no previous generation ever could.
As I mentioned elsewhere in the thread, CA's labor-pool's own hostility to the film industry (via strikes) also played a big role. They gave the studios the finger, then are surprised that the studios took their ball and went elsewhere.
Also, I see this anti-union sentiment a lot on HackerNews: Whenever unions strike, there is near universal rejection as a strategy. The anti-union sentiment on HN is tiring, especially from the US and UK. Those big strikes in Los Angeles resulted in large pay increases and/or expansion of territory (better payouts for streaming, etc.) for those union members. In short, it worked.
It's akin to the auto worker's unions, but without the same degree of government backstopping for the industry. The auto workers unions are an anchor around the necks of the auto industry, while government bailout dollars are a lifejacket - it's clear California (and more broadly the US) doesn't see the same need to subsidize the unions in TV and film.