In the 20s: how a decade changed cinema | Video

CInema has always been a research and development medium. Every time, these companies are looking for something else that can improve the future. Sound connected in the 1920s. Technicolor in the 1930s. The creation of the modern blockbuster in the 1970s.

In contrast, the consensus is that, if the 2020s have any form, then they are inferior. The theater scene is under attack from all sides: streaming, YouTubean unprecedented health crisis that has shut down movie theaters. And yet, if you look closely, this has been one of the most innovative years that movies have ever seen. Whether due to technology or sheer desperation, the film industry has spent the past few years exploring new ways to make movies that wouldn’t have existed even at the start of the decade.

So far, the most notable of these is the way movies are discussed with YouTube. Back in 2005, when Jawed Karim posted the first video (of the 19-second Me at the Zoo) platform, YouTube felt strange. It was cheap and cheerful, a series of videos of cats and people falling. How things have changed. Not only has it become the largest platform in the world, but the first generation of adults who grew up with YouTube has aged.

As we speak, the seventh and eighth largest video of 2026 was directed by people who learned how to create content on YouTube. Emotion (worldwide: $442m) was directed by Curry Barker, a 26-year-old who dropped out of film school to make YouTube videos and TikToks. Meanwhile, the back rooms (worldwide: $384m) is highly recommended by the Internet. Directed by 21-year-old Kane Parsons, the film is based on a series of shorts that began posting on YouTube in 2022, which were inspired by others. creepypasta (cyber malware) that has been floating around the internet since 2019.

Ten years ago, the studios would have made a huge mistake. Ask them to edit a YouTube video and they would hire Michael Bay and Rihanna to produce it David After the Dentist: A Motion Picture; It would shock anyone who hasn’t watched YouTube – and shock anyone who has. This is the first time that the industry has trusted the community to make the films they want to make. Obviously, due to the high rate of economic growth, it will not be the last. Steven Spielberg is now producing Alex Kister’s The Mandela Cataloguebased on an analogue horror series that has been on YouTube since 2021.

This would also be a good time to mention the rise of the end-of-life film. In 1998, the Copyright Term Extension Act was passed in the US, which extended protection to works up to 95 years after publication. (In the UK, the law is different; copyright lasts up to 70 years after the creator’s death.) This meant that two decades passed without anything coming out of copyright. When things happened in 2019, and released everything that was made in 1923, there was gold.

Now, let it be said that it was not special nice gold. The first of the blocks was dated 2023 Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honeya cheap slasher film whose original idea was to have Winnie-the-Pooh in it. Then he came The Mouse Trap and Screambot (all from Steamboat Willie, Mickey Mouse’s first feature loss of copyright protection), along with Popeye the Slayer Man and Bambi: Counting. Without exception, these films are cheap, exploitative and burn out their space long before the end – but more to come.

Next year, if you can wait long enough, you will see the release of something called Poohniverse: Monsters Gatherwhich will star – big break – Winnie-the-Pooh, Tigger, Bambi, Peter Pan, Tinker Bell, Pinocchio, Sleeping Beauty and Cheshire Cat. It’s also worth noting that King Kong will be hitting the public screens in 2029, which will be great news for anyone who’s been dying to see a cheap horror movie featuring an incredibly large gorilla.

Now, here’s where I’m going to lose you, because I’m about to name Sonic the Hedgehog as the most important movie of the decade. Please bear with me. One of the most common trends of the last decade has been the way in which, for better or for worse, audiences hijack movies to achieve their own goals. A great example apparently Barbenheimerin which Barbie and Oppenheimer were released on the same day, creating a sensation where people bought tickets to see one after the other. No one in the film industry expected this, but the announcement of the festival made both films receive a roof.

The result of this is MorbiusA horror film that didn’t cause an end to the internet’s scorn – but what was interesting was that Sony made a mistake because of its honest support, and he also released the film in 1,000 screens to enter. It doesn’t say that no one saw it. Also, think of all the extra teenagers who bought tickets to Minions: The Rise of Gru, just so they could watch it while wearing suits and babbling nonsense to take part in the action. Gentleminions wayor people who went to see the Minecraft Movie just to scream and laugh at the time Jack Black said “chicken jockey”.

No film, arguably, has benefited from such a cult following as Sonic the Hedgehog. The first we saw was a night carriage with an unknown character. Sonic had a strangely human appearance, with eyes and small teeth that looked like they had been stolen from a human’s mouth while they were sleeping. It was bad, and the internet wasted no time saying it was bad. In the past, studios would have taken the song and released the film as quietly as possible, writing it off as just another action movie to die for. But this time, the producers listened. The trailer was released on Tuesday. As of Thursday, the director tweeted that the character has been replaced. Six months later, New Sonic was revealedand the fans were happy.

A character people can stop to watch, Sonic the Hedgehog became the sixth biggest movie of 2020. No one saw this coming. Until Sonic, video game adaptations were universally labeled as the lowest form of cinema. Think about it The disappointing Super Mario Bros. movieor Mark Wahlberg’s surprise Max Payneor the unredeemed Uwe Boll Post. A total of 46 English-language games were released between 1993 and 2019, and they grossed $5.4bn. But the Minecraft movie made almost $1bn on its own. The Super Mario movie released in 2023 ended Barbie’s second year. At the time of writing, Super Mario Galaxy Movie is the biggest movie of 2026 so far all over the world. By showing other filmmakers how to give people what they want to see, Sonic has turned a video game adaptation into a money-making franchise.

As you can see, this works Sonic the Hedgehog the most important film of the last decade. And the future will only increase this, as soon as Mr. Chilombo starts directing Sonic the Hedgehog 5 and someone will make a horror movie about the blue hedgehog waste, when freedom ends in 2087.