What is wrong with the movies I watch?

I’ve been thinking about something for a while now. The overall quality of the movies I watch has dropped noticeably. These days, I end up liking maybe 10% of the films I watch, if that.

It’s not that the quality of movies being made worldwide has declined (Well, definitely thats there, but). It’s that the quality of the movies I end up watching has gone down. The fault lies in my selection process or rather, the fact that there isn’t really a process anymore.

And it’s not just me. I think a lot from the younger generations are there in the same boat. There’s this thing called the Availability heuristic—our mind tends to believe that what is most easily available or convenient to get is also the best choice.

Right now, the most accessible and least effort-demanding source of films for me is OTT platforms. Thanks to FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), I’ve subscribed to almost every platform out there. Which brings me to another term: Choice overload. We now have an endless library of films at our fingertips. And yet, that abundance leads to Decision fatigue—the mental exhaustion that comes from not knowing which one to pick.

And here’s the real issue: because of this overabundance, I no longer feel the need to go searching for something new. Gone are the days when I’d hunt down a physical copy of a movie, or wait for weeks to see a film in the theatre, or scour obscure websites just to find a hidden flick. Even following a director’s work from one film to the next is something I’ve stopped doing. I don’t attend film festivals anymore either.

Instead, I’ve bought into this quiet belief that every film worth watching will be available somewhere in my subscription list—when in reality, many of the films I should see aren’t on these platforms at all. This wasn’t a conscious choice on my part. It’s simply the outcome of the psychological influences I mentioned earlier. The cognitive effort I once invested in finding and curating what I watch has been replaced by a kind of dependency—and bias—towards OTT platforms.

These are just some random shower thoughts I had, framed using the terminology of user experience design (for no apparent reason).