Hollywood’s New Renaissance: Why the 2020s Could Mirror the 1970s in Film History

Hollywood is in crisis, but history shows a turnaround is coming. Just like in the 1970s, a new wave of visionary filmmakers is emerging as big-budget blockbusters collapse.

In the 1970s, young filmmakers saved the Hollywood system, which was struggling after many box office busts in the 1950s and 1960s. The invention of TV weighed heavily against the movie industry, pulling audiences away from theaters. The masses involved in the counterculture movement of the 1960s felt like they were not being represented on film, losing interest in old staples like Westerns and Musicals. It got so bad that by the 1960s, only 40% of films turned a profit, and that was before the wonky accounting of today. The studios were spending big but not making their money back, and they were hurting in a big way. They had also lost their stranglehold on movie theaters after the 1948 Paramount Decree forced studios to divest their theater holdings, breaking up the vertical integration that had ensured consistent revenue by lining their own pockets with ticket sales. This separation led to increased financial instability and uncertainty within the industry.

After two decades of turbulent business and headwinds, Hollywood was saved by the filmmakers of "New Hollywood" who created movies that audiences were excited about. This era introduced us to filmmakers like Steven Spielberg (Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind), Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now), Robert Altman (MASH*, Nashville), Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver, Mean Streets), William Friedkin (The French Connection, The Exorcist), George Lucas (American Graffiti, Star Wars), and John Carpenter (Halloween, Assault on Precinct 13). Their films paved the way for "New Hollywood" by mixing arthouse style with crowd-pleasing entertainment, and they really led the way for Hollywood to recover in a huge way. They brought the box office back and made movies exciting again. They literally created the summer blockbuster, giving that reliable shot in the arm to theaters each year. That wave carried well into the 1980s and 1990s and really up through the 2000s.

But over the last two decades, we have seen a lot of parallels to what happened in the 1950s and 1960s. Big-budget movies are failing to make money, leading to billions of dollars in losses. Studios are cutting jobs. Audiences are tired of the same thing over and over again, with IP-driven, CGI-heavy blockbusters dominating the market. Streaming has changed the game too. Filmmakers and actors have been flocking to streaming platforms to create limited series instead of movies, just like how TV pulled talent away from film in the 1950s. The box office is struggling to keep up, but I still have hope.

Even as big box office busts dominate the news and slow weekends at the theaters become the norm, there are lower-budget movies that feel closer to arthouse than blockbuster that are making waves. A24 and NEON are leading the way, along with distributors like MUBI, Cineverse, IFC Films, and Lionsgate, which isn’t indie, but also isn’t part of the “big 5” and releases some very unique movies. Even within the major studios, indie divisions like Focus Features, Sony Pictures Classics, and Searchlight Pictures are putting out some of the best movies each year. These films are winning awards, turning profits, and sparking conversations in the film circles I am in. I do believe that these are the movies moving the culture forward, and the types of films that are set to have an even bigger breakout over the next few years.

Credit to Indy Film Library for the graphic

I talked about some of the up-and-coming directors who are making waves in a previous post, and I really believe there is a strong group of filmmakers between 25 and 35 years old right now who are going to lead the next wave of New Hollywood. There are also some that skew older who are already changing the industry, like Sean Baker, Robert Eggers, Ari Aster, the Safdie Brothers, and Greta Gerwig. They are telling human stories with scripts that actually mean something, creating unique set pieces, and doing it all on lower budgets that don’t break the bank. In a world that is about to be flooded with AI-generated content, these filmmakers will be the counterculture that keeps us grounded in reality while the Russo Brothers and the like keep pumping out CGI and AI slop.

$320 million…for this?

I have faith in movies because I know my history. The same way I have faith in the world, even with how overwhelming and bleak things might seem in 2025. Knowing history keeps things in perspective, and while there are many people who want to cry about the death of movies and say that Hollywood is too woke or that there hasn’t been a good movie in 20 years, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. However, it will probably get worse before it gets better.

In the short term, I predict more layoffs, more box office bombs, and more losses for studios. But at the end of that road, towards the late 2020s, I see a turnaround. Streaming and prestige TV will lose some of their appeal. People will start to feel overwhelmed by the endless amount of content being thrown at them. They will look for filmmakers who can tell a great story in two hours instead of stretching it across ten one-hour episodes. I can feel that a shift is coming, and history tends to repeat itself, so I fully expect us to see a new "New Hollywood" sometime in the next five to ten years, if we aren’t already seeing the start of it right now.