How come my generation doesn't seem to want to watch older movies?

A lot of times I will recommend movies to friends and they will ask how the old movies are, but if it's anything before the 90s, then automatically they will boycott it, as it's 'too old', they say. But why?

There are plenty of great movies before the 90s, and a lot of the best movies in my opinion came out in the 60s even. I just don't understand why they feel there is a huge drop in quality, as long as the story and script are really solid.

What do you think?

I feel that it's common for young people to not take old things seriously. At least, i've seem this happen many times, and also when it comes to music.

Most people watch movies alot more casually/less often than us so it makes sense to watch current stuff/films from their own generation when they are only watching movies every once and a while. Don't think it will be much different with the average person born in say the 70's, except they'll probably include movies from the 70's since that's the stuff from their adolescence.

A cultural change/ zeitgeist of the time. Style and themes can seem either no longer relevant or outdated. They live in different world that older movies fail to absorb. Other example is what used to be edgy in the past can seem fluff nowadays.

I grew up with 80s and 90s movies and any older movie has high likelihood to not jive with my sensibilities. Guilty as charged., yada yada...

I know what you're talking about man. Whenever I recommend someone Salo: 120 Days of Sodom they give me weird looks.

But I don't see how this is so. For example, one of my favorite movies is The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, but couldn't men wanting find buried money, be just as relate-able in today's generation as it was in the later 1800s?

Or another favorite of mine is The Battle of Algiers, but aren't the themes of war in that movie, pretty much similar to the themes of say... The Hunger Games, when it's about a people who have been taken over by government they want to over throw and be free?

I don't see many theme differences really.

Older movies don't look so good and tend to drag for modern ADHD audiences. Just a thought...

Also the way people talk continuously changes.

They're not very bright?

I think we have a winner.

We suck.

We’ll get off your lawn.

Something wrong with the kids born in the mid 90’s. They are very soft and selfish. Life’s hard, life’s unfair, need to accept these things and keep moving.

We should complain about the way they complain.

ha ha, even I won't watch that, and I love "Mamma Roma" and "Accatone"

lol at the old people in this thread

Movie buffs are the vocal minority. I would venture most people fall into a category of watching movies from their life.

With the onslaught of new movies, recent releases one missed and favorites, you are asking the cash to watch a lot.

This is the one thing that bugs me endlessly. If I had money, I'd pay everyday people to just give it a chance.

I think the lack of an attention-span is a big one... Also, I keep seeing a tendency to dismiss something if they don't understand a word or two, a concept, or if they don't know history (period piece, etc), instead of working a bit, getting a dictionary.

Even radio stations play the same songs over and over and over because they know people are comfortable with something they know, and would leave on an awful song they knew instead of switching and finding things.

I don't claim to be an cinephile in anyway, but I'll watch the hell out of a movie with subtitles.

Which brings up a good point... We weren't born movie buffs, but something changed for all of us; maybe a great movie. There are soooooo many out there, and all it takes is one for the right person to begin a never-ending journey.

My experience is that I have to be in a mood to watch movies, regardless of how much I love them. I can go weeks without watching one, so this is going to limit consumption.

my friends laugh at, making fun, sort of ridicule me when i watched black and white. no biggie

i guess they live in such narrow subjective reality and less enthusiastic~obssesed regard the medium.

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But even people who do some to be movie buffs don't watch many older ones. I went to film school and the students there, mostly in their 20s, haven't even heard of movies like M (1931), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), or The Battle of Algiers (1966), or City Lights (1931), where as I have as far as some of my favorite movies go.