Martin Scorsese thinks film is dying: See all his ridiculous quotes

That old Film Twitter flare-up over Martin Scorsese calling the Marvel movies something other than cinema feels like ancient history now. The director’s 2021 Harper’s essay on Federico Fellini gave everyone fresh material, though, and the complaints about streaming, algorithms, and the word “content” landed with the same mix of admiration and side-eye. Scorsese still gets credit for caring deeply about the form, but the passage of time has shown both the staying power of his arguments and the ways his own habits have shifted since.

Content & form

The essay’s line about “content” only appearing in serious conversations fifteen years earlier now sits twenty-five years back from the present, yet the distinction Scorsese drew between content and form has not gone away. He contrasted the older usage with today’s habit of labeling anything watchable as interchangeable product, tied more to home screens than to theaters. The Harper’s piece keeps its original quotes intact, and the 2024 Berlin Film Festival remarks add a clarifying note: Scorsese said cinema is not dying but transforming, still capable of carrying an individual voice whether it lands on a big screen or a smaller one.

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Scorsese’s complaint that algorithmic suggestions flatten films into genre buckets remains the same, yet his 2025 comments on audience behavior add a personal layer. He now prefers watching at home because chatting, phone screens, and general noise have made theaters less appealing, even for his own work. The core point about suggestions that treat viewers only as consumers has not changed, and the director’s own move toward streaming and home viewing makes the earlier critique feel less like a blanket rejection of the platforms.

Scorsese's evolving views on cinema's future

At the 2024 Berlin Film Festival, Scorsese told reporters he does not think cinema is dying at all. He described it as transforming and stressed that the medium was never meant to remain one fixed thing. The director pointed to individual voice as the constant, whether the work appears in theaters, on streaming services, or in short-form pieces. That single statement softened the earlier impression that he saw the art form heading for extinction and replaced it with a more open stance on how stories might reach audiences now.

Personal shift away from theatrical viewing

Reports from June 2025 revealed that Scorsese himself no longer attends cinemas regularly. He cited distractions from other patrons, constant phone use, and general noise as the reasons, and he said the preference for home viewing applies even when one of his own films is playing. The admission adds a note of irony to his earlier defense of the theatrical experience, showing that practical realities of modern audiences have altered his own habits while the essay’s call for focused attention still stands.

Engagement with new technologies

By 2026, Scorsese had taken on an advisory role with Black Forest Labs and its FLUX image tools, using them for storyboarding on upcoming projects. The director framed the technology as a way to speed up pre-visualization rather than replace human judgment. That practical step undercuts any notion that he stands entirely apart from new production methods and suggests he is willing to test tools that might support the very individual voice he continues to champion.

Growth of curated streaming options

Criterion Channel has kept releasing monthly lineups with supplementary essays, commentaries, and thematic groupings through 2026, while MUBI maintains its rotating selection of thirty titles at a time. These services continue to operate exactly as Scorsese praised them in the original essay, offering deliberate choices instead of endless undifferentiated rows. Their persistence shows that the model he called an act of generosity has found an audience willing to pay for guidance rather than pure volume.

Rallying cry

The 2021 essay’s line about sharing love and knowledge of cinema with as many people as possible still reads as the director at his most generous. Updated context from the Berlin remarks, his home-viewing preference, and his use of new tools shows a figure who keeps adjusting his own practices while holding onto the same core belief that cinema matters. The tone of the Harper’s piece now sits alongside later statements that soften the edges without erasing the original concern for form over undifferentiated product.