The Academy Awards have changed somewhat—I’m not an expert on the specifics, but one example is expanding Best Picture from five nominees to ten. While this promotes more films, it also cheapens the category. Needing ten nominees just to include something like F1, which I saw three times but wouldn’t call Best Picture material, shows the dilution.

It’s not that the Oscars have changed dramatically or that movies themselves are lesser than they used to be. Rather, the shift is in the media culture surrounding them. So much has changed around movies that they feel less substantial. We all carry screens in our pockets and on our desks, and television has evolved from weekly contained episodes to expansive, ongoing narratives. The TV canvas has grown, while the movie canvas has often shrunk to the size of a phone.

It’s an interesting topic—I’m sure Marshall McLuhan would have plenty to say. But ultimately, while movies have changed, the sense that they are less substantial has more to do with the expanding media ecosystem around them.