How often do you see a great movie take place right now? Not in 1985, not in Gotham or Oz, not in some distant dystopia. Now—the overconnected, messy world we actually live in. For an art form built on reflection, cinema has become strangely allergic to its own time. The modern world has been
traded for safe nostalgia, distant futurism or neatly packaged history. It’s the simple truth; period pieces win awards, sequels dominate theaters and movies set in the present have quietly disappeared. That absence isn’t an accident. It’s a creative blind spot that’s made film culture seem more like a museum than a mir-
ror. The stories on screen have grown timeless, but not timely.
Filmmakers encounter unprecedented challenges when trying to film today’s world. Technology changes faster than scripts can be written; modern cell phones limit tension and the internet’s nonstop innovation instantly dates films trying to cover it. Filmmakers retreat to the comfort of the past because the present feels impossible to capture without dating it instantly. We live in a world that resists visual storytelling. It is a lot easier to build tension with a beeping pager than a buzzing iPhone.
It was not always this way. The 1970s were defined by films that lived in their moment, like “Taxi Driver,” “Network” and “All the President’s Men.” These films stared the nation in the face and did not blink. There is unease—and truth in every frame. New Hollywood movies weren’t only commenting on the present, they were embodying it.
That is why Paul Thomas Anderson’s new drama, “One Battle After Another,” matters. It is the rare modern film that doesn’t dodge the world we’re in. Set against the noise of political chaos, the film is personal, human and alive. A major problem for similar films, like Ari Aster’s July flop “Eddington,” is a disconnect from the average American’s reality: when grounded stories trying to show everyday struggles play like satires, it is hard to stay immersed. For a film by rich, established celebrities, “One Battle After Another” does not imitate what it thinks inter- personal relationships look like; it depicts accurate, grounded characters and problems. Anderson does not try to capture the 2020s; he translates the decade’s exhaustion into emotion. The story is about revolution, but at its core, it is about endurance and family—fighting when you are too tired to keep fighting.
The relatable theme is what makes “One Battle After Another” a blueprint. Modern life can be cinematic, not through texts and screens; rather, their effect on us. Alienation, obsession, connection and fear: all emotions augmented by modern society, and all emotions worth filming.
Films like “One Battle After Another” help to prove that the present tense still matters. The world we live in is absurd, overwhelming and sometimes terrifying, but most importantly: real. If movies still hold the ever-important responsibility of holding a mirror up to humanity, maybe it is time filmmakers stopped looking backwards and began looking forwards. The modern world is not unfilmable; it is simply waiting for someone to be bold enough to see what makes it important.
