Why Supporting Old Formats and Physical Media Still Matters in a Digital Age

This week, I saw Paul Thomas Anderson’s new film One Battle After Another, projected in glorious VistaVision at Quentin Tarantino’s newly restored Vista Theater in Los Angeles. Sitting in a historic theater, watching a brand-new film in a 1950s format with a full house — at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday, no less — felt like stepping into a time warp.

The Magic of the Vista

LA is one of only four cities in the world screening One Battle After Another in true VistaVision (the others are Boston, New York, and London). And in LA, there’s only one place to see it: the Vista Theater. That rarity is part of the magic — it’s why we live here and a reminder of why we fell in love with movies in the first place.

That Vista Theater experience got me thinking about the comeback of physical media in our scrolling, digital age. For millennials, the 90s revival is bittersweet. We long for that era — not just the clothes and soundtracks, but the communal experiences of it. Remember the euphoric feeling of going to a theater as a teen? Meeting up at the mall, grabbing a slice of Sbarro, filing into a theater with friends? Many malls have since shuttered, and streaming has made it far too easy to just wait for a movie to drop at home. Convenience has robbed us of the shared thrill of watching a film with strangers.

And let’s be real: doom-scrolling has rewired our brains. If a two-minute TikTok feels like a commitment, then sitting through a nearly three-hour film projected on VistaVision feels almost radical. That’s exactly why Anderson’s choice matters.

Since his debut, Anderson has been an auteur — the Kubrick of our generation? Or maybe more of an Altman, weaving chaos and characters into an epic, layered narrative. Either way, he’s one of the few directors still willing to make bold choices with form, as well as story.

Hollywood Has Been Here Before

In the early 1950s, television threatened to keep people glued to their living rooms. Remember that scene in Back to the Future (“What’s a rerun?”) with the whole family huddled around a tiny black-and-white set? That was reality. Studios had to get creative, developing larger, more immersive formats to lure audiences back into theaters. Sound familiar?

A proud new TV owner in Eugene, Oregon, late 1952 or early 1953. Photo: John Atherton / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Paramount developed VistaVision as its answer to 20th Century Fox’s CinemaScope — running 35mm film horizontally through the camera to capture a sharper, more expansive image. (For a deeper dive into VistaVision’s rise and fall, I recommend reading this article from studiobinder). The format largely fizzled out by the early 60s, but resurfaced later when George Lucas used it for the original Star Wars trilogy.

What’s Old Is New

Boomers, Gen Xers, and Millennials have all seen formats come and go — vinyl, 8-track, cassette, CD, streaming. But every time something is written off as obsolete, artists and audiences eventually rediscover its value. Vinyl is back. Even VHS has a cult following. These “obsolete” formats endure because they demand patience and presence — qualities that now feel like an emotional investment.

Instead of letting corporations decide which titles vanish from streaming libraries overnight, invest in what you can hold. Keep the DVDs. Buy the vinyl. Support film in the format the artist intended. Because what’s old isn’t just nostalgic — it’s revolutionary.

And if you’re in LA, you can catch One Battle After Another in VistaVision at the Vista Theater. Reserve your tickets here.