Do people even like movies anymore? In this essay I try to get underneath that cynical little question, because I don’t think the problem is simply that “audiences are dumb” or that everyone should suddenly worship the canon. I’ve been on the other side of it too. But I do think our relation to cinema has changed in a way that narrows our willingness to engage with the challenging, the ambiguous, and the less immediately legible. And I trace that change through a few interconnected developments: the commodification of relatability, the rise of cinema as self-righteous moralism, and the constant overstimulation that quietly desecrates the ritual of watching a film. First, I explore how “relatable” has become a kind of currency—how stories get stripped of specificity to maximize reach, and how even representation can be calibrated into bland, marketable empowerment. Then I look at how this conditioning toward comfort turns film culture into a moral sorting machine: not “is it well made?” but “does it align with my values?”—a loop that can reward us with self-righteous satisfaction instead of self-reflection. Finally, I connect all of this to the algorithmic, always-on context we live in: overabundance, decision fatigue, second screens, and the loss of that threshold you used to cross when you truly entered a movie. The way out, for me, is toward true nourishment: a more deliberate, vulnerable engagement with cinema that can actually challenge—and change—us.