Gen-Z's Social Media Addiction May Have Ironically Led to an Indie Cinema Revival

During the pandemic, movie theaters notably struggled, as social distancing restrictions all but temporarily killed their business model. Many smaller, independent theaters went out of business permanently. However, since the pandemic has ebbed, the film industry has slowly recovered. Attendance in theaters is not exactly where it was prior to the pandemic, but attendance is significantly higher than it was during Covid, and continues to climb.

A new article published by The Guardian suggests that slowly climbing audience numbers in Europe may be driven, in part, by the affluence of film access provided by the internet. The article provides some data (as well as anecdotal evidence) that suggests the social media soaked landscape in which young people were raised during Covid may have led to a resurgence of interest in cinema with a capital “C.” Ticket sales in Britain are obviously up, post-2020 (there was a pandemic), and many independent theaters are where the ticket sales spikes have been highest, the report says. At those locations, young people appear to be driving much of the new sales, it adds. Many indie theaters notably show older movies (if you’re an NYC resident, think the Film Forum). The report notes:

Curzon, which operates 16 venues across the UK, reports there has been a clear shift over the past six years in young people overtaking older audiences. In 2019, the biggest age demographic of Curzon attendees was 65+, followed by 55-64. In 2025, however, the dominant age group is 25-34 – rising from 16% in 2019 to 31% in 2025 – followed by 18-25 (growing from 17% to 24% over the same period).

At independent theaters, the trend is much the same:

The same goes for Bristol independent venue the Watershed, where the percentage of tickets sold to under 25s went from 19% (at reopening after lockdown in 2021) to 27% in 2024. (For comparison, the share of tickets sold to over 60s also increased, but by only by a single percentage point.)

The article notes that the access to classic, indie, and arthouse movies provided by the internet may be driving a surge of interest in independent theaters. A programmer at the Watershed is quoted as saying that many of the young viewers are “quite adventurous with their taste, especially when it comes to older films and rereleases,” and seem to enjoy cult classics and indie favorites. This may be because they’ve gained access to them online. “We’re Letterboxd fiends. That’s the first thing I do after a movie, I go to Letterboxd,” Isiah Robinson, 22, was quoted as saying.

In other words, Britain’s Gen-Z kids appear to have discovered the cinema, and they seem to like it quite a bit. On top of that, the youth appear to appreciate an environment in which they’re not constantly tempted by their phones. “It’s nice to switch off,” Sophia Crothall, 23, told The Guardian. “I don’t touch my phone the whole time I’m in the cinema. At home, I’m probably scrolling.”

A movie theater screen is still a screen, but damn if it isn’t a drastic improvement over the small cylindrical one that millions of us carry with us everywhere we go (and which constantly begs for our attention). It’s also really nice to see the young people of the world realizing that movies are awesome. If Netflix and Letterboxd are to thank for rising theater sales, well, good on them.

It’s unclear whether this kind of youth-driven renaissance has been taking place in America as well, although theater attendance domestically has followed a similarly redemptive trajectory. According to IMDb’s sales metrics page, Box Office Mojo, tickets sold in the U.S. plummeted between 2019 and 2020 (dropping from $11 billion to $2 billion), but rebounded somewhat in 2021 and 2022 (climbing from $4 billion to $7 billion). In 2023 and 2024, box office sales hovered between $8.9-8.5 billion. This year got off to a slow start, but the summer months have made up for it somewhat, thanks to some unconventional hits. A swell of prestige releases in the latter months may also prove profitable.