Christopher Nolan Says ‘Obsession’ and ‘Backrooms’ Prove Cinema Is Thriving, Not Dying
Christopher Nolan has heard the doom and gloom about the future of moviegoing, and he is not buying it. Film Updates highlighted new comments from the director pointing to the breakout success of ‘Obsession‘ and ‘Backrooms‘ as proof that cinema is very much alive, with young filmmakers reshaping the industry in ways he clearly finds encouraging.
Speaking to The Telegraph, Nolan explained why these two low-budget horror hits matter so much to him. “We’ve got all these great new young voices in movies, making the medium their own and moving it forward. This is why I never bought into the arguments that young audiences’ attention spans are too fried to enjoy a three-hour Greek epic. Those films are so mysterious and ruminative. I mean, parts of Backrooms are like David Lynch at his most obscure. And yet young people can’t get enough of them.”
Both films have drawn major Gen Z audiences, with Backrooms and Obsession becoming two of the most profitable movies in recent memory, pulling in roughly 360 million and 400 million dollars globally. Both were made by directors in their twenties who started out on YouTube, and both smashed box office expectations despite working with comparatively tiny budgets.
Nolan has made similar comments in other recent interviews, framing the pair of films as evidence against the broader narrative that theatrical moviegoing is in decline. In a conversation with BBC News, he said there are a lot of different ways to interest people in coming to the movies, pointing directly to Backrooms and Obsession as examples of very young filmmakers connecting with their audience and getting young people into cinemas. He has also noted that young people remain the biggest segment of moviegoers, and that this has always been the case.
Nolan used the same Telegraph interview to push back on the idea that younger viewers have shorter attention spans, arguing that Backrooms in particular proves audiences are willing to engage with slow, mysterious storytelling if it feels genuinely original. He also touched on the growing role of artificial intelligence in filmmaking, expressing skepticism about how younger audiences are responding to AI-generated content compared to practical, human-made work.
According to Nolan, he has never seen a more rapid, wholesale dismissal of a supposedly foundational technological shift in his lifetime, arguing that despite enormous industry effort to integrate AI into creative work, the generation that grew up online has become especially skilled at spotting and rejecting artificial content.
That comment lines up with his praise for Barker and Parsons, both of whom leaned on practical filmmaking techniques rather than AI-heavy production for their breakout hits.
Do you think movies like ‘Obsession’ and ‘Backrooms’ prove that cinema is still thriving?
Legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg has echoed similar sentiments about the two films, saying he is thrilled for their directors given how little money they had to work with and how well both movies have performed. With ‘The Odyssey’ opening in theaters next week, Nolan’s comments read as both a vote of confidence in the next generation of filmmakers and a reminder that audiences, young or otherwise, still show up for ambitious storytelling when it is done right.
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