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Leonardo DiCaprio has shared his concerns for the state of cinema and the film industry as a whole, saying that movies are still meant to be a communal experience.
“Movies are still meant to be experienced, together, in a theatre. Right now, that belief matters more than ever,” shared the actor, as he spoke at the Palm Springs Film Festival this weekend via a pre-recorded video.
“Original films are harder to make and harder to protect. But movies still matter, not content, but cinema. Stories made by people meant to be shared in a dark room in a communal experience,” he said.
Variety reported that DiCaprio was be unable to attend the film festival in person due to the ongoing political conflict with Venezuela, which led to the cancellation of multiple flights out of the Caribbean, where the actor was spotted over the holiday season.
His comments follow those he made in a recent interview with The Sunday Times, in which the One Battle After Another star questioned if “people still have the appetite” for movie theatres, and wondered if cinemas might “become silos – like jazz bars?”
“It’s changing at a lightning speed,” DiCaprio said of the industry. “We’re looking at a huge transition. First, documentaries disappeared from cinemas. Now, dramas only get finite time and people wait to see it on streamers. I don’t know.”
He added: “I just hope enough people who are real visionaries get opportunities to do unique things in the future that are seen in the cinema. But that remains to be seen.”
DiCaprio has been vocal about maintaining artistry in cinema and also commented on the use of AI in film in a recent interview with Time. The Oscar winner said that the technology is incapable of humanity and can’t be “authentically” considered art.
“It could be an enhancement tool for a young filmmaker to do something we’ve never seen before,” he shared. “I think anything that is going to be authentically thought of as art has to come from the human being.”
The 51-year-old actor has emerged as an Oscar favourite for his role in Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another – which leads nominations for the upcoming Golden Globes, which take place this Sunday.
The film won Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay at the 31st Critics Choice Awards last night, and it took the number 1 spot in Euronews Culture’s Best Movies of 2025 countdown. It follows how a dishevelled revolutionary (DiCaprio) is forced out of retirement when a nemesis from his past revives an old grudge and goes after his daughter.
The film is expected to dominate the Oscar nominations, which are announced on 22 January.
In our end of year review of One Battle After Another, we wrote: “One Battle After Another is thrilling in how unclassifiable it is. It’s a paranoid thriller; an oddball stoner adventure; a satirical farce about power structures, radicalisation and idealism; a timely look at divided America and its supremacist excesses; a timeless rallying cry against dogmatism… Above all though, it’s a tale about a bath-robed dad who decided to drop his revolutionary calling for his child. He’s having a terrible day and trying his level best to protect his teenage daughter from inheriting his past, attempting to leave a better world for her.”
We added: “It’s deep. It’s light. In short, it’s a modern classic.”
The Golden Globes take place on Sunday (Monday morning for EU audiences).