Independent Editorial · Not Affiliated With Any Studio or Streaming Service · Editorial Policy
Film Explained for 2026: Who It Affects, Key Evidence, and What to Do Next - Featured image

Why Directors Still Shoot on Film: Nolan, Tarantino, Anderson and Kodak

by

One Battle After Another, this year’s Best Picture winner at the Oscars, was shot on film, much of it through VistaVision cameras last used for a feature in the early 1960s. The same night, Sinners won the cinematography award for a picture shot on 70mm, and that summer Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey arrived as his first feature shot entirely with IMAX cameras.

The short version: most films today are captured digitally, but a group of high-profile directors insists on celluloid, and they have kept the option alive. Nolan argues film is cheaper, better looking and more reliable; Quentin Tarantino calls digital projection the death of cinema as he knows it; Paul Thomas Anderson revived a 1950s format. Kodak, the supplier they all depend on, nearly closed its film business before studios agreed to keep buying stock.

What “shot on film” actually means

A movie shot on film records each frame on a photochemical negative that has to be developed, rather than on a digital sensor. The formats differ mainly in how much negative each frame gets. Standard 35mm runs vertically through the camera, four perforations per frame. VistaVision, which Paramount introduced with White Christmas in 1954, turns the film sideways and uses eight perforations, giving it double the resolution of standard 35mm, according to the Associated Press; American Cinematographer describes it as an 8-perf 35mm format with a native aspect ratio of 1.50:1. Above that sit 65mm and 70mm, and at the top IMAX’s large format, which Nolan told DGA Quarterly in 2012 has “three times the negative area” of 5-perf 65mm.

Shooting on film does not mean you will see film in the theater. Most screens are digital, so a film negative is usually scanned and shown as a digital file. Seeing celluloid projected requires a theater that kept, or brought back, its film projectors, a point that comes up again below. If you have noticed the picture growing taller mid-film in an IMAX auditorium, that is the large-format footage in action; our explainer on why the aspect ratio changes during IMAX sequences covers how it works.

Christopher Nolan: cheaper, better looking, more reliable

Nolan has shot every one of his features on film, and he has made the economic case as often as the artistic one. In a Spring 2012 interview with DGA Quarterly, he said: “It’s cheaper to work on film, it’s far better looking, it’s the technology that’s been known and understood for a hundred years, and it’s extremely reliable.” He blamed the push to digital on “the economic interest of manufacturers” and of an industry “that makes more money through change rather than through maintaining the status quo.” He also pointed to the speed of photochemical color timing: three or four passes over 12 to 14 hours, he said, compared with seven or eight weeks for a digital intermediate.

IMAX is the format he champions above all: “the best film format that was ever invented,” he said in the same interview. The Odyssey took that further. The AP reported that IMAX put some 70mm showtimes on sale a full year in advance, and that only 41 IMAX screens could show the film in 70mm, yet they took $6.3 million on opening weekend alone. Nolan is careful to frame his stance as choice rather than prohibition. “I’m not anti-digital in any way, but I’m absolutely committed to getting this choice back into the hands of the director,” he told DGA Quarterly in 2015.

Quentin Tarantino: digital as “the death of cinema”

Tarantino’s position is the blunter one. At a Cannes press conference tied to the twentieth-anniversary screening of Pulp Fiction, he said: “I believe that digital format represents the death of cinema as I know it. Screening in digital format is like turning on the television.” He added that “If you want to go to see a digital film, you might as well stay home,” and said he hoped the next generation would “realise what they have lost.”

He has backed that with exhibition as well as shooting. The DGA’s 2015 report notes that The Hateful Eight received “the widest 70 mm release in years on Christmas Day followed by a two-week roadshow engagement in 70 mm before the digital wide release.” He also owns the Vista Theatre in Los Angeles, which the AP lists among the few cinemas able to project One Battle After Another in VistaVision.

Paul Thomas Anderson and the VistaVision revival

Anderson’s One Battle After Another is the most striking recent case of a film shot on film. Cinematographer Michael Bauman told the AP he shot roughly 80% of it in VistaVision and that the production ran 1.5 million feet of film through the cameras. American Cinematographer reports the team used three vintage Beaumont VistaVision cameras, the main one borrowed from the actor-turned-cinematographer Giovanni Ribisi, and switched to Super 35mm for some dialogue interiors because the Beaumonts are loud. A VistaVision take can only run for about five minutes, the AP notes. Bauman says he shot with all four of Kodak’s Vision3 stocks, mostly 5219.

According to the AP, before Anderson’s film the last movie both shot and projected in VistaVision was Marlon Brando’s One-Eyed Jacks in 1961. Only four theaters managed to project it that way, and Anderson urged audiences ahead of release that “seeing film on film is the way Nature intended.” The gamble paid off at the Academy Awards: NPR reported that Anderson took home Oscars for best picture, director and adapted screenplay. The format had already won the year before, when Lol Crawley took best cinematography for The Brutalist, which was largely shot on VistaVision; our Brutalist ending explainer covers that film’s story.

How Kodak’s film business was saved, and where it stands

Every director in this piece relies on a single supplier. DGA Quarterly reported in its Summer 2015 issue that Nolan became alarmed when Eastman Kodak, “the only remaining manufacturer of 35 millimeter stock,” threatened to close its film business. Kodak’s CEO Jeff Clarke said demand for prints had fallen 96 percent, from roughly 25 billion linear feet a year to half a billion. Clarke credited a lunch with Nolan: “Within 48 hours of having lunch with Christopher Nolan, I’d gotten calls from five of the six major studios and a dozen of the most important filmmakers.” The outcome was a deal in which all the major studios agreed to buy set quantities of Kodak stock over several years.

The company has stayed fragile. In the summer of 2025, Fortune reported that Kodak warned investors about roughly $500 million in debt due within 12 months without committed financing to cover it. Its film unit kept moving anyway: in April 2026 Kodak launched VERITA 200D, a new color negative stock offered in 65mm, 35mm and 16mm, developed for the third season of HBO’s Euphoria, which Kodak says was shot entirely on Kodak film. Kodak also counted twenty productions shot on its film at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, twelve on 35mm and eight on 16mm.

Recent movies shot on film

The list below sticks to titles where the format is stated by the filmmakers, Kodak or a news report. It is a sample, not a census; plenty of smaller films shoot on 16mm and 35mm without much publicity.

Film Film format, per the source Source
The Brutalist Much of it on VistaVision; cinematography Oscar for Lol Crawley AP
One Battle After Another About 80% VistaVision, plus Super 35mm; Best Picture AP, American Cinematographer, NPR
Sinners 70mm; cinematography Oscar for Autumn Durald Arkapaw AP, NPR
Bugonia VistaVision AP
Wuthering Heights VistaVision AP
The Odyssey Shot entirely with IMAX cameras AP
Euphoria, season 3 (TV) Entirely on Kodak film, 35mm and 65mm Kodak
Digger; Narnia VistaVision AP

Sinners belongs on any such list: the AP notes Ryan Coogler shot it on 70mm, and NPR reported that Autumn Durald Arkapaw became the first woman to win the cinematography Oscar for it. Our Sinners ending explainer walks through the film itself. Not every awards contender went that way: Adolpho Veloso, nominated alongside Bauman, shot Train Dreams digitally on an Alexa 35, yet for his next job, M. Night Shyamalan’s Remain, the AP says he switched to VistaVision for much of the shoot. As Bauman put it: “Photochemical has got a strong voice in the room, still.”

Frequently Asked Questions

Are movies still shot on film?

Yes, though most are digital. Recent examples include One Battle After Another, The Brutalist, Bugonia and Wuthering Heights on VistaVision, Sinners on 70mm, and The Odyssey on IMAX film cameras. Kodak counted twenty productions shot on its film at Cannes in 2026.

Why does Christopher Nolan shoot on film?

In a 2012 DGA Quarterly interview he said film is cheaper to work with, far better looking, well understood and extremely reliable, and that IMAX is the best film format ever invented. He has also said he is not against digital, only for keeping the choice.

What did Quentin Tarantino say about digital?

At a Cannes press conference for the twentieth anniversary of Pulp Fiction, he said digital format represents the death of cinema as he knows it, and that watching a digital screening is like turning on the television.

What is VistaVision?

A 1950s Paramount format that runs 35mm film sideways through the camera, using eight perforations per frame instead of four, for roughly double the resolution of standard 35mm. One Battle After Another and The Brutalist used it.

Who makes movie film stock?

Kodak. DGA Quarterly described it in 2015 as the only remaining manufacturer of 35mm stock, and it continues to release new motion picture stocks, such as VERITA 200D in April 2026.

Sources

We use cookies to run this site, measure how it’s used, and show ads. Choose “Essentials only” to limit cookies to what the site needs to work. Privacy Policy. Cookie Policy.