10 Ways That Movies Will Change In The 2020s

While the 2010s may have begun with 3D being the favourite gimmick to try and enhance the cinematic viewing experience, that fad has ultimately died down. It could, however, translate in the 2020s to virtual reality being used in the same way.

The past decade has seen the likes of Oculus making VR technology far more widely available than ever before and, between 2014 and 2017, their Oculus Story Studio made a series of short VR films, picking up an Emmy along the way. By 2019, New York's Tribeca Film Festival a whole "Immersive" area with over 30 VR short films and experiences.

VR made a big step into the world of mainstream traditional cinema in 2017 with the first VR film from a big name theatrical filmmaker. Two-time Best Director Oscar winner Alejandro González Iñárritu worked with ILM and Legendary Pictures to create Flesh And Sand, a seven-minute short immersing viewers into the place of an immigrant on the US-Mexican border. It was the first VR film to feature in the official selection at the Cannes Film Festival and received critical acclaim from the traditional film press.

Flesh And Sand picked up a Special Achievement Oscar, the award for groundbreaking cinematic work with no regular Oscar category to recognise it. The last time such an award was given out was twenty-five years ago for Toy Story and just look at how that changed the filmmaking world.

Can a full feature-length VR movie from a respected film director be too far off? The likely first Best Picture Oscar winner of the 2020s, 1917, is sold on being an immersive experience fluidly built out of a single, real-time tracking shot, rather than a more conventionally structured and edited film narrative. Is that really too far away from what a VR feature would offer?