Ethan Hawke complains about young people for ‘not watching movies anymore’

Known for films like Before Dawn (1995), The Black Phone (2021), Training Day (2001) and A crime night (2013), Ethan Hawke complains about young people for “not watching more cinematographic productions”.

During an interview with MovieMakerthe 53-year-old artist explained how he doesn’t understand why young audiences don’t watch as many films, especially with the large number of feature films on streaming platforms.

“What I don’t understand – and this makes me sound old – but what I don’t understand about young people today is why they don’t watch movies anymore,” he complained. “I mean, they’re perfectly willing to watch, for weeks of their lives, something that they know is really good, and the Criterion Channel is right there. Like, they could be watching No Man’s Land (1973) as we speak.”

“They don’t know who Fassbinder and they don’t know who he is Eric Rohmer and they don’t know who Kurosawa is. They think they are modern and have not seen Do the right thing (1989),” continued Ethan Hawke in the conversation. “Are you kidding? It’s on your damn phone, watch it! But they’d rather watch some TV show that came out yesterday that they won’t remember.”

The actor then made a comparison with his film consumption in the past: “I say all this so as not to sound eccentric… but there is so much excellence in the past, so many of these thoughts about what we are all going through emotionally and what we are looking for – authenticity in our lives and healing. All those common traits of humanity that people have been talking about for centuries.

Cinema is a young art form, but it’s 100 years old and there are a lot of great works, and you can rip them off like crazy. But I’m always surprised by how often young people who say, ‘I love movies and I want to make movies,’ don’t actually watch movies.