If it is necessary to remember a symbol of industrial cinema of 2025, The Electric Statescience fiction blockbuster produced by Netflix with great millions of dollars, would be a good example-or rather a good counterexample. Despite its record budget, this film on a war between men and robots quickly drowned in the mass, unable to make an impression or panic the audience counters, despite the promising beginnings on the platform.
This disappointing destiny illustrates a growing phenomenon: the rise of “algorithmic films”, designed to please as many people as possible, even if it means sacrificing any originality. Directors like the Anthony and Joe Russo thus pile up digestible productions – as soon as seen, immediately forgotten – with scenarios unrolled like manuals of use for distracted or multitasking user.
Netflix titles play the transparency card: Tall girl On a tall girl, Uglies For cosmetic surgery dystopia, etc. It is necessary to ensure security, explains a long article by the Guardian, by hiring familiar stars but not enough bankable To fulfill the rooms alone. The most striking recent example being Ryan Reynolds, omnipresent on the service.
A single mantra seems to guide these works: not leaving anyone aside, even if it means simplifying the plot to the maximum, or having announced aloud by each character the actions he is about to do. If the film can be watched (and understood) with an eye by Instagram scrolling, it’s even better. Aesthetics, too, flattens. Neutral lighting and its passout adapt to all screens and to all contexts. The producers, between the fear of the flop and that of being thanked for excess of audacity, prefer to stick to a repetitive recipe, without risk, without roughness and without taste.
Please the algorithm god
Netflix today has nearly 301 million subscribers and broadcasts more original films than Hollywood studios of the great era. Behind this planetary expansion, the influence of algorithm remains difficult to measure: the giant claims to combine creative intuition and data analysis, but rare are the internal voices ready to speak of it openly, for fear of offending a juggernaut that has become central in industry.
It all started at the end of the 2000s, when Netflix redefined the classification of works thanks to thousands of tags, to sort the content according to their themes, emotions or tones. This system, evolution of the classification by genres, refines the recommendation, sometimes to caricature: ultra -pointed categories invade the reception pages, according to everyone’s viewing habits.
The behavioral analysis of spectators takes up more and more space. The algorithm stores billions of data every day: what we look at, at what time, on what device, how long before zapping … This strategy ultimately shapes what will be proposed, funded … or abandoned.
Anonymous contents
But the algorithm does not decide everything, far from it. The process remains anchored in a mixture of internal notes and studio intuition, like the test and validation systems which already regulated the golden age of Hollywood cinema. If the Netflix model promotes efficiency –Capter in 5 seconds the interest of the spectator – it especially perpetuates very classic reflexes of industry: playing safe and give priority to the product immediately accessible.
This generalized formatting had its peak during the frantic growth of Netflix in the 2010s, during which quality control was exceeded by the quantity. This allowed the emergence of some singular films (Roma,, Okja…), Drowned in the mass of anonymous, secondary, and often interchangeable content.
Today, faced with the stagnation of subscribers and the alarm clock, Netflix tightens the screw: controlled budgets, reasoned quantity and adjusted model. The new credo is clear: producing attractive films, but never too atypical, to keep customers without risking surprising them with originality.
Behind the illusion of an unlimited catalog, the algorithm builds a standardized culture, while depriving the industry of its relays and traditional models of diversity. The arrival of AI in production promises to further accentuate this trend, questioning the place left to the artist and the very meaning of cinematographic creation.
