I can’t watch movies anymore. And it really annoys me, because I used to really like watching them. In fact, I liked them so much that I used to teach others about them. Back then, I would watch maybe two or three in a night; I would veritably binge on them, washed down with hours of chat with various types on every minutia of what I’d just seen. Good times, for sure.

But I can’t watch movies anymore.

I can start them ok. That’s not the problem. It’s finishing them that’s the issue. It might take ten minutes, usually no more than thirty, and occasionally upwards of an hour, but regardless, I won’t finish them.

I’m not entirely sure when this started, but I have an inkling TV had something to do with it. I distinctly remember watching an episode of The Sopranos on a box set a mate had lent me. And then watching another episode. And another until I’d completely rinsed out season 1. Then the next five seasons, rat-a-tat. After that, I needed a new fix, so I worked through more titles. More seasons. Breaking Bad, Boardwalk Empire, Billions, Black Adder, Barry, Better Call Saul. And that’s just the Bs. One after the other, an insatiable appetite to lose myself in a totally different world from my own; to experience the vicarious thrill of rooting for a bad guy; to be appalled, terrified, and amused in a bite-sized, tasty 30–60-minute portion. Oh, and often with a cliffhanger at the end to make me keep wanting more of the same. Truth is, I haven’t stopped since. The problem is….

…. I can’t watch movies anymore.

I’ve tried a few methods to rekindle the love. For example, I went back to the classics, like Citizen Kane. That took me three sittings, and I stopped after he lost the governor’s race. It all goes Pete Tong for him after that anyway. I tried watching Oscar-nominated movies like Oppenheimer (didn’t get past the bit where he starts getting hounded by the politicians—similar to Kane, all downhill from there), The Brutalist (did two sittings, but the rape just seemed too metaphorical and narratively contrived, and that was the end of that), and One Fight After Another (didn’t make it past 20 minutes—I like Sean Penn, but he just seemed a cartoon).

There were one or two exceptions along the way. Reservoir Dogs still pings off the screen and slaps you in the face with that dialogue, and Jaws is just a brilliant three-act mix of Hitchcock and Godard.

But I still can’t watch movies anymore.

Maybe it is the narrative constraints of a two-hour film, the stories being told—Jane Austen again!—or the formulaic and predictable use of genres compared to TV. It may even be the way I’ve been watching them. Maybe movies really do need to be watched in cinemas, and I haven’t been to one of those since 1927. Of course, it could be the seemingly never-ending supply of new TV stuff that keeps me addicted. Season 1 of Andor is like you always knew Star Wars could be; season 2 is completely relevant to the present day. MobLand—Helen Mirren as a Lady Macbeth-like gangster, anyone? Vikings is an underrated rinser, playing fast and loose with history, but a top-notch historical drama, although the last seasons are the laws of diminishing returns in full effect. Anyways, it all adds up to…. I still can’t watch movies anymore.