1970s paranoid thrillers combined slick production, clear genre conventions and morally tenacious protagonists confronting corrupt systems, resonating with audiences amid political scandal and unpopular war. Contemporary films with paranoid themes increasingly underperform commercially despite artistic ambition. These modern films exhibit indifference to plot, tonal whiplash blending comedy, horror and other modes, and protagonists who are vain, stupid, stoned or indifferent. The result is diminished audience engagement and a crisis of narrative that mirrors societal fragmentation and social media–induced tonal instability. Examples include Ari Aster's Eddington, Under Silver Lake, Inherent Vice and Beau Is Afraid.
Their failure is less a question of artistic quality - though you could certainly make a case for that - than it is one of form and ambition. 50 years ago, films like The Parallax View and Serpico pitted idealistic protagonists against a corrupt system in which the game was rigged against them. Many ended in downbeat fashion - "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown" - but we could at least admire the tenacity and moral courage of these characters.
Now we don't call them anything at all, and they're met with a shrug by audiences. Ari Aster's Eddington opens in UK cinemas today after tanking commercially at home in the US, joining a clutch of commercially unsuccessful films speaking to a deep sense of cultural foreboding like Under Silver Lake (2018), Inherent Vice (2014) and Aster's own Beau Is Afraid (2022).
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