Is it cinema's time again? Why Generation Z is putting down their phones

For a while, "theaters are finished" was accepted almost as conventional wisdom. Generation Z was always at the center of that narrative. The prevailing prediction was that a generation raised on Netflix, YouTube and short-form video would find it strange — even alienating — to sit still in a darkened auditorium for more than two hours. Faced with the question "Why bother going out when you can watch at home?", theaters struggled to offer a convincing answer for years.

But those gloomy predictions may have been premature.

According to a report released by the Korean Film Council, 57.05 million people visited movie theaters in the first half of this year — up about 34 percent from the same period last year. Domestic box office revenue recovered to 94.2 percent of pre-pandemic levels. Much of the credit for putting theaters back on a recovery trajectory goes to "The King's Warden," which drew 16 million admissions.

What makes the rebound particularly striking is that it was driven by the very generation once written off as the "streaming generation" — Generation Z. Analysts widely credit Z-generation audiences, returning to theaters after a long absence, as a decisive force behind this year's box office momentum, which began with "Once We Were Us." For the horror film "Salmokji: Whispering Water," moviegoers in their 20s accounted for 35 percent of CGV ticket reservations — the highest of any age group — while audiences aged 10 to 30 made up 72 percent of total admissions. The film went on to become the highest-grossing Korean horror film of all time.

So why is a generation that can watch anything on a smartphone choosing to walk back into theaters? Has cinema's moment truly returned? With this summer's box office heating up around "Hope," "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" and "Odyssey," this edition of Taste Discovery takes a closer look at the return of Generation Z to the big screen.

Early August belongs to "Spider-Man: Brand New Day," featuring Tom Holland's return as the web-slinger. The film opened to domestic audiences on July 29 and crossed the 4 million admissions mark within seven days, racing up the charts at a remarkable pace. A blockbuster showdown with Christopher Nolan's "Odyssey," which opened Wednesday, is shaping up as one of the season's most anticipated matchups.

Fueling "Spider-Man's" box office run are young audiences in their 20s, who account for 31 percent of CGV ticket reservations. Even accounting for the genre's traditionally strong appeal among young male viewers, the firepower of the 20-something crowd is hard to ignore. Young moviegoers interviewed for this article were unanimous: a film like "Spider-Man" has to be seen in a theater. They described it as a deliberate choice to experience something a home screen simply cannot replicate.

"Spider-Man is a personal favorite, but it's also a film that guarantees a certain scale and story," said a 27-year-old lawyer who gave only her surname, Kim. "That kind of film is more immersive on a big screen with great sound, so I always make a point of seeing it in a theater."

The trend of experiencing a film rather than merely watching it — drawn by sharp screens and room-filling sound — is widely cited as a key driver pulling young audiences back to theaters. A survey of MZ generation respondents conducted in June by the policy weekly K-Gongam found that about 60 percent said they go to movie theaters to "immerse themselves in a big screen and powerful sound." First-half sales at premium formats including IMAX, 4D and ScreenX rose 56.3 percent year-on-year, lending further weight to that trend.

"For younger generations, a theater is positioned less as a place to watch a film and more as a playground — movies are something they enjoy," a distributor official said. "For Generation Z, which has largely consumed content curated by algorithms, the movie theater is carving out a place as an entirely new form of entertainment, completely distinct from YouTube or OTT."

The growing number of Generation Z moviegoers is not a phenomenon unique to Korea. Reports from North America have been mounting that Generation Z is emerging as the industry's biggest spender. According to Fandango data, Generation Z watched more films in theaters last year than any other generation, averaging seven films — matching millennials — while Generation X and baby boomers averaged six.

Separate research found that 87 percent of Generation Z had seen at least one film in a theater over the past year, meaning the vast majority of the generation visited a cinema at least once annually.

Forbes, in an article headlined "Generation Z Is Leading the Theater Revival," wrote that "the cinema industry is coming back to life as Generation Z emerges as the most active moviegoing demographic," adding that theaters are staging a comeback alongside blockbusters such as "Odyssey" and "Toy Story 5." Global box office revenue this year is projected to reach $35 billion — the highest since the pandemic. CNBC similarly analyzed that teenagers and people in their 20s are becoming the backbone of the film market and shaping the future of moviegoing.

Many analysts say the "experience" Generation Z craves extends well beyond watching a blockbuster in a premium format. Cases where low-budget or under-the-radar films succeeded on the strength of Generation Z's enthusiasm back up that view. In Korea, "Once We Were Us" and "Salmokji: Whispering Water" — both of which set new benchmarks earlier this year — are prime examples. Each was a mid-budget production made for around 3 billion won ($2.1 million), yet both earned strong audiences in their 20s and 30s and returned nearly 10 times their production costs.

"Backrooms" tells a similar story. Directed by Kane Parsons, who created the YouTube series that has accumulated 150 million cumulative views, the film was made on a budget of 14 billion won — modest by Hollywood standards — yet rode a wave of intense Generation Z interest to earn roughly 400 billion won at the global box office. It also claimed the title of distributor A24's highest-grossing release of all time.

A film's reach extends beyond the theater through the SNS feeds that young audiences call home. For this generation, sharing reactions online is an extension of the theater experience itself. Spontaneous viral content driven by Generation Z — check-in posts, parodies and memes — has become one of the defining factors in whether a film succeeds or fails at the box office.

"Audiences aged 10 to 30 are the demographic that drives box office performance — their moviegoing experience has an outsized ripple effect," a Korean Film Council official said. "When young audiences stopped coming during the pandemic, overall admissions fell. Seeing them return is genuinely good news for the industry's recovery."

Generation Z has long carried a contradictory pair of labels: the most connected generation and, at the same time, the loneliest. Always linked through SNS, yet spending less face-to-face time with others than any generation before them — that critique has been raised consistently. As streaming and short-form video created an environment where content consumption became perfectly satisfying in solitude, this generation paradoxically found itself hungry for the experience of simply being physically present with other people.

Yoon Ji-won, a 24-year-old university student who frequently visits theaters with her partner, said her friends often joke that being in a relationship means going to the movies constantly. "There's still a romance to it — the idea of a space you can share with someone you care about," she said. She added that the theater experience differs from short-form or smartphone content in a meaningful way: "At the theater you get completely absorbed, and when it's over you can have a real conversation. Even if I spend hours every day watching short-form video, walking out of a packed theater after a film gives me a completely different kind of satisfaction."

An analysis by CGV's data strategy team released earlier this year found that premium-format screenings — 4DX and ScreenX among them — showed a notably high proportion of three-person groups last year. The data suggest that premium-format viewing is expanding beyond solo attendance into what might be called "shared-experience consumption" centered on friends, couples, families and fandoms. Ultimately, all of these experiences point back to the one quality only a theater can offer: watching together. The value of the cinema as a physical space where people can see, share and enjoy something side by side is being rediscovered.

Director Christopher Nolan, who recently visited Korea for "Odyssey," made the same point at a press conference. "What film and cinema can give us is the experience of sharing a story with other audience members," he said. "That personal yet collective experience is something only film and cinema can provide, and it is all the more valuable for being so singular."

Skeptics remain, of course. Some caution that the current upswing may be a brief spike propped up by a handful of hits rather than a structural recovery, and that more time is needed to tell. "I try to go to the movies as often as I can on Culture Day or when government-subsidized discount tickets are available," said a 31-year-old civil servant who gave only his surname, Lee. "Without those discounts, ticket prices are at a level that makes going regularly feel like a burden."

Even so, one thing is clear: in an era when a smartphone is all you need to watch anything, anytime, alone, Generation Z is choosing to coordinate schedules, book seats and sit side by side. Perhaps what theaters have always been selling is not content but shared time — and that old answer is finding a new audience once more.