Group Question...

I'm not a younger viewer under twenty-five (OP was 11 years ago, so I guess that would be under thirty-five by now), but my observation has been that when it comes to movies made before they were in high school, younger viewers are impatient with the more deliberate, less cartoonish pacing and the practical special effects. They find black-and-white cinematography intolerable. They've been fed a load of hooey about method as opposed to non-method acting, which they swallow uncritically, and they're distracted by things like 1950s portrayals of women, race, and smoking. In general, they have a very narrow view of cinema, are inexperienced at suspending disbelief, and viewing movies with a mental adjustment for historical and cultural context is a concept over their heads. They expect a movie from 1954 to be as "relevant" (their word) as one from 2024, and are very judgmental and dismissive if it falls short of their expectations by being "dated" (another of their words). In general, they make up a poor audience for pre-21st century films, and are tethered to movies of their own time. There are, of course, exceptions.