Film has a singular power to drive the cultural conversation and, when it’s good, to seize the zeitgeist. After half a decade disrupted by the triple threat of Covid, the streaming reset of consumer behavior, and historic labor strikes that brought production to a halt, Hollywood in 2025 is recalibrating and seeing bright spots of storytelling innovation, genre expansion, and mass-market success. The industry is exploring new strategies to bring films to life and reconnect with audiences in a dramatically changed media landscape.

Richard Rushfield and Sean McNulty will lead a discussion with industry insiders about new distribution models, evolving production processes and everything else that it takes to get movies to the screen. Rushfield is the editorial director and chief columnist at Ankler Media. McNulty is the author of The Wakeup newsletter and a panelist on The Ankler podcast.