Film formats still rule, but I’m curious what comes next. What I’m seeing in the mainstream is large-format 65 mm / IMAX 70 mm film, which feels like a premium big-screen experience, almost too premium to access nearby.
Super 16 was one of the best formats. All the film schools had only 16 mm cameras, certainly not 35mm. And all the best revolutionary 70ies productions were shot on cheap 16mm in natural light. This changed with Spielberg and the new blockbuster approach, and then the depressing Reagan years when everybody went back into the studio with huge lighting efforts and psychological dramas.
Mumblecore and Dogma 95 brought back some pure 16mm with post blowup efforts (cinemas only had 35mm projectors then), but digital with the Arri Alexa and Red killed that. Next is better projector technology for cheap. The format and camera wars are over.
Films are mostly post processed digitally - but some, like Oppenheimer, are color graded the old optical way. While Dune was shot digitally, printed on film, then scanned back in again!