Netflix Lighting: Are Larger Budgets Ruining Cinema as We Know It?
- Bethany Dowell
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
By Bethany Dowell
It’s undeniable that the final season of Stranger Things looks and feels nothing like the show that premiered on Netflix a decade ago. Like many viewers, I felt disappointed after waiting so long for what proved to be a lacklustre conclusion. This prompted me to revisit season one and question whether nostalgia had blinded me. However, it hadn’t at all; there genuinely was a loss of visual charm as the show progressed.
Both the early and later seasons adopt the “corny” eighties-style dialogue and a heavy focus on uncovering puzzles as well as romantic subplots, elements that have faced heavy criticism in the final season particularly. However, these components never were or are the real problem. The key issue with the final season lies in its visuals, which lack the texture and grit that once made the series, and the town of Hawkins, feel compelling and lived in. Season one’s dark narrative was supported by its shadowy, sinister settings, carefully filled with props that served as pop culture call-backs to the 1980s. Not only were these props decorative historical markers, but they were often embedded within specific character spaces, such as bedrooms and offices, handpicked as visual storytelling tools that revealed how characters lived and interacted with their environments. The result was a world that felt tangible and desirable to all audience members.
In comparison, despite reports that season five’s production costs inflated to nearly half a billion dollars, it feels visually hollow and devoid of the edgy cinematography that once sparked excitement and terror. One explanation for this shift is the evolving technology of digital cinematography, which favours high-resolution and pristine imagery that exposes shadows and prioritises technical perfection over imperfect atmospheres.
Ironically, with objectively improved camera and lighting technology, modern productions should be capable of capturing greater vibrancy and depth, moulded to specific settings and storylines. However, the rise of what is now commonly dubbed “Netflix Lighting” reflects the accelerated pace of cinema production, which involves intense shooting schedules and complex lighting designs that discourage experimentation and favour easy reproducible evenly lit visuals designed for consistency across streaming devices. Risk-taking has become replaced by efficiency and rigidly structured schedules, natural light gives way to diffused artificial illumination, and abstract colour palettes are flattened into neutral tones. The camera now prioritises tight close-ups of its stars and blurred backgrounds, stripping the environments of personality and erasing the sense of place that once anchored the characters in a believable world.
It's not only Stranger Things which suffers from this. “Netflix Lighting” has steadily grown and permeated various forms of modern filmmaking. Take the Wicked movie, for example, which was widely criticised for its colour grading, which eradicated much of the whimsy viewers found in the original stage production. Director Jon M. Chu defended this artistic decision, stating that he wanted to “immerse people into Oz, to make it a real place.” As a result, when compared to The Wizard of Oz’s use of the Technicolour process, a technology that revolutionised cinema by introducing saturated, vivid colours, Wicked’s world-building feels slightly unfinished, despite Universal overspending its budget.
In chasing large budget productions with intense schedules designed to create content that reaches every possible audience member, modern cinema increasingly sacrifices atmosphere for easily reproducible and consumable content. In doing so, it risks forgetting the texture, imperfection, and visual personality that are not flaws but qualities that make fictional worlds feel grounded and alive.